From the archives: Footage of Titanic shared by Robert Ballard in 1985 

Dr. Ballard is one of the most accomplished men of his generation. Most importantly his upmost respect and decency he portrayed throughout his entire Titanic exploration and the decades that followed. He never lost sight of the tremendous event of human loss that the Titanic was. He has shown genuine compassion from day one. And in a way that so many others have failed to do. For me, it sets him apart. Thank you for all the pain staking work you’ve done sir. You’ve done so much for science.

I was given a titanic book by professor Ballard for my 13th birthday. I’m 42 now and I still look at it every couple of weeks. A fascinating subject by an incredible man. We have a lot to thank him for.

This is amazing. 32 years as a Titanic enthusiast and I've never seen this...

Highly respected and honorable man. I was a paperboy in '85 and remember the headlines reading 'Titanic Found' with a grainy image. It was a big deal back then because it was lost for 73 years and so difficult to find. Armstrong landed on the moon and Ballard the Titanic. The stuff of legend.

I remember as a kid learning about Dr. Ballard and Titanic. He’s humble, admits mistakes, and gives credit where it’s due. A true explorer (Titanic) and public servant (Thresher/Scorpion) at the right place and time in history. The world needs more Dr. Ballard and fewer grandstanding entrepreneurs.

I could listen to Dr. Ballard talk about deep sea exploration for hours...and I have. He's incredibly smart and speaks about his area of expertise with so much enthusiasm - he wants everyone to know what he's talking about how exciting his discoveries are and why.

I have been in that auditorium many times to listen to Dr. Ballard talk about his missions. Such an amazing time every time.

I wonder how people felt that day when they thought the ship sank in one piece but instead they realized some of the survivors were right it did split apart during the sinking

Being from Belfast Northern Ireland my Dad and I always had a fascination with Titanic 😎 Sadly Dad passed away in 1983 ...He would have been fascinated

I was only 6 months old at this time, so I am really loving this. I can't imagine what it was like back then to see such a discovery. Bob has an amazing personality!

My mom was really into the Titanic and I remember her saying in the early 80's that it would never be found. Really cool footage!

This press conference was shot in the month I was born back in 85. What a crazy life this is and man does it go by fast!

Shocking how in just 40 years, how the meaning of "Extremely detailed" has changed.

When they discovered the Titanic, I was listening to him on the short wave bands in the UK, their call sign was "station collect" on the 20m band .

Amazing that this search was actually used as a cover when they where actually looking for 2 sunken nuclear submarines (Thresher and Scorpion) . They had a couple of days after finding them to locate Titanic. And found it they did.

This video is what I've been waiting for for a really long time. I hope that similar videos from 1986, if available, are posted as well (I wish to know more about the moment when they finally found the stern).

Anything Titanic related he's always my go to guy.

I like how he says, " We mowed the lawn," as pertaining to his methodical search pattern. Self explanatory, and tedious on 30 ' seas and in winds of 40 knotts.

Common sense conveys to most human beings that you would never go up to a grave in a cemetery and take something off of it or desecrate it, in any way. You just don't do it. With everything he has going for him...Robert Ballard has a good heart. He didn't even like subs hitting the ship and doing damage, much less looting it. He deserved to make that find. His heart was pure and he had good intentions. ♡

Looking at this old footage and compared it to the footage documented by OceanGate company, I really appreciated these old technologies, workers, engineers and scientists. They all managed to discover Titanic despite having blurry vision and video. Minimum lights and old cameras quality. I hope all people who attended that event are still alive right now and wish they have seen the documentary crystal clear footage taken by OceanGate with High Quality Camera (probably GoPro)

Thanks for the upload !! Nice to see The ship was Found !! 73 years later !!

So glad you found it! Such an incredible find!

So articulate and advanced at that time.Rivetting breakthroughs.Just incredible and what an amazing explorer scientist and educator.Hats off to you.....Dr Bollard.

Such an amazing professional at an amazing moment!

In light of the recent submersible disaster, one detail that became apparent was the story of a sub that was swept into the propeller of Titanic some years ago. They got stuck in the debris, but the key detail for me is that some if these subs are obviously doing damage to Titanic. Not all, but some submersibles, which flies in the face of preserving the wreck.

I remember this from when I was a child. I was 6 years old. I’ve been obsessed with titanic ever since. I love Bob Ballard. I believe his company is right here in Connecticut. Great video but his explanation of everything in this video was painful lol, he’s much better now that he’s older with almost 40 additional years of experience

The one person I always wanted to meet in my life like others,and so charismatic and true his being when I did at Titanic Belfast at his seminar in 2014…

Thank you for sharing this! Amazing footage

The whole bumping in the to second funnel story turned out to be wrong. They might have hit something, but the stack was long gone since the time of the sinking.

Great footage!

It blows my mind that at this point, just days after discovery, they had not found, or even knew, that the stern was there, albeit heavily damaged.

I remembered watching the morning news before going to school. I was 17 a Junior in highschool. That was beyond fascinating!

I remember this day like it was yesterday. It changed the course of my life. I became a diver to dive wrecks. I still dive wrecks today.

These are absolutely incredible images, Ballord did a great job educating the media about the incredible complexity of what they found. having no comparison to the technology of today and the enormous world of the water completely different dynamic vs filming above water

OMG I've never seen this. Thanks for sharing this with the world.

Funny how they thought stack 2 and 3 were still there.

So the second funnel was still intact?? In every other interview and documentary he’s stated that all the stacks were gone luckily bc they were afraid of bumping into them while exploring

I'm gonna ask my mom if she watched this as it happened back in the day! Would have been a huge story! Just like when Titanic the movie with Leo and Kate was so huge cause there's still such a strong interest! I can only imagine how excited they were to finally have the tech to find it!

The forgotten art of wearing a cap.

Amazing how far we have come on resolution, this is like watching tv in the 50's

This is awesome,.i remember watching parts of this with my dad

My right ear enjoyed this.

I was following this as it happened. Ballard looks about 30 years younger than I remembered. I was 29.

What a great video!!!!!

Robert Ballard is a great man.

Real journalism right here.

Fascinating

This is amazing. Interesting to hear him talk about not wanting to hit the second smoke stack (funnel), when really the stack wasn’t there at all.

He accurately compared these first videos to the television coverage of the first moon landing, which was black and white and dark and fuzzy. Like later videos taken of the Titanic the moon landing videos will get progressively better. Technology progresses step-by-step.

Why did he say the funnels were intact??? Never heard that before. Obviously they were mistaken at first as we know the funnels are gone? Did they damage what was left maybe? Interesting

why is this so gosh darn interesting

my right ear thanks you.

Bob ballard is a real amercan hero we should make people like this heros to our kids instead of the jokes we do today

Wow… I always thought they knew where exactly it sank. I didn’t realise how much of a bog deal it was to have discovered the ship’s whereabouts. It was way 6 years before I was born, so…

It just scared the Dickens out of me 😅

😲 AMAZING

Thank you CBS.

Would have loved to have heard the reaction once they saw those boilers.

I love that he found the titanic the year I was born

Why are really indepth press conference like this not a thing any more? This one is great. Right up there with the one General Schwarzkopf gave after Desert Storm.

I did not know one of the stacks was still standing when they discovered the wreck

I was only 5 months old at this point

I love his Doctor Venture speed suit

The Captain of the Californian should have been brought up on charges.

I ❤listening to him

Is it just me or was Dr Ballard hot

you could have fixed the audio channels

That funnel he’s claiming to be there just has 0% chance of even remaining up on impact with the ocean floor. What was he actually running into?

My right ear is really enjoying this

someone fix sound, only right channel work

It's kind of scary that life works so weirdly that this same conference inspired such things as the Titanic movie and the rise of DiCaprio, but also to inspire Stockton Rush and also millionaires to die going to the ship.

Great explorer.

Social media really plays tricks. Were all here watching these archives and it aint because of the movie.

I was 4 years old when this happened. Curious, why are there so many microphones??

If not for the CIA funding of his search he probably wouldn’t have found it in 85. He was also required to look for the wreckage of the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion submarines.

He was wrong about the stern. It actually was intact and resting about half a mile from the bow half, but he had no way of knowing that at the time.

Someone looks happy

SAFETY FIRST.

Bob needs to find MH370

That’s a real man right there. My generation (millennial) doesn’t really have any great explorers. At least not that we’ve all known about. Prior generations had guys like Ballard, Armstrong, etc. Either there are no big famous explorers that came about while my generation was growing up, OR society just didn’t value explorers enough anymore to make them famous, so most of us don’t even know about them.

IDK why I expected clear images knowing the Titanic was found in 1985! There was no such thing as a clear undersea image back then!

Awesome how it had a smoke stack still up in 1985. Since according to him they had bumped into it.

🙏🙏🙏

Did they hit the smoke stack? I thought they were lost in the sinking

Thanks dr Ballard for your hard work .!

I didn't know stacks 2 an 3 survived the sinking on top of the ship until watching this. Woww.

When my 8 year old heard about the implosion of the submersible Titan. His first question to me was "Was Robert Ballard onboard?" I said no. My son's response was "What a shame those poor people but I am so glad Robert Ballard is ok because if anything happens to him it would be a national tragedy" I couldn't agree more.

Excelent

People were so skinny pre 1999

Odd that wine bottles remaing intact at that depth.

Interesting 🤔

he is still with us he has not commented on titan, i wonder what he thought of the amateur RUSS

my right ear enjoyed this

I always thought there were no smokestacks ever recovered?! He says here his Argo ran into one

At this point, I feel like it was the Titanics' destiny to sink. It was gonna happen eventually

Very interesting, I easily remember them finding the legendary Titanic. That was a headline event itself. But what I remember is that the stern was found like a year later. I remember it being a total shock that they had found the stern, and the bow was missing, and that therefore the Historians were wrong on their accounts of the sinking. All the titanic movies and titanic paintings clearly showed it sinking bow first, with no breaking apart. Then suddenly, they were saying, no it didn't sink like that after all. They had made those eye witnesses (over a dozen) who saw it break apart believe they were imagining things. Many of them died thinking they had just dreamed up the Titanic breaking apart. So sad! But then they found the Titanic, then they discovered later that it was split in half, and then a year or so later they identified the stern almost a mile away. Them finding the bow and stern on that one trip is definitely NOT THE WAY I REMEMBER the discovery of the wreck. It was clearly in stages with a big gap of time between stern and bow discovery. Can anyone confirm or dismiss my memory?? Thank you!! GREAT VIDEO THANKS SO MUCH FOR SHARING WITH THE PUBLIC

It’s hard to find the Titanic when your real mission is searching for a Nuclear submarine. 🙌👏👏👏

I thought the titanic is 12,500 feet down? 24:05

Wait the second smoke stack was intact on discovery?

How did ARGO hit a stack? They all came off.