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How cutting-edge technology, novel search techniques, and persistence paid off Rarely seen images, video, and audio of the discovery can be found here.Woods Hole, Mass. (August 8, 2025) – On September 1, 1985, the wreck of the RMS Titanic was discovered about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) beneath the surface of the North Atlantic by an international team led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the French oceanographic institution, IFREMER. The expedition, led by Robert Ballard–then head of WHOI’s Deep Submergence Lab–used innovative technology and search techniques that helped spawn a new era in deep-sea exploration and discovery.Deep ocean technology...

The loss of the Skipjack-class nuclear attack submarine USS Scorpion (SSN-589) remains to many an unresolved mystery more than 56 years after it sank, with all hands, on 22 May 1968. But a closer look at the event suggests a different description: that it is one of the more closely guarded secrets of the Cold War.This is a focused review of the critical 18-day period immediately following the sinking, and eight key events that occurred during that span. It includes the sinking itself; the Scorpion’s failure to reach Norfolk as scheduled on Monday 27 May; the formal declaration of “Event...

History books tell us that Portuguese navigators found the Azores islands uninhabited in the middle of the Atlantic during the early 1400s. But some intriguing constructions suggest that people occupied this area long before.So, who was this civilisation, and why did they leave?Was the Azores home to an ancient civilisation? | Next Stop Stories | BBC Reel | October 28, 2022

A mission to find the lost wreck of the Titanic was actually a cover story for inspecting the wrecks of two nuclear submarines, the man who discovered the famous liner has revealed. Dr Bob Ballard led a team in 1985 that pinpointed the wreckage of the enormous ship 73 years after it sank in the Atlantic. But he almost didn't succeed after his top secret mission to find two Cold War subs left him with just 12 days to find the Titanic. The United States Navy lost two submarines during the 1960s - the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion -...

The man who located the wreck of the Titanic has revealed that the discovery was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold War nuclear submarines. When Bob Ballard led a team that pinpointed the wreckage of the liner in 1985 he had already completed his main task of finding out what happened to USS Thresher and USS Scorpion. Both of the United States Navy vessels sank during the 1960s, killing more than 200 men and giving rise to fears that at least one of them, Scorpion, had been sunk by the USSR....