The mysterious knocking sounds heard beneath the Atlantic Ocean that gave false hope that the Titan submersible and its occupants could be rescued has been revealed in a haunting new audio clip, according to the BBC.
After the underwater craft lost contact with its mothership on a journey to the Titanic wreck in June 2023, reports on the second day of the frantic search said that banging noises were reverberating in the depths at 30-minute intervals.
An upcoming British documentary from Channel 5, “The Titan Sub Disaster: Minute by Minute,” played the audio for the public for the first time, which sounds like a person “knocking” against metal.
During the desperate search, the sound raised hopes that someone was alive and trying to send a message.
But it was later determined that the noise couldn’t have been the passengers and crew as they died instantly in the catastrophic implosion the sub suffered two hours into its voyage. It’s not clear, however, what the knocking actually was.
The documentary, which records the rescue attempt, captures searchers listening to the noise at the time and hoping it might be the lost mariners.
“It could be somebody knocking. The symmetry between those knockings is very unusual,” former Navy submarine Capt. Ryan Ramsey said in the documentary.
“It’s rhythmic, it’s like somebody is making that sound, and the fact that it is repeated is really unusual,” he added.
The noises were first pinged at around 11:30 p.m. June 20, with the US Navy confirming that it had detected the sound the next morning as well.
Many had speculated that the “knocking” sound was one of the five passengers aboard the Titan submersible banging against its walls to try to signal their location to the search party.
Investigators believe the Titan imploded just 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the wreck of the Titanic — as it reached a depth of around 12,000 feet under the sea on June 18, 2023.
The enormous water pressure had killed everyone on board, likely in a matter of milliseconds.
The five victims were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, prominent Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Sulaiman Dawood.
Rush, who was piloting the submersible, had been the subject of scrutiny for allegedly ignoring major safety concerns regarding his vessel and its tourist voyages to the Titanic.
Officials are still investigating the evidence recovered from its recovery missions ahead of an anticipated public hearing on the incident.
