BY DEVIN ANKENEY
COURTESY WHOI
Port side of the Titanic bow the two capstans and the port and starboard anchor chains are visible.
On the evening of Thursday, April 30, 1985, an Enterprise reporter overheard Robert D. Ballard discussing a secret plan that, until that moment, lived primarily in rumor.
Ballard, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution geologist, said he planned to rent the R/V Knorr and begin a search that August. It would take a month, and it would cost $350,000. Dr. Ballard said he was going to search for a British ocean liner that sank more than 73 years before that evening in the Gallo Ice Arena.
He was looking for the RMS Titanic.
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The Titanic’s famed sinking had stayed a cultural touchstone since April 15, 1912. More than once in the year of the fatal accident, the Enterprise published short accounts of wash-ashore items that came from the Titanic.
In September 1912, a man found a Titanic life preserver on Cuttyhunk. In November 1912, a “slush” barrel was reportedly found in a Hyannis harbor.
COURTESY WHOI
The first evidence that researchers aboard the R/V Knorr had found the RMS Titanic came on September 1, 1985, from the distinct rivet pattern of one of its boilers.
But it was not until the 1980s that Falmouth and Woods Hole took another serious interest in the Titanic. A Texas man, Jack Grimm, came to nearby waters, and Woods Hole, in search of the Titanic in 1981. He was unsuccessful.
By 1985, though, Ballard had gained a powerful and thick-walleted ally: the US Navy. As a reserve Navy officer himself, Ballard might have seemed like a strong ally to the Navy, which had ulterior motives embedded in a search for the Titanic. Ballard had shown a significant interest in the Titanic, giving the Navy a great cover story for its true expedition: finding two lost nuclear submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher.
The Navy would bankroll Ballard, who brought with him the Argo, which was the camera system ultimately used to find the missing ships. Using Navy funding and support Ballard began that expedition, which netted him both the lost nuclear submarines and the Titanic itself.
The following is a partial transcription of a radio exchange on September 1, 1985, between Ballard on the research vessel Knorr and WHOI staff members. Those staff members included WHOI director John H. Steele and information director Shelley Lauzon. This conversation occurred after Ballard found the Titanic in the early hours of the morning.
KNORR: I understand Dr. Steele wants to speak with Dr. Ballard. Is that correct? Over.
WHOI: Roger, that is correct.
KNORR: Okay. I have Dr. Ballard here. I also have an h and m for you. Over.
WHOI: Okay. Stand by. I will get Dr. Steele for you on the phone.
KNORR: Roger, standing by.
WHOI: KCEJ KXC 713 I have Dr. Steele on the line, okay, go ahead. Over.
KNORR: Hello, hello. This is the research vessel Knorr. Over.
STEELE: Hello, is this Bob Ballard?
BALLARD: Yes, it is. How are you today? Over.
STEELE: Very well. Congratulations, Bob.
BALLARD: Thank you.
LAUZON: I have some things down in some detail but I have gotten a lot secondhand from other media sources. First of all, when did you actually find wreckage and what did you actually see? Over.
BALLARD: We discovered it with ARGO during our search pattern to the North about, I can’t keep track in my mind, it was early, early in the morning and it must have been l o’clock in the morning and, I believe, on Saturday. Over.
LAUZON: How many more days do you plan to stay on the site?
BALLARD: Totally weather dependent. We would like to get in early. I had hoped to get in by Monday noon, but I am eyeballing the weather right now and it is a factor. We have not completed what we wanted to do. We have found the ship. We have found where the boilers went through; the first thing that we encountered was a boiler that had bobbed through the bow. The fi rst image that we had was a boiler. Over.
LAUZON: What other types of wreckage did you actually see, Bob? Do you plan to do more surveys on the site, if weather permits?
BALLARD: We are trying to do a complete survey of the ship. Which is intact. Over.
LAUZON: The ship’s hull was intact, other than the boiler’s going through. Over.
BALLARD: Roger that. It is a very dangerous operation so we are leery of all the rigging and we are trying to approach it from high altitude.
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COURTESY WHOI
The Argo towed-camera sled had television cameras and sonars that helped find Titanic. It was named by Titanic expedition leader Robert Ballard after the mythical Greek vessel that carried Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece. In 1985, Argo represented a new generation of exploration vehicles for ocean scientists.
The Titanic was in beautiful condition, Dr. Ballard later added.
That conversation made the front page of the following edition of the Enterprise. The conversation was transcribed directly to the front page. A Woods Hole scientist had found the famous ship that was, at the time of its departure, the largest ship to ever sail.
On September 9—about a week later—Ballard and the Knorr returned. The Woods Hole scientist then made international news.
“The R/V Knorr returned to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on September 9, 1985, to a joyous celebration,” a WHOI story describing the history reads. “Thousands, including media organizations from around the world, fi lled the dock and surrounding waterfront areas to welcome the crew home. A press conference followed in the Institution’s nearby Redfi eld Auditorium, and several days later simultaneous press conferences were held in Washington, DC, and Paris.”
In the months that followed, Ballard enjoyed the status of a local legend. His discovery even brought other scientists to Woods Hole to learn about the expedition.
In November that year Ballard held a talk in the Lawrence School’s auditorium with a crowd of 1,700 people. Those talks were held to support Falmouth Youth Hockey.
More recently, the discovery of the Titanic has remained a major tenet of local history. WHOI’s own educational materials still cite the Titanic, and its website has multiple stories detailing the expedition and its aftermath. The mythical story of finding the Titanic still grabs eyes.
In 2020, RMS Titanic, Inc., renewed efforts to cut into the ship to recover the Marconi telegraph. Proponents said the telegraph could connect this generation to the people who lost their lives on the ship as it sank. In the Enterprise an editorial sided with the US government’s position: leave the gravesite alone.
“Not everyone likes the idea. A great many artifacts have been recovered, but they were retrieved from the debris fi eld left as the ship broke up. Retrieving the telegraph machine would be the first time anyone has entered the vessel. That, to some, maybe many, is violating a gravesite.
“We are anything but a maritime jurist, but we agree that the ship should be left alone. It is, of course, a burial ground of sorts.
Does anyone really need a connection to those gruesome deaths?
It wasn’t the deaths or the iceberg or the speed with which the ship sank, or the wealthy passengers or the poor steerage passengers. Rather, it was the shock it delivered to the developed world, which was at a peak of smugness and confidence in the industrial revolution. Mankind was taken down a peg in a big way. The Titanic represented power, strength and invincibility. And it turned out, it was none of that.
The wreck of the Titanic should be left alone. There are ways to better convey the shock of the event than a collection of more artifacts.”
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In February 2023, WHOI released more than 80 minutes of the original footage from the 1986 dive. That footage, taken on Ballard’s second Titanic expedition, made national headlines when it was released.
Alvin’s inner titanium sphere is on display along Water Street in Woods Hole. The large sphere attracts tourists and is often a photo-opportunity hub. The submersible has made more than 5,000 dives starting in 1964.
On May 7, WHOI held “Titanic & Beyond,” an hourlong discussion on “how eyes in the deep have changed our view of the ocean.” That educational program revolved around finding the Titanic out of Woods Hole, and how science has changed as a result of the find.
The Titanic’s sinking remains a historic event that has made its way into science education from elementary curriculum to current WHOI programming. Ballard’s expedition and discovery of the ocean liner, to this day, is a guiding moment in crafting future education and paving paths forward for scientific discovery.