WHOI Archives/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/Handout via Reuters
In honor of the 25th anniversary of James Cameronâs 1997 classic flick, rare footage from the July 1986 dive exploring the sunken wreck the R.M.S. Titanic is set to be released on Wednesday evening. The more than 80 minutes of footage will be shared by the Woods Hole Oceanic Institution of Massachusetts on its YouTube page at 7:30 p.m. ET. In 1985, an oceanographer from WHOI, Robert Ballard, teamed up with French explorer Jean-Louis Michel to locate debris from the wreckage roughly 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Their team took a deep-ocean submersible called Alvin to the ocean floor the next year, sending a small camera named Jason Jr. inside the wreck. âI never looked down at the Titanic. I looked up at the Titanic. Nothing was small,â Ballard told the Associated Press of the experience. In a statement, Cameron said, âLike many, I was transfixed when Alvin and Jason Jr. ventured down to and inside the wreck. By releasing this footage, WHOI is helping tell an important part of a story that spans generations and circles the globe.â