Was the wreck of the USS Scorpion discovered thanks to collective intelligence?

Wikipedia on the USS Scorpion (SSN-589):

The search

A public search was initiated, but without immediate success and on 5 June, Scorpion and her crew were declared “presumed lost.” Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 30 June. Some recent reports now indicate that a large and secret search was launched 3 days before Scorpion was expected back from patrol; this combined with other declassified information led many to speculate the US Navy knew of the Scorpion’s destruction before the public search was launched.

The public search continued, a team of mathematical consultants led by Dr. John Craven, the Chief Scientist of the U.S. Navy’s Special Projects Division, employing the novel methods of Bayesian search theory, initially developed during the search for a hydrogen bomb lost off the coast of Palomares, Spain in January, 1966 in the Palomares hydrogen bombs incident. At the end of October, the Navy’s oceanographic research ship, USNS Mizar (T-AGOR-11), located sections of the hull of Scorpion in more than 3000 meters (10,000 ft) of water about 740 kilometers (400 nautical miles) southwest of the Azores. This was after the navy had released sound tapes from its underwater “Sosus” listening system which contained the sounds of the destruction of Scorpion. Subsequently, the Court of Inquiry was reconvened, and other vessels, including the bathyscaphe Trieste, were dispatched to the scene, collecting myriad pictures and other data.

Although Dr. Craven has received much credit for locating Scorpion’s wreckage, Gordon Hamilton – an acoustics expert who pioneered the use of hydroacoustics to pinpoint Polaris missile splashdown locations – was instrumental, not only in acquiring the acoustic signals that were used in locating her, but also in analyzing those signals to provide a concise “search box”, wherein the wreck of the Scorpion was finally located. Hamilton had established a quasi-legal listening station in the Canary Islands, which obtained a clear signal of what some scientists believe was the noise of her pressure hull imploding as she passed below crush depth. A little-known Naval Research Laboratory scientist named Chester “Buck” Buchanan, using a towed camera sled of his own design aboard the USNS Mizar, finally located Scorpion after nearly six months of searching. The towed camera sled, which was fabricated by J.L. “Jac” Hamm of Naval Research Laboratory’s Engineering Services Division, is currently housed in the Navy Museum, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, DC. (Buchanan had located the wrecked hull of the USS Thresher in 1964 using this same technique.)

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US Navy conclusions

The results of the U.S. Navy’s various investigations into the loss of the Scorpion are inconclusive. While the Court of Inquiry never endorsed Dr. Craven’s torpedo theory regarding the loss of Scorpion, its Findings of Facts released in 1993 carried Craven’s torpedo theory at the head of a list of possible causes of the Scorpion’s loss.

The Navy failed to inform the public that both the U.S. Submarine Force Atlantic and the Commander-in-Chief U.S. Atlantic Fleet opposed Craven’s torpedo theory as unfounded and also failed to disclose that a second technical investigation into the loss of Scorpion completed in 1970 actually repudiated claims that a torpedo detonation played a role in the loss of the Scorpion. Despite the second technical investigation, the Navy continues to attach strong credence to Craven’s view that an explosion destroyed her, as is evidenced by this excerpt from a May 2003 letter from the Navy’s Submarine Warfare Division (N77), specifically written by Admiral P.F. Sullivan on behalf of VADM John J. Grossenbacher (Commander Naval Submarine Forces), the Naval Sea Systems Command, Naval Reactors, and others in the US Navy regarding its view of alternate sinking theories:

“The first cataclysmic event was of such magnitude that the only possible conclusion is that a cataclysmic event (explosion) occurred resulting in uncontrolled flooding (most likely the forward compartments).”

Some erroneously claim VADM Grossenbacher’s (and Adm. Sullivan’s) determination is drawn solely from the inconclusive Findings of Fact, generated by the US Navy’s Court of Inquiry into the Scorpion sinking. This is untrue, as their letter (see excerpt below) explicitly mentions their review of a secondary study by the Structural Analysis Group in 1970, and a later report by Dr. Robert Ballard, whose investigative team visited the Scorpion wreck in the 1980s.

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Now, as for the collective intelligence work lead by John Carven, spot the “4th, Best Estimate, June 22” spot on the map, and compare to the spot where the USS Scorpion was actually discovered —pretty close.

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APPENDIX

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/books.google.com/books?id=xwqMV5UiEpoC&pg=PA73&dq=USS+scorpion+john+craven+bayes&lr=&ei=2UxeSfrKG5W6NsKGpPsH#PPA73,M1

It’s the John Craven side of the USS Scorpion search story.

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(Do add http://www. to the above URLs.)

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