My first foray into your stack, excellent work, well worth putting off sleeping for. Though being a former mariner, this incident is as heartbreaking as it was unnecessary. Regardless of whether the CEO is gone or not, a full and very public inquiry needs to occur.
This scandal is one reason I refer to most journalists as info-terrorists. Giving family and friends hope that their loved ones might possibly be alive, might possibly be saved when there was no hope left is a cruelty for which I have no words.
The US Navy sensors in that area were active from the early '60s. The navy is always secretive about its sensors. From the late 1950's through the 70's, the USN wired the continental shelves of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans for sound with secretly labeled cables of microphones. The test bed was in the Bahamas and the first operationally important line was across the Greenland Iceland UK Gap. The cable came up at NAS Argentia, Newfoundland, not far from St. Johns, Newfoundland where the recent search was based. Those cables are mostly used for whale tracking now, but they were used for tracking subs for decades. Whenever a sub went "crunch!" during the cold War, USN figured out where and when very quickly by comparing when the sound reached microphones all over the edges of the ocean. This program was designed to track Soviet Russian subs and make a new submarine war short, relatively inexpensive, and victorious without the massive losses experienced in WW I & WW II. It was a deep, dark, powerful secret until it leaked to the Washington Post in the 1980's.
I can still remember the day it leaked. My dad got a giant grin on his face and told me that now he could tell me what he had actually been doing in the Navy. He WAS a pilot, but that job a cover for his main function in running, setting up, and training others to run SOSUS stations starting in the Bahamas and at Argentia.
Secrecy about signal intelligence is natural to the USN.
"Reasonable seamanship" - well said. That's why the whole event is so horrble, that someone would be that careless, that igorant and that disrespectful. It's mind boggling.
Great story, Trish once again you’ve nailed it. James Cameron was the first person who popped into my head on Sunday when the story broke on the CBC...I went into As it Happens mode wondering why he wasn’t on air immediately, but it took the CBC three days to run a clip of Cameron being interviewed by an Irish broadcaster when it was obvious that the tapping story was a red herring. It is sad that the CBC has fallen into such a state of incompetence that they couldn’t even get a primary and timely interview with Cameron who should have been the first on the list. It’s as if they didn’t want to be the first to tell. They have completely lost their mojo. Well we knew that didn’t we. It’s just hard to imagine that our publicity fined broadcaster has devolved into chirpy fluff. And Cameron? As a Hollywood director he’s learned that the truth lies in fiction. (Puns intended)
It is important to remember that the purpose of the Media is not to inform, was it ever really? Media is certainly used to convey a message to the masses, but I am more skeptical every day of the underlying motives.
I would even go so far as to say that Substack is a better embodiment of what media should be, a forum open to discussion and sharing of sources and opinions.
The whole incident just emphasizes the disconnect between expertise and arrogance so often that appears when entrepreneurs push at the boundaries of what is commonly in practice. If nothing else, this will serve as a motivation for those who follow to spend less time observing their pursuit of fame and fortune through the proverbial navel porthole.
I'm glad you've taken up this story from a critical perspective since too few are asking the hard questions. We will never know why the obvious (my intuition was in sync with Cameron's from day 1) was ignored & the story strung out for a week with a fever pitch of media hype that was honestly, offensive. I say offensive because those who should have known better did nothing to stop it. Why? Well maybe because the story offered a convenient distraction for someone at an opportune time so let's hope a good investigative journalist writes a story connecting dots. Places to begin: the beginning of Biden impeachment proceedings in Congress (not a peep about this in media all week), the Wagner rebellion, events in Syria, and so on. Someone, somewhere seized on Oceangate for distraction & the media did what it was primed to do - ensure our collective gaze is here & not there ...
"What are the odds that the OceanGate submersible would go missing one day after I’d spent an evening down a YouTube rabbit hole researching diving accidents and what a high PSI (pounds per square inch) can do to a human body."
What are the odds that I would randomly pick a film about the Kursk to watch on Saturday night and that one of my readers would also? A film which documented the desperate efforts to save survivors of an underwater accident who DID actually communicate their survival to those on the surface by making actual tapping sounds, unlike the fake news story regarding the Titan?
It's all very weird. There's something very unsettling about the Titan, the failure of the US navy to alert the world that they had detected the implosion on Monday and the fake news media's subsequent attempts to craft a 'desperate race against time' to rescue the stricken passengers story which was entirely false.
There have always been weird conspiracy theories about the sinking of the Titanic. Lately there has been conjecture about whether there was foul play involved with the Titan's demise in order to prevent an inspection of the Titanic's hull that could reveal it sunk from sabotage and not from an iceberg piercing the hull. Crazy conspiracy theory, I'm sure. https://spyscape.com/article/the-titanics-top-10-weirdest-conspiracy-theories
The story of Mr. Stanley somehow sparked an association with Virgil Grissom, the Apollo astronaut who died "in a fire during a pre-launch test at Cape Kennedy" in 1967. "Gruff Gus" had complained numerous times about technical problems with Apollo 1 and allegedly said while awaiting launch on the test, "How are we going to get to the Moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings."
So offensive, that that vessel took anybody on board and went anywhere! The carbon hull was experimental, for crying out loud. I think many people made the hubris link between the sub captain and the Titanic, such idiocy, such arrogance, such disregard for others, never mind one's self.
That people were led to believe that those five souls were still alive is appalling. I think you are so right - a scandal. I hope multiple law suits follow.
Media, MSM, yeah... I was watching a newscast about 60 years ago. It made my stomach churn for some reason so I shut it off. I have missed nothing ever since...
Oh boy were we ever anxiety ridden for days . We happened to have our sailboat anchored at Hope Island Georgian bay . Took our dinghy out to a wreck at the tip of Hope Island . We searched for the wreck of the Marquette sunk in the late 1800’s . Saw it clearly beneath us. Even that is unnerving.
We kept checking the news but then as in covid , something started to dawn on us. Something didn’t seem right . We felt that tinge of manipulation. The knocking , then the countdown of oxygen, what the people might be feeling . Horror , enough to keep us restless during the night. But that spider sense kicks in when you see the co ordinated effort . “ the bubble headed bleach blonde comes on at five to tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eyes “.
Can’t quite explain but we kept questioning the logistics of the whole thing but thinking “ well we don’t know enough”!!!
Intuition is a great thing. Trish wrote a great piece here. Seems the “critical thinking “ was on overdrive .
Good points, thanks. It should be "lessen" not "lesson".
My first foray into your stack, excellent work, well worth putting off sleeping for. Though being a former mariner, this incident is as heartbreaking as it was unnecessary. Regardless of whether the CEO is gone or not, a full and very public inquiry needs to occur.
This scandal is one reason I refer to most journalists as info-terrorists. Giving family and friends hope that their loved ones might possibly be alive, might possibly be saved when there was no hope left is a cruelty for which I have no words.
The US Navy sensors in that area were active from the early '60s. The navy is always secretive about its sensors. From the late 1950's through the 70's, the USN wired the continental shelves of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans for sound with secretly labeled cables of microphones. The test bed was in the Bahamas and the first operationally important line was across the Greenland Iceland UK Gap. The cable came up at NAS Argentia, Newfoundland, not far from St. Johns, Newfoundland where the recent search was based. Those cables are mostly used for whale tracking now, but they were used for tracking subs for decades. Whenever a sub went "crunch!" during the cold War, USN figured out where and when very quickly by comparing when the sound reached microphones all over the edges of the ocean. This program was designed to track Soviet Russian subs and make a new submarine war short, relatively inexpensive, and victorious without the massive losses experienced in WW I & WW II. It was a deep, dark, powerful secret until it leaked to the Washington Post in the 1980's.
I can still remember the day it leaked. My dad got a giant grin on his face and told me that now he could tell me what he had actually been doing in the Navy. He WAS a pilot, but that job a cover for his main function in running, setting up, and training others to run SOSUS stations starting in the Bahamas and at Argentia.
Secrecy about signal intelligence is natural to the USN.
The Titanic didn't plow into an iceberg because of hubris. Search "Titanic" and "Federal Reserve." The real reason is there.
"Reasonable seamanship" - well said. That's why the whole event is so horrble, that someone would be that careless, that igorant and that disrespectful. It's mind boggling.
Great story, Trish once again you’ve nailed it. James Cameron was the first person who popped into my head on Sunday when the story broke on the CBC...I went into As it Happens mode wondering why he wasn’t on air immediately, but it took the CBC three days to run a clip of Cameron being interviewed by an Irish broadcaster when it was obvious that the tapping story was a red herring. It is sad that the CBC has fallen into such a state of incompetence that they couldn’t even get a primary and timely interview with Cameron who should have been the first on the list. It’s as if they didn’t want to be the first to tell. They have completely lost their mojo. Well we knew that didn’t we. It’s just hard to imagine that our publicity fined broadcaster has devolved into chirpy fluff. And Cameron? As a Hollywood director he’s learned that the truth lies in fiction. (Puns intended)
It is important to remember that the purpose of the Media is not to inform, was it ever really? Media is certainly used to convey a message to the masses, but I am more skeptical every day of the underlying motives.
I would even go so far as to say that Substack is a better embodiment of what media should be, a forum open to discussion and sharing of sources and opinions.
The whole incident just emphasizes the disconnect between expertise and arrogance so often that appears when entrepreneurs push at the boundaries of what is commonly in practice. If nothing else, this will serve as a motivation for those who follow to spend less time observing their pursuit of fame and fortune through the proverbial navel porthole.
I'm glad you've taken up this story from a critical perspective since too few are asking the hard questions. We will never know why the obvious (my intuition was in sync with Cameron's from day 1) was ignored & the story strung out for a week with a fever pitch of media hype that was honestly, offensive. I say offensive because those who should have known better did nothing to stop it. Why? Well maybe because the story offered a convenient distraction for someone at an opportune time so let's hope a good investigative journalist writes a story connecting dots. Places to begin: the beginning of Biden impeachment proceedings in Congress (not a peep about this in media all week), the Wagner rebellion, events in Syria, and so on. Someone, somewhere seized on Oceangate for distraction & the media did what it was primed to do - ensure our collective gaze is here & not there ...
I now understand why Rush didn't want experienced submariners on his team as they would have spoiled his delusion.
"What are the odds that the OceanGate submersible would go missing one day after I’d spent an evening down a YouTube rabbit hole researching diving accidents and what a high PSI (pounds per square inch) can do to a human body."
What are the odds that I would randomly pick a film about the Kursk to watch on Saturday night and that one of my readers would also? A film which documented the desperate efforts to save survivors of an underwater accident who DID actually communicate their survival to those on the surface by making actual tapping sounds, unlike the fake news story regarding the Titan?
https://jaimejessop.substack.com/p/kursk-a-strange-and-unsettling-coincidence
It's all very weird. There's something very unsettling about the Titan, the failure of the US navy to alert the world that they had detected the implosion on Monday and the fake news media's subsequent attempts to craft a 'desperate race against time' to rescue the stricken passengers story which was entirely false.
There have always been weird conspiracy theories about the sinking of the Titanic. Lately there has been conjecture about whether there was foul play involved with the Titan's demise in order to prevent an inspection of the Titanic's hull that could reveal it sunk from sabotage and not from an iceberg piercing the hull. Crazy conspiracy theory, I'm sure. https://spyscape.com/article/the-titanics-top-10-weirdest-conspiracy-theories
The story of Mr. Stanley somehow sparked an association with Virgil Grissom, the Apollo astronaut who died "in a fire during a pre-launch test at Cape Kennedy" in 1967. "Gruff Gus" had complained numerous times about technical problems with Apollo 1 and allegedly said while awaiting launch on the test, "How are we going to get to the Moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings."
So offensive, that that vessel took anybody on board and went anywhere! The carbon hull was experimental, for crying out loud. I think many people made the hubris link between the sub captain and the Titanic, such idiocy, such arrogance, such disregard for others, never mind one's self.
That people were led to believe that those five souls were still alive is appalling. I think you are so right - a scandal. I hope multiple law suits follow.
Media, MSM, yeah... I was watching a newscast about 60 years ago. It made my stomach churn for some reason so I shut it off. I have missed nothing ever since...
Oh boy were we ever anxiety ridden for days . We happened to have our sailboat anchored at Hope Island Georgian bay . Took our dinghy out to a wreck at the tip of Hope Island . We searched for the wreck of the Marquette sunk in the late 1800’s . Saw it clearly beneath us. Even that is unnerving.
We kept checking the news but then as in covid , something started to dawn on us. Something didn’t seem right . We felt that tinge of manipulation. The knocking , then the countdown of oxygen, what the people might be feeling . Horror , enough to keep us restless during the night. But that spider sense kicks in when you see the co ordinated effort . “ the bubble headed bleach blonde comes on at five to tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eyes “.
Can’t quite explain but we kept questioning the logistics of the whole thing but thinking “ well we don’t know enough”!!!
Intuition is a great thing. Trish wrote a great piece here. Seems the “critical thinking “ was on overdrive .