Search and rescue teams from countries worldwide have been sent on a fool's errand as they searched the Atlantic Ocean for a submarine that was already obliterated.
The massive, multi-million dollar search and rescue effort to locate the five people trapped on board the missing Titanic submarine may have been a massive waste of time.
Reports by The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press both stated that a sound similar to that of an implosion was picked up by a top-secret underwater acoustic device belonging to the US Navy.
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One Naval official told The Wall Street Journal the sound was at the same time the Titan lost contact with its mothership on the surface.
"The US Navy conducted an analysis of acoustic data and detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost," the senior US officer told The Wall Street Journal in a statement.
"While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission."
Another US Defence official told AP that the sound was 'consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost.'
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According to Naval officials, a top-secret acoustic detection system captured the sound of the implosion on June 18.
Days later, on Thursday, June 22, debris from the submarine was located about 500m from the Titanic shipwreck.
The Navy did advise the US Coast Guard that a sound had been picked up on a top-secret recording device.
The US Coast Guard elected not to share the information any further, as there was a chance the noise heard on June 18 was triggered by something else.
As a result, a huge multi-national search was launched to locate the missing submarine and the five people on board.
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Those lost on board were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British adventurer and billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
Everyone thought they were locked in a race against time as the Titan slowly ran out of oxygen.
Everyone but the Navy, of course, who knew it was likely the five people missing were probably killed instantly around 9:45am on Sunday.
The US Navy has been approached for comment.
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More to come.
Rachel Lang