Chance of remains at site divides experts
Newly released image of clothes on seabed sparks controversy
Federal officials, who have long struggled to assert protective authority over the resting place of the Titanic, say the site may harbour many undiscovered corpses and thus should be accorded the respect of a graveyard and shielded from looters and artifact hunters. “There are people inside,” said James Delgado, director of maritime heritage at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors the wreck. His agency, an arm of the Commerce Department, has released to the news media an image from 2004 that shows a boot on the seabed near what the agency calls a coat. “The articulation of the coat and boots are highly suggestive of someone coming to rest here,” Delgado said by email. “This is the first full release of the whole image and the first explicit captioning.” The bold federal assertions are dividing Titanic experts. The most experienced divers say they doubt bodies lie intact in unexplored parts of the deteriorating ship. “I’ve seen zero human remains,” James Cameron, the moviemaker and explorer, who has visited the wreck 33 times and extensively probed its interior, said in an interview. “We’ve seen clothing,” he added. “We’ve seen shoes. We’ve seen pairs of shoes, which would strongly suggest there was a body there at one point. But we’ve never seen any human remains.” Right now, of course, is an excellent time for federal officials to press their concerns and make their case for new protections.
Sunday is the centenary of the sinking, and, not coincidentally, Sen. John Kerry has introduced a bill that would give the Commerce Department new supervisory powers to protect the wreck site.
The fight for protection began shortly after the Titanic was found in 1985 more than three kilometres down at the bottom of the North Atlantic, upright but split in two. The international waters ensured a long struggle over legal jurisdiction, even as salvagers removed artifacts.
In an interview, Delgado said the muddy seabed showed “clear signs” of human imprint. “Yes, you don’t see much in the way of bone,” he said, referring to the newly released photograph. “But this is clearly where someone came to rest on the bottom. It speaks powerfully to it being a grave site.”
Paul Nargeolet, a French minisub pilot who has visited the Titanic 30 times, said he had never seen any human remains.
Today the ocean agency is more specific. Its website says inner areas of the hull “may not be exposed” to the surrounding environment and thus have low oxygen levels, a state known as anoxia. It adds that isolated environments could create conditions that could “preserve organic matter for centuries.”
Cameron dismissed the idea, saying ocean currents “blow through the ship like a drafty house with all the windows open.” He called preserved bodies “highly conjectural” and “not based on the data.”
Other Titanic experts, including Robert Ballard, a discoverer of the wreck who has long advocated its protection, call it possible and perhaps likely that human remains lie intact in unexplored compartments: “I would not be surprised if highly preserved bodies were found in the engine room,” he said. “That was deep inside the ship.”