The man who found the Titanic is headed back there next week. But not to gather artifacts.
As a matter of fact, Dr. Robert Ballard is decidedly unhappy that anybody has taken items off the ship. And he would prefer that exhibits like the one that's opening today at the ZCMI Center didn't exist.
"Personally, yes," Ballard said in a telephone interview with TV writers.
The world's most famous oceanographer sees the wreck of the Titanic as a historic site analagous to the sunken USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor and the battlefield at Gettysburg.
And the forthcoming expedition, sponsored by National Geographic, is designed to determine how much damage has been done to the Titanic in the nearly 20 years since he first located it.
"Certainly, I can tell you that, having been to the Titanic, the ground speaks to you. . . . the way it does at the Arizona and at Gettysburg," Ballard said.
He chooses his words carefully, but he's obviously unhappy with what's happened to the shipwreck since he located it.
"We've sat on the sidelines and watched a lot of activity go on there — salvage operations, visitations, filmmaking, even a couple getting married on the bow, which was interesting," Ballard said. "Since I'm the person who found the Titanic, if there's anything about the Titanic I hear about it whether I want to hear about it or not. And we've heard that there was a rogue operation up there, that they did a lot of damage. There's been a lot of rumors and a lot of things said, some we've seen visual evidence to support it and others that we've just heard rumors. And the best way to put all that to rest is to go out and do a very scientific, thorough study of the ship and then compare that data base to the data base we collected 20 years ago before all this activity took place."
While there's some fear that the ship itself has been damaged by the intrusions, "I think most of what's happened at the site is the removal of the artifacts. It's like the removal of the belt buckles from the Arizona. It's like the removal of a rifle from Gettysburg. The Titanic is not being removed. She'll be there for a long, long, long, long time. . . . The signature of the Titanic will be there for thousands of years. I'm sure of that.
According to Ballard, however, "the jewels of this old lady have been plundered" — and some of them ended up in the exhibit that's visiting Utah.
"There's a shipwreck and there's a heartbreak story to be told," said Jay Schalder, who will be anchoring the National Geographic Channel special documenting Ballard's return to the shipwreck whose "history since 1985 has unraveled in a way that was not expected by him."
"He's choosing his words carefully in terms of the kind of exploration that's gone on after he discovered it," saiud Schalder. "But the fact is that it's been a carnival at times. It's a circus at times. It has been plundered. We don't know how many of the thousands of artifacts have been lost. . . . But how Bob reacts to all this is of real fascination to me. But what's going to happen to Bob Ballard when he comes face to face with the Titanic for the second time after 20 years and it is a changed ship?"
Ballard said that his was a purely scientific interest in the Titanic when he was searching for it. But that changed when he found the ship, "particularly when I saw the shoes from the people who had died and I saw the child's doll — it hits you hard. I was very moved — moved to tears. It was very, very powerful."
What Ballard is pushing for is a "museum" on the Internet that will, first, offer everyone — not just those who can afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars — access to the Titanic. And, second, which will provide a much better view of the wreck than going down in a small submarine and peering through a tiny porthole.
"Electronic travel and the electronic visitation of sites is going to be, in many ways, better than being there," said Ballard, who describes it as " wrap-around experience — multiple vehicles looking at multiple angles from multiple cameras. . . . So you're going to be able to see things that you wouldn't be able to see. It's much like we watch football games today — the better view's at home," he said with a laugh.
"Our goal is to try to begin developing a series of guidelines on how one visits sites like the Titanic because we want to encourage visitation, just as we encourage people to go to the Arizona in Pearl Harbor or go to Gettysburg. We think this is a historic site. It has a lot to tell the public. Lots of lessons to learn."
If you watch. . .
What: Return to Titanic
Where: National Geographic Channel
When: Monday, June 7, 7 and 10 p.m.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com