Speaking to CNN on Thursday about now-declassified events, Robert Ballard, who discovered the Titanic, said that the expedition was part of a secret US military mission to recover two sunken nuclear submarines on the bottom of the ocean. "They did not want the world to know that, so I had to have a cover story," Ballard said. The wreckage of the Titanic, which sank in 1912, was discovered near the bottom of the ocean in 1985. The search for the Titanic served as a great cover story, and the press was "totally oblivious to what I was doing," he said. When his team finished exploring the Scorpion and Thresher, they had just 12 days left in their trip to search for the Titanic.

Source: CNN December 13, 2018 22:07 UTC