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FALMOUTH, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — More than a century after it sunk, over an hour worth of rare footage from a Titanic shipwreck survey is being released by an organization based on the tip of Falmouth.
At 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is unveiling a narrated version of uncut video that captured the first time humans saw the Titanic in the seabed of the Atlantic Ocean. The film was captured in July of 1986, by the person-operated Alvin submarine and the Jason Junior— officials say most of this footage has never been available to the public.
The wreckage was found 13 nautical miles from the location of the Titanic's last distress calls in 1912.
University of Rhode Island Professor Robert Ballard was among the crew that discovered the ship in its final resting place in 1985 during a top secret United States Navy salvage mission to retrieve two military submarines. Ballard gave a lecture at URI that happening upon the Titanic during the expedition was a magical scene.
"We didn't know, but then we came over the boiler and we had a picture of the boiler on the wall— and then we knew we had it. We went down to the Titanic and relocated it and then did a marvelous exploration of it with our vehicle system, little JJ, and we went down the grand staircase. I'll never forget going down the grand staircase," Ballard said.
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WBZ's Brooke McCarthy (@BrookeWBZ) reports.
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