According to Live Science, maritime archaeologists have located three large “ghost ships ” in the remote Aleutian Islands of Alaska, USA.
They were identified as three American and Japanese military ships that were sunk in a battle that took place during World War II.
“Ghost ship” Kotohira Maru, one of the wrecks found off the coast of Alaska using sonar – Photo: ThayerMahan. |
Japanese ships were sunk by bombs from American aircraft after the Japanese military attacked the Aleutians in June 1942, about six months after the famous Pearl Harbor attack.Meanwhile, the US ship, whose mission was to install submarine cables to strengthen defense capabilities, was sunk about a month later.
A research team led by maritime archaeologist Dominic Bush of East Carolina University (ECU – USA) spent years searching for shipwrecks in this remote area of Alaska.
They finally found the “ghost ships” during a two-week expedition in July.
Images of these shipwrecks were found and reconstructed using sonar data, a technique that uses the propagation of sound waves to search for hidden structures in or on the water’s bottom.
Robotic seabed explorers were then deployed to reach the wrecks, bringing back remarkable images, including a stunning array of creatures that had colonized the ghost ships after decades of oblivion.