Filmed in 1986, this film shows the Titanic and the work carried out by Bob Ballard and his team when they discovered the historic vessel at the bottom of the Ocean.
Lucky u, it has always been my goal in life to meet him too, what a man he really is, an amazing oceanogapher and an amazing man, he has made so many discoveries in his life but he will always be remembered for the discovery that made him famous.........TITANIC!!!
The survey of the Scorpion and Thresher were the primary targets on that voyage and he only had 12 days left to find the Titanic. He said that he got really lucky. Very humble man.
I feel as he does. I recall a concession being made to the notion of plundering her - whether it was made immediately or later, I don’t remember- that nothing inside the two sections was to be touched but the debris field was fair game. With all the expeditions since Ballard’s, including ones we may not know about, that rule has probably been broken many times.
This documentary is great because it captures that initial feeling of rediscovering the Titanic. Imagine how people for many decades would have considered it lost forever. Finding it was like finding something lost to another dimension. The music choices are tasteful, haunting and beautiful too.
@@Kanefan701 not quite, there was a guy who in 1980 led a team to document finding the Titanic, and he did find something, probably not Titanic but he definitely stubbornly believed he found it, as well as finding big foot and Atlantis and both of those other ones were also based on very very flimsy evidence.
@@sorrenblitz805 I'm glad dr. Ballard found it, imagine it had been discovered by a guy who thinks big foot and Atlantis are real. Btw. the evidence of where Titanic sank wasn't flimsy at all so the comparison is quite inappropriate.
This is when documentary meant something that was informative and did not throw up tons of extra graphics or recreations filmed on cheap sets. I really appreciate being able to learn something and see what I am supposed to learn.
Well said and I feel the same because I had a relative on the ship who didn't survive and I think it should be left alone now as it's a grave site and I think it's disrespectful of people to keep exploring the wreck
@@martinkirby3100 yes I agree with you but I also think it’s important we remember her and all Those souls that perished - their dreams and aspirations of the new world - a new life that never happened 😢 it’s important we teach the new generation the value of life
@@martinkirby3100 Wouldn't you prefer them to explore the wreck, analyse the evidence that remains before it erodes into nothing and continue to enhance the knowledge that exploring the wreck site reveals? Or would you prefer to accept the questionable narrative that we've had no option other than to accept that's already been enhanced and improved on since 1997 when the Titanic movie was released? There is so much more information and answers within that wreck site that could be discovered and analysed that would maybe provide a more detailed and credible narrative than the current theories. It's obvious to see that the wreck is deteriorating rapidly and eventually will erode into a collapsed rusty unrecognizable stain on the ocean bed so why not remove any items that are salvageable in a safe manner and restore them for analysis and future generations to further assess in the future with improved equipment that hasn't yet been invented? If we allow the wreck to erode into nothing then we have no chance of ever improving our factual knowledge of that fateful night in 1912. I'm sure that if an item belonging to your lost family member was recovered and restored that you'd be interested to examine that item, the reason your family member was carrying the item on the ship, what it meant yo that family member, whether or not that the item was in the persons possession or in their cabin at the time of the sinking, why that item was of an importance to them and why they decided to travel across the Atlantic with that item. Finding one item belonging to a lost relative could tell you a lot about what that person was interested in, why they would decide to board a trans atlantic ocean liner with that specific item in their possession and provide yourself and future generations of your family with an item of family history that may have been forever lost? If the Wreck is disintegrating anyway then why not salvage as many items as possible rather than allow them to be lost forever when the corrosion eventually collapses the remaining structure of the ship resulting in the eternal loss of those poor souls possessions? I'd agree to leave the wreck as it is if it weren't rapidly eroding but as it is then i believe thst anything that can be safetly raised to the surface without damaging should be raised and examined and then returned to the living relatives of the deceased. That's my opinion and its in no way intended to cause offence to anyone
I watched this documentary religiously until I broke the VHS when I was 9. Rediscovering it at 23 is like digging up the very roots of my passion for history. That beautiful colour pencil sketch of Titanic stuck with me particularly over the years. Bless your soul for uploading it.
I can remember the excitement we all shared with Bob Ballard the moment he swept that radar through the degree field, and then, the sight of that 9ton boiler upright and dignified on the ocean bed. The expectation, the climb up that angular bow, buried deep in the muddy silt, the shower of Rusticles sprayed free after 74yrs of being undisturbed. Then, ultimately, the emotions, the feelings of deep loss, whether we had connections with that beautiful vessel or not. I cried when Alvin and Jason delved deep into the wreckage in 1985, when I was barely 21yrs old. I still weep now. The unopened wine bottle, the safe, the mens brown shoes, facing heel to sole where some poor fellow settled it. The grief never leaves you, even 110yrs later. God keep and protect all those souls, 1500 of them, men, women, and children. Who perished that terrible night
How crazy is it how many people were unaware that there had been previous expeditions to the Titanic? And you know these people watched James Cameron's movie🤦♂️
Meeting Robert Ballard at this point feels like it would be akin to seeing the Titanic in person. He's got some truly incredible discoveries under his belt, just a total legend!
Bob Ballard is a real asshole in real life, he was rude to survivors he met, and a fellow explorer, Ralph White, took the plaque Ballard left on the stern and destroyed it. Numerous stories of Ballard's arrogance and snobby attitude abound.
From Dr. Paul Lee who knows Ballard: However, if someone did remove the plaque to annoy Ballard and/or the THS, there certainly is no shortage of people who would have performed the deed. Ballard's changing story on salvage has won him few fans; in 1985, he implored undersea explorers to collect artefacts to form a museum; a year later, he joked that he was thinking of collecting a wine bottle and even approached museums to take custody of artefacts he planned to salvage - he was turned down; but he suddenly performed a volte-face and became hostile about the recovery of items soon after, at the time of the announcement of the French-American salvage expedition. Then there are those who decry Ballard's ego. One prominently cited instance, which has been verified as being true, occurred when Ballard was presented to Titanic survivor Marshall Drew at an official function. Ballard said, "Oh, thats nice" and turned his back on the elderly gentleman to talk to a dignitary. And there are other occasions when Ballard has been accused of grandstanding, exaggerating himself or the expeditions, of using his association with the wreck to further his own ambitions and fame etc. etc.
@@tanesha8942I mean.. you're always going to be able to find a hater. I'm sure there was a lot of jealousy to go around whenever he discovered the wreck and I'm sure a lot of people are sore over him calling them grave robbers for, uh, grave robbing. And I would love to hear someone corroborate the story of him blowing off a Titanic survivor for a "dignitary" lol I call bullshit
@@Makaveli13Xroy potato quality? 😂 this is a documentary from the 80s. Free. On RU-vid. It looks remastered to me. You must be 12 years old if you’re complaining about the quality of this video
@@evelia1156 exactly. I actually think the quality is pretty nice. I'm not complaining! Only someone born and raised on HD would complain about this.🙄. Kids
@@TheHumanFly516 The ship itself can't be 'salvaged' what he's referring to is basically the tombraiding that people have been doing to the ship since it was found. The artifact gathering, tourist dives leaving trash behind.
Bob Ballard is one of my heroes. He was in the Navy and when he left he askd the navy to finance his search for the titanic. They said no...Instead they asked him to first find 2-3 sunken submarines wrecks ....that sunk many years before. He did. He found them all with advanced equipment he engineered himself. He said the navy was so stupid. their technology so ancient ..THen , i think ...His more advanced equipment helped him do his job ..He is a brilliant person...Really admire him
The navy funded his expidetion for the titanic. They made a deal once he found the thresher ,then they let him stay out on the same expedition and he found titanic. But he couldnt ever admit it till the thresher stuff was declassified... He did develop alot of the camera systems he used but the sonar and stuff he used to find it was the navys.... He revealed all that in one of his Titanic lectures in 2010 or something like that
@ARE YOU FEELING LUCKY PUNK We'll find out exactly how good a BSer Ballard is within the next 10-15 years. Some things are due to be declassified around then and one of those things may be projects related to surveys of the Grand Banks in the 1970s. There's a story going around that they found the Titanic wreck around 10 years earlier with top secret sonar technology. The tech was MUCH better in the 1970s than they've let on. It was said Ballard had access to surveys of the bottom and deduced where the wreck was and they sent a ship out to investigate and verify it which they did. The camera systems existed to photograph at this depth by the early 1960s at the latest. You don't however search the entire ocean with cameras without having a general idea of your search area. They STILL have to use sonar for at least part of that but what happening in the 1970s was that sonar imaging was getting MUCH better and they were producing close to photo-quality images of objects underwater. I remember seeing a sonar image of the USS Monitor in an early 1970s issue of National Geographic. It was still obviously a shipwreck but vague. The Monitor was found in 1973 but not ID'd until 1974 or 1975 because it was flipped upside down and lying on top of its turret. The Navy tech was MUCH better than that and who knows what the Titanic images in the 1970s, if they exist, look like?
One of the best Titanic Doc still. Can't imagine the feeling of being the first people to lay their eyes on the Titanic in 74 years. The respect shown for the wreck itself is immense and the hauntingly beautiful score just adds to it. Robert Ballard is then man
Now this is a proper Titanic documentary. A serious, sombre, tone, with reverence and respect for the subject matter. I love how they linger on the shots of the wreck (with very appropriate music choices), avoiding the modern temptation to keep on cutting away every five seconds to keep our attention or providing a distracting and unnecessary voiceover. Too many wreck-site documentaries are just 40-50 minutes of hype and then 5 minutes or less of actual wreck site footage. This one is refereshingly free of the sensationalist, histrionic, hype-driven approach to the subject with cheap CGI, cheap recreations and excitable narration that one is forced to endure when watching a lot of Titanic documentaries.
"It's sitting at the bottom, very nobly, and at rest." Was there ever a greater gentleman than Ballard? He was the perfect person (ably assisted) to discover the famous wreck. The Dvorak score is so beautiful. I remember running over to Tower Records on Broadway to buy the Nat. Geographic VHS the second it was released in '85 and running back home with it to play on that miraculous invention, the "VCR." Ten years later, I went to an exhibit of artifacts brought up from the ship's debris field, at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and had very mixed feelings. It bespoke grave robbery and greed. The same greed that accounted for too few lifeboats. The documentary is still breathtaking to watch -- thanks so much for the upload.
20 lifeboats were 4 more than the law required back then. Never intended to support all passengers but to ferry them over to assisting ships going back and forth. Also they never managed to lower all 20 in time, only 18 before the ship sank. More lifeboats might have only caused more devastation. See the Nat Geo documentary with James Cameron when they put this to the test.
@@trawlins396 the site is where the accident took place, but it, without a doubt, a de facto graveyard. The placement of the many shoes and boots shows that it contained human feet at one time. There is one very good image of a body in what appears to be a blue work jumper worn by “the Blackgang” of trimmers and greasers along with black work boots. It’s a very moving picture and this chap won’t be ever raised or moved….therefore, it’s a giant graveyard and final resting place of uncountable victims of this disaster
I did not think I would ever see this programme again, thank you for uploading it. I had been interested in the whole Titanic story since I was aged 7 (in 1977) but never thought she would be found. Then the news came on 1st September 1985 that she had been located. I still remember the joy and excitement I felt at that time. The following year I watched the news reports of Bob Ballard's latest trip and when this programme was aired one Sunday evening I sat mesmerised whilst panicking that the video recorder would not work (it did). Over the next few years there were snippets of information on the news about new exhibitions, and then James Cameron came along with his film and captured the imagination of millions who had never even thought or even heard about the Titanic in the past. But this short made for TV film was (and I feel still is) one of the most moving pieces of film about the doomed liner. There was enough real life tragedy that night without having to add a fictional Jack and Rose :) RIP all those who perished April 14/15th 1912.
Absolutely. I’m in a minority, but the Jack & Rose story was ridiculous to me: a cliche tale of “forbidden love,” and with ham-fisted dialogue. I laughed about it as I left the theater. But the REAL story, and good documentaries like this one, I’m all in. I give Cameron credit for recreating the beauty of the ship and the horror of its sinking… but the fictional love story: BAH!
As much as I would like artifacts to be recovered and put in a museum for all of time, there is a part of me that would like the wreck to remain untouched as a shrine to all those that lost their lives.
I actually feel the same way about the ship she is a grave site. Except one day she will be gone. And I would like the next generations to be able to see something of her, so as long as they only retrieve articles from the debris field it doesn't bother me as much.
@@sandrabailey4995 yeah, eventually the earth will reclaim the steel and iron through decomposition. It would be nice to preserve artifacts in a museum. What's down there is all that's left. All the survivors have died. I don't know what else, historically we can learn from resurfacing stuff apart from keepsakes and time pieces. There's nothing left down there as to give us more information on what actually happened on that fateful night.
It's easier than that just go on Google and type in RU-vid and daily motion downloader you'll find a Web site just copy and past the url from RU-vid and pop it in then download it its free
It will always be absolutely amazing to me how many people there are in the world that are fascinated with the ship, including myself. There’s just something about her that draws us to her and wants us to be close. I have been since I was nine years old in 1985 and will be until I die.
I think it really has a lot to do with just how drastically the world changed after she sank. It was one of the first tragedies of our modern era. WW1 started not long after. In a lot of ways her sinking was almost like an omen of bad tidings for humanity as a whole.
I’m the exact same! Obsessed with the titanic! I think even more so as we can only try to imagine what it was like on that ship with hearing the stories of the survivors and from the movie! No videos of the disaster like nowadays’ still gripped my a little mystery. All those people in that big wide open ocean, just unreal, images of them being waved off, the excitement off their journey and new lives in america to absolute tragedy & even now 110 years on people are still intrigued by her story!
Why do people refer Titanic as a girl calling it a her? If anything Titanic should be considered a guy. Titanic is more of a guys name & it's characteristics resemble that of a male. It was big, brute, powerful, & it's maiden voyage was like a "Hold my Beer, Watch This" type moment.
The one big mistake , and Ballard will attest to this , is he did not claim the wreck site . This would have given him all the rights to the wreck. No one else could go down and strip the ship . Sometimes you have to look outside the box . It's like putting someone in jail on a minor charge to get them off the streets and drugs for a while . He did not want anyone to own it but he could have protected her . I read that when Patsy Cline died in that plane crash , people were already taking things from the crash site before they had a chance to let the blood dry . It is a museum with the doors open .
I agree it's wild that he didn't think others would destroy or plunder. Little did he know he would have gained the power to protect her as she deserves.
That reporter who keep messing up, I knew him from when I lived in RI. Tim Carr - I went white water rafting with him and some of the people from channel 10 back in the mid-80's. I still remember it quite clearly, he was friends with a guy from the New England Patriots and we were in the same boat together. That was a fun day.
This just struck me as funny . This all seems rudimentarily basic & simple now. But , back then this was all like space launches,despite the dr.s optimisim. And, is it just me, in the begining when the crew is shoving off & the reporters trying to get his broadcast right. Does the music & atmosphere remind anyone else of john Williams score of Amity during the opening of tourist season on jaws?😁. Its me isnt it. Im used to it
Something about shipwrecks is just awe inspiring to me. Just knowing that they are sitting underwater untouched and unknown for sometimes decades, centuries, or longer.
That news reporter guy who couldn't get his lines right 😂😂😂😂 Bob Ballard is still just as handsome and articulate and intense today as he was in 1986. If he's married his wife is lucky!
The queen that sleeps in her grave, this documentary was amazing even after so many years she’s still beautiful. She must never be raised 1500 people died here it is so haunting
15:10 This is a brilliant statement. It goes along with 50:58 perfectly. The mistake of arrogance. It's a shame that those who followed didn't honor his wish.
Bob Ballard is a genius. The man helped create technology that took man to the bottom of the ocean. Think about that. They went to the space in the 1960s and that was much easier to do 🤷♂
This was a remarkably fascinating program. And incredibly sad & emotional at the same time. May God bless those poor people who lost their lives that night. RIP Titanic🙏
Imagine what these pioneers could do with technology from 2021/2022.. This was an awesome watch. It really reminds you of how far we have come in so little time.
They can get into the ships Turkish bath which they did. It's on YT, the new ROVs are smaller and more nimble, even though the wreck is far worse off, they managed to get them into areas thought to be inaccessible long before
I'm getting chills, and I've seen hundreds of photos now... I'm only 23, but just seeing this ship, and knowing people were on board as she sank... It haunting to know people lost their lives here...
This is the definitive documentary. I remember viewing this on an early Sunday evening in 1986 on ITV. A great production by TVS the commentary research the music and interviews was excellent.
Had an opportunity to meet Dr Ballard with family I think in ‘95. About that time his son Michael had had an accident which I believe took his life. Dr. Ballard had a natural leader awe about him I’ll never forget.
Omg thank you so much for posting this! I have the 1985 original National geographic magazine when Dr, Ballard found but I have never got to see this documentary! I was 5 years old when she was found and for some reason ive been linked to this ship there after like i was apart of what happened in another life. Thank you so much!
“In memory of the souls who perished with the Titanic April 14/15, 1912. Dedicated to William H. Tantum IV whose dream was to find the Titanic has been realized by Dr. Robert D. Ballard. The officers and members of the Titanic Historical Society Inc. 1986.”
I’ve been searching for this documentary for over 20 years and at last I’ve found it!! All I could remember was the black and white footage of Titanic sinking and the sinister music (Wagner/ Siegfrieds Funeral March) that played at the start. Thanks so much for uploading 👍
This story is soooo awesome. Imagine the goosebumps, racing heart, sadness, & tears 😢 all at the same time such cocktail that Mr. Robert ballard faced when finding the titanic laying in the sea bed
It’s amazing the advancement the little ROVs exploring the interior made in a decade when James Cameron next explored the interior so much more gently without knocking any rust or a single piece of the Titanic.
Fantastic. I love this documentary, and I've actually still got it on VHS tape when I recorded it off TV in 1986. I really must get it transferred onto DVD. Thanks for the chance to see it again.
+Kevin Ynys Mon - No problem.one of my friends was the videographer. I have probably still got a coupe of copies of this on DVD (Somewhere :-) )that we had converted for the National Maritime Museum.
hi, if you have a couple of copies on dvd that you would be willing to sell I would love to buy them as ive not found it on dvd anywhere and its my favourite titanic documentry
falmouthvideos did the original documentary that aired on tv have the hilarious part where the news anchor was cursing because he kept messing up on his piece or did your videographer buddy add that in for you? I laughed so hard at that part. I was only 2 when they discovered the titanic. I live in the same city where the Queen Marry is and since visiting it as a child, I’ve been so intrigued by it and the Titanic.
This is exactly how I remember the first showing back in the 1980’s especially Dvorak’s New World Symphony no. 9 Going Home very appropriate as Titanic was on its way to the New World and somehow apt for the dive to what could be described as ‘The New World”.
Fascinating. I'm a big Titanic nerd. She was such a beautiful ship too. Have this on tape too, need to find a DVD. Thank you for this video. I really enjoyed it.
Same here Claire and still have my V.H.S.recorder and can still enjoy watching , but needs to be transferred on to D.V.D. Robert Ballard is such a nice guy and have a treasured letter from him.
Interesting. I am fairly certain this is the first time I have seen this documentary. I know it is the first time I have seen so much of the B/W footage from the bottom mount cameras on the sub. Thank you so much for posting this, and to RU-vid for leaving it.
I absolutely cant thank you enough for sharing this with everyone. I seen this on TV and seeing it again is wonderful, was my senior project in school, so Titanic in a strange way is personal. Anyway thanks again!!!
This is what started my life as a Titanic buff..... and I was only 7 years old when I bought this on video.... so sad and touching for me when I first watched it.... and now many years later, I come full circle.
Excellent and exciting documentary of the famous sunken ocean liner. Astounding statistics, such as pressure of water at that depth, yet there is marine life, funnels completely gone yet artefacts remain such as crockery and fixings. Ship broken in two about 0.5 mile apart, 2 .5 miles below ocean. Imagine witnessing the ship coming down from above if you were at the bottom on that fateful day. Ballard never spoke of his find for months because of the emotion, he says, further, you could not reafloat the ship, even if you wanted to, because it is in bits and fragile, just succumbing to the natural decaying process, but still very recognisable.
I went to the Titanic Exhibition at the Discovery Center of Idaho in Boise. The artifacts from Titanic are just a bunch of knick-knacks, but looking at the artifacts, these belonged to people who died on the Titanic. It's just speechless, you can't find any English words to describe looking at the artifacts from the Titanic.
Thanks for sharing this. I've always had a fascination in the Titanic, and it's incredible to see this awe-inspiring documentary, which was broadcast a few years before I was born. Had it not been uploaded here, I doubt I would ever have seen it, so this upload is very much appreciated.
I strongly believe that retrieving personal artifacts from the titanic should be illegal. Items that belonged to passengers who lost their life shouldn’t be able to be retrieved, and definitely shouldn’t be allowed to be sold.
The thing is there is no jurisdiction over the ocean, no laws apply on the ocean as nobody “owns” them. Although I agree it’s disrespectful to essentially grave rob.
I was against the salvaging of any items from the Titanic, cups, bottles, crockery and whatever else that was deemed ok to recover, at first. Now I'm quite glad that they were. As those items are in a museum or museums, 90% of them anyway, and are preserved for future generations to view and learn about this majestic, and ultimately tragic, ship known as Titanic.
What were they thinking? Who decided to make the Titanic a tourist attraction? Like did they think it was a good idea? Well, I pray and hope that they are alive and well and hopefully found.
Yes, I too remember watching this grainy footage and had this on VHS. I still have Ballards book, published in November 1987. That has a birds I view of the wreck at the time. It also contains a picture of the twisted crows nest, now gone.
Thanks for posting. The use of the New World Symphony is really quite evocative. I've still got this on VHS, shame I don't have a video player anymore!
Love these Original Titanic Discovery Documentaries, this one is great and very Moving, also Secrets of the Titanic too! Remember watching both in the 80's on VHS & T.V. Thanks for posting this!!
The fact is, Ballard had to find and video the wreckage of the USS Thresher first, and if successful then the Navy would fund the continuation of the mission at sea to find the RMS Titanic, and Ballard was successful in both endeavors!
Titanic was 1 in a million, where everything went wrong: - did not seal bulk heads - not enough life boats - message about icebergs was not brought to bridge - turned ship (big gash) vs head on - nearby ship refused to help - water was cold (4 hours to rescue)
Thank you Bob...I fell in mystery and awe when I first heard of her as a child , while watching a night to remember at my grandma's...i.m still intrigued..66 now...you.re the best..i.d still like to have an underwater camera to send overboard..you wouldn't have an old one laying around .would you ?..thanks again for your amazing videos.
This story on finding the Titanic gets a lot of the details wrong. One reason is that Ballard’s mission for the US Navy’s Office Of Research was classified. The mission was to survey the two lost US Navy nuclear subs Thresher and Scorpion, Titanic was a cover story, if there there was time left over Ballard could look for the Titanic, as it turned out he had 12 days to look for the Titanic and found it, I think on the fourth day.
Very good Mr Ballard all of you did good in my opinion you Are correct it should remain in peace for the people who parished and for the ones who survived I say to the Titanic good Night old girl Rest in peace.
Almost all of the film footage at the first of this video is not Titanic. The footage at 1:54 is in New York Harbor. The back of the tugs said New York on them, but it was scratched out on the film. Titanic was obviously never in New York Harbor. After the Titanic disaster, there was a clamoring for photos and film of the famous ship, and in many instances, the photos and film sold as Titanic were of the Olympic.
I remember, reading an account written by a Civil War officer after the battle of Antietam, several of the cavalryman would sit by the campfires seeing very little and staring into the flames one man said, what’s the matter with them, and another soldier replied, we was at Antietam they still is
i find it amazing that before 1985 people thought in finding titanic that she would be upright and 95 percent intact as a single piece with gashes in front from not only the iceberg but also from the boilers breaking lose and punching through the front of the ship
