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 gone.
As search teams fanned out across sky and sea, underwater and above the surface, the US Navy had already pinpointed the likely time the submersible met its grim end, bombshell new reports have revealed.
Senior US Defence officials have now divulged that an underwater sound - likely the submarine imploding -was picked up at 9.45am local time on June 18.
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Military sources spoke to The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, stating the sound was heard by a top-secret underwater acoustic device.
The clandestine underwater microphone seemingly picked up the final moments of the vanished Titan submarine as it imploded.
The Navy was privy to this information before the Titan's surface vessel, the Polar Prince, was even aware the subversive was gone.
One Naval official told The Wall Street Journal in a statement that the sound was heard an hour and a half after the Titan's 8am (local time) launch when the sub lost contact with its mothership on the surface.
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"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.'
The US Navy did advise the US Coast Guard that they had detected a sound, but there was a chance the noise on June 18 was caused by something else, and the information was not passed on any further.
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So a massive, multi-national search was launched in an effort to locate the missing submarine.
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.
So, basically, the rescue effort was apparently a massive wild goose chase involving a number of international agencies.
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Cool.
The US Navy kept their lips sealed about their secret listening system as the source of the recorded sound and further information on the audio device (or devices) could pose a national security risk to the United States.
The US Navy has been approached for comment.
Five days after the Titan vanished, rescue teams found debris from the missing submersible, located about 1,640 feet (or 500 meters) from the Titanic's watery gravesite.
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The five people on board were pronounced dead by the US Coast Guard shortly thereafter.
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.
Topics: Titanic, News, US News, UK News, Military