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A recent documentary has revealed recordings of the mysterious “knocking sound” that researchers picked up last year during the search for the Titan submarine. But what exactly was that sound, and where did it come from?
Two days after the disappearance of the Titan submarine, which was on its way to the wreck of the Titanic, researchers noticed strange “knocking sounds” in June 2023. These sounds were rhythmic, recurring at thirty minute intervals. Now they can be heard publicly for the first time, in a recent documentary about the Titan, Minute by minute: Titan sub disaster.
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During the search for the submarine, the sounds gave many people hope that the occupants were still alive and that they were knocking on the walls of the submarine. That was not the case, because we now know that the crew members had already been dead for two days at that time. But where did that sound come from? To this day, that too remains a mystery.
“Complex place”
“It sounds like someone is knocking,” former Navy submarine captain Ryan Ramsey says in the documentary. “The symmetry between those beatings is very unusual. It’s rhythmic, it’s like someone is making that sound, and the fact that it’s repeated is really unusual.”
The sounds can be clearly heard in the documentary, but there is no clear answer as to what exactly it is. During the search, it was not necessarily assumed that the knocking was “a sign of life”. “The ocean is obviously a very complex place with human sounds and natural sounds, and it can be very difficult to distinguish what the sources of those sounds are,” Carl Hartsflield, an expert at the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution, told CBS News at the time.
The Titan disappeared from radar on June 18, 2023. The submarine was on its way to the wreck of the Titanic, but imploded because the ship could not handle the enormous pressure underwater. The submarine with the deceased crew was found on June 22 after a four-day search. The company OceanGate then suspended operations after it was revealed that the boat was not designed for such deep diving.