from Hacker News

Top secret U.S. Navy system heard titan implosion days ago

by whytai on 6/22/23, 9:58 PM with 193 comments

  • by _zzaw on 6/22/23, 10:01 PM

  • by hrunt on 6/22/23, 10:42 PM

    Those who are familiar with US submarine operations would assume this from the start. For an excellent account of the development of US submarine capabilities (including listening and detection), I wholeheartedly recommend the book "Blind Man's Bluff".[0]

    How that book hasn't been made into a mini-series is beyond me. The stories and characters are incredible.

    [0] https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/...

  • by yborg on 6/22/23, 10:23 PM

    I'm pretty sure the Navy also knows what was causing the "banging" heard underwater during the search. I don't understand the point of leaking this information now, it just makes it look like the Coast Guard spent 3 days and considerable money pretending to look for a target it knew was probably destroyed.

  • by chrononaut on 6/22/23, 11:59 PM

    This article is written in a strange way.

    > The Navy began listening for the Titan almost as soon as the sub lost communications, according to a U.S. defense official.

    "Began listening" -- So OceanGate actually contacted the Coast Guard immediately?

    > Shortly after its disappearance, the U.S. system detected what it suspected was the sound of an implosion near the debris site discovered Thursday and reported its findings to the commander on site, U.S. defense officials said.

    The commander on site? Like the Coast Guard commander on site? That would imply the implosion happened many hours after the loss of communication.

    > “The U.S. 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,” a senior U.S. Navy official 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.”

    This makes it more like they retroactively looked at the data and noted that the implosion happened and then informed the commander.

  • by kevin_nisbet on 6/22/23, 10:32 PM

    While I'm sure the details are top secret, I think the existence of the monitoring has be known for quite some time. As I recall, a submarine disappeared much further away than the titanic wreck, much closer to Spain, and the recordings were eventually used to prove it was a collision of submarines or something like that. And rule out that the submarine was attacked by a torpedo.

    So I haven't been following this story all that closely, but I would've been somewhat more surprised had there been an implosion or similar it wasn't sitting on a recording somewhere. How quick it is to extract, triangulate, etc are another story.

  • by kneebonian on 6/22/23, 10:23 PM

    For those who doubted this... one of the main components of a strategic nuclear arm is submarines, even more than ICBMs to an extant, a nuclear strike might be able to wipe out all your launch facilities, but it isn't going to take out your subs, which are going to be around for a 2nd strike.

    Because of that being able to detect anything in the ocean anywhere within a reasonable distance of your coastal regions is a matter of life and death for a strong nuclear power, so the USN definitly new about this. Heck the USN probably knows the location of every single whale in 50% of the Earth's oceans.

  • by psychphysic on 6/22/23, 10:04 PM

    Well heck I just argued with a bunch of people, who said the USN knew but would never tell anyone and me saying it's a baseless claim.

    I guess we were both wrong.

  • by jhanschoo on 6/23/23, 9:37 AM

    > The Navy began listening for the Titan almost as soon as the sub lost communications, according to a U.S. defense official. Shortly after its disappearance, the U.S. system detected what it suspected was the sound of an implosion near the debris site discovered Thursday and reported its findings to the commander on site, U.S. defense officials said.

    I think the journalist may have assumed the wrong sequence of events. This makes it look as though the Navy wasn't recording until after the sub lost comms. That would mean that the implosion actually occurred some time after loss of contact.

    >> The U.S. 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,

    If this is the statement issued (that the journalist then "dumbed down" wrongly), then after comms was lost they started analyzing recorded data that was being recorded circa when contact was lost, which would make more sense.

  • by listenallyall on 6/23/23, 12:12 AM

    Maybe this is off-topic, but in the midst of so much controversy about "top-secret documents" -- is it actually legal to leak out that such a "top secret military acoustic detection system" even exists, and if so, the results of the system's use? I mean, how is it "top secret" if it's in the newspaper?

  • by m_0x on 6/22/23, 10:21 PM

    Does this mean the passengers had an instantaneous death?

  • by Vecr on 6/22/23, 10:23 PM

    Where did the comment about SOSUS go? That's the passive hydrophone system used 50 years ago.

  • by CHB0403085482 on 6/23/23, 4:58 AM

  • by ikekkdcjkfke on 6/23/23, 6:56 AM

    Calculation and modeling only takes you so far.

    As materials engineers you should strive to intimately know the materials you are working with.

    It's in our DNA to gauge and get a feel for materials, like a cat balancing on a thin branch, or a dog finding good spots to crunch a bone.

    How does a carbon fibre tube behave when slightly overloaded with external pressure?

  • by rajnathani on 6/23/23, 8:15 PM

    Predicted in a HN comment on the first post about the missing incident here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36393019

  • by LatteLazy on 6/23/23, 7:29 AM

    If there was no mention of it, I would assume they heard it and did not way to disclose the accuracy of their kit.

    When it is "leaked" I assume they heard nothing and don't want to disclose the (in)accuracy of their kit.

  • by chmod775 on 6/23/23, 10:43 AM

    If someone with a background in such things could explain how far such a sound could realistically travel in water before becoming indistinguishable from background noise, I'd be grateful.

  • by JennaDawn20 on 6/23/23, 1:10 AM

    Does anyone know if they had any “deep-sea” or “submersible” cameras recording the expedition and can recover those cameras/footage to help in knowing what happened?

  • by ChatGTP on 6/23/23, 2:14 AM

    Is it a top secret system now?

  • by vaidhy on 6/22/23, 10:25 PM

    So, we spent all the time and money confirming what USN already knew?