National Geographic Explorer Announces Stealth, Subs And Superpowers: Behind Titanic's Discovery Lies An Untold Story Of Cold War Intrigue

In 1985, National Geographic Explorer-In-Residence Dr. Robert Ballard solved one of the greatest nautical mysteries of the 20th century when he found the final resting place of the RMS Titanic.  But the real story began in 1982, when Ballard met with Navy brass to convince them to support his lifelong dream - developing technology to find the world's most famous shipwreck.  But the Navy wasn't interested in Titanic.  It wanted Ballard to assume a naval officer role on a series of top-secret missions during the Cold War.  Then, if there was any time left, he could look for Titanic.

On Monday, June 2, at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT, for the first time on television, Ballard reveals the details behind his top secret assignment in Undercover Titanic with Bob Ballard - a story of stealth, subs and superpowers ripped from the pages of a Cold War spy thriller.  Learn how Ballard's search for Titanic became the cover story to ward off Soviet suspicions.  Dive to the ocean floor and explore the covert expeditions that gave Ballard the cutting-edge forensic evidence that would lead him straight to Titanic within a matter of days.

The cover story revolved around the Navy's desire to use Ballard's expertise and more sophisticated equipment to solve the mystery surrounding two submarines that sank in the 1960s.  Thresher, the most high-tech attack submarine in the Navy's arsenal, sank just off the coast of Massachusetts in April 1963, killing all 129 men on board - the deadliest submarine disaster in history.  The second submarine, Scorpion, disappeared while en route home in the eastern Atlantic in 1968 under more mysterious circumstances.

Many believe that the Soviets ambushed Scorpion in retaliation after one of their subs, K-129, disappeared in the Pacific just 10 weeks earlier.  Others claim that a torpedo exploded in Scorpion's storage hold.  Ballard needed to thoroughly investigate the underwater crash sites to help determine what caused the subs' demise; whether the Soviets had already pillaged the sites for classified information; and what kind of impact the wreckage sites had on the undersea environment.  For Ballard, this was the only way to realize his dream of finding Titanic.

The film details how Ballard's surveys of the wreckage sites allowed the Navy to eliminate many conspiracy theories surrounding Scorpion's loss.  Ballard's examination of the undersea sub graves showed that Thresher likely fell to its crush depth due to a loss of its nuclear power, while the Scorpion inexplicably suffered catastrophic failure of its pressure hull.

Having completed his work at the Scorpion site ahead of schedule, Ballard has just 12 days to find Titanic.  The sub wreckage has given Ballard invaluable new insights into the effect of ocean currents on sinking debris as he redirects his state-of-the art technology in the hunt for Titanic.  Ballard sends his camera probe, Argo, on mile-wide passes over Titanic's last known coordinates.  Then, at 12:48 a.m. on September 1, 1985, Argo transmits a flash of twisted metal.  It's the first sign of Titanic's debris trail, just like those at the sub wreckage sites that would remain shrouded in secrecy - until now.

On Fifth Trip To Black Sea, Ballard Uncovers One Of The Most Pristine, Ancient Shipwrecks Ever Found

Ghost Ships of the Black Sea, premieres Tuesday, June 3, at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT
 
Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union cut off the Black Sea from the rest of the world, but in ancient times it served as a busy commercial seaway bringing diverse cultures into contact with each other.  With the end of the Cold War, Dr. Robert Ballard decided to head directly to the Black Sea.  He had heard that ancient ships could be lying perfectly preserved on the sea's murky floor, and he wanted to be the first to find and uncover these legendary ships.

In all other seas of the world, when a wooden ship sinks, it starts to decay within a few years.  But in the Black Sea, water below 600 feet actually impedes decay owing to a lack of oxygen and concentrations of hydrogen sulfide.  This combination makes the waters toxic to organisms that would otherwise decompose organic materials like wood, canvas, cargo and even human corpses, all of which instead can remain remarkably intact.

Seven years ago, on his third trip to the Black Sea, Ballard discovered a miraculously well-preserved Byzantine shipwreck, but his team could only take pictures.  Now, Ballard returns with archaeologist Dr. Bridget Buxton and Dr. Sergiy Voronov of the Ukrainian Department of Underwater Heritage, and uses state-of-the-art technology and a revolutionary $1.5 million robot known as "Hercules" to excavate two shipwrecks for the first time ever, including one of the most pristine, ancient vessels ever found.  The team has only two weeks, so they must work in perfect precision on their hunt for the Ghost Ships of the Black Sea, Tuesday, June 3, at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT.

At the first, shallow dive site, off the coast of modern-day Ukraine, Hercules excavates ceramic wine jars from a 900-year-old wreck.  But the artifacts brought to the water's surface baffle the team.  The wine jars should be encrusted with barnacles, but they look like they were just taken out of a kiln, and some of the ship's wooden beams look like they were just carved yesterday.  If storms on the Black Sea are stirring up the poisonous, anoxic water, bringing it to shallower depths, the potential treasure trove of marine archaeology in the Black Sea just got much bigger.

At the second, deeper dive site off the coast of northern Turkey, another Byzantine ship, almost 1,500 years old, sits upright at the bottom of the sea - one of the most unspoiled shipwrecks of its kind.  As the ship's crew battles with mechanical set-backs and bad weather threatens to cut the expedition short, a research team that includes Turkish archaeologists works nonstop to collect precious artifacts and samples from the wreckage.  Ballard calls this site "the greatest museum on Earth," but his team of marine archaeologists has only begun to scratch the surface of the Black Sea's depths.