As the world commemorated the centenary of the RMS Titanic tragedy, haunting visuals of human remains have been released which included pairs of shoes and coats that were found in the wreck site.
An uncropped 2004 photograph has been released to the public for the first time that shows a coat and pairs of boots in the mud of the ship wrecked area.
Two others images showed pairs of boots resting next to each other. The images were taken during an expedition by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) and famous Titanic explorer Robert Ballard in 2004.
Ballard was involved in a number of projects to protect the site since his discovery of the historic wreck in 1985.
Titled "the Return to Titanic", the scientific expedition involved a team of explorers and scientists who sent their underwater robots to gather scientific data 12,000 feet deep. The expedition was meant to find out how quickly the Titanic was deteriorating from both human as well as natural causes.
"These are not shoes that fell out neatly from somebody's bag right next to each other," the Associated Press quoted James Delgado, the director of maritime heritage at the NOAA saying.
During his 33 visits to the wreck site, filmmaker James Cameron reportedly mentioned about pairs of shoes and such other objects on the wreck site. However, he had never seen any human remains till date.
"It was important to go back to Titanic," said Capt. Craig McLean, director of the NOAA Office of Exploration. "It's a cultural icon and a maritime gravesite deserving of our respect. But it's also a deep-sea laboratory where we can study the chemical, biological and human effects on the ship's rate of deterioration and apply that knowledge to many other deepwater shipwrecks and submerged cultural resources around the world. As goes Titanic, so go other shipwrecks," he further mentioned.
There has been a long fight to protect the Titanic since it was rediscovered by Ballard in 1985, beginning with a federal law passed by Congress aimed at creating an international agreement to transform the shipwreck into an international maritime memorial, the Huffington Post reported.
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