Oceanic Enigmas
Brandi Mueller is a world renowned underwater photographer. She has traveled the world taking incredible photos of underwater flora and fauna. The majority of our world’s oceans remain unexplored, truly Earth’s final frontier.
She made an amazing 70-year-old discovery at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean near the Marshall Islands that made international headlines and sparked outrage among many Americans. Her photography shows the haunting images of a dark and deadly past long forgotten about. Read on to find out what this incredible woman discovered deep under water where no one had dared to venture before.
Brandi Mueller has been diving since she was 15-years-old. Her passion for diving has taken her on a journey exploring the world’s oceans and the dark mysteries they contain.
Inspired Beginnings
Approximately 95% of the Earth’s oceans remain unexplored.
As a child, Brandi loved exploring nature and taking pictures of plants and animals with her parents’ camera. As time went on, she decided to combine her passions of diving and photography.
Underwater Photography
Brandi learned how to dive during a student exchange program in New Zealand at the young age of 15.
Over just a few short years Brandi became one of the most published underwater photographers of her generation. Her stunning photography has been internationally praised.
Marshall Islands Dives
Apart from teaching diving she also received a captain’s license.
Over just a few short years Brandi became one of the most published underwater photographers of her generation. Her stunning photography has been internationally praised.
Aquatic Debris
Apart from teaching diving she also received a captain’s license.
Brandi’s expeditions around the islands led her to discover something interesting. In many locations, the seafloor was littered with large, metal debris.
Forgotten Graveyards
Portions of broken metal and glass protruded through the bottom of the ocean, long rusted and overtaken by the marine flora.
Brandi’s explorations eventually led her to the source of all the broken pieces of glass and metal. Deep on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, she stumbled onto a myriad of planes.
Pilots Mystery
Like a ghostly watery graveyard, unknown aircraft rested at the bottom of the ocean.
Brandi explored the watery gravesite top to bottom but interestingly one thing was missing. Something that was certainly expected to be found.
Condition of the Planes
There were no signs of people, no skeletons. If the planes were shot down from the sky then certainly some unlucky pilots would have gone down with them.
The planes astonishingly were in immaculate condition. Apart from the rusting and sea plants such as coral and barnacles, the planes were for the most part wholly intact.
Forgotten History
That’s when Brandi realized that the planes were in too good of condition to have been shot down.
While the site was a resting place for the planes, it certainly wasn’t a human graveyard. Brandi kept returning to the location, determined to photograph the evidence at the bottom of the ocean.
Numbers
As far as she knew, she was the first diver to come across the site.
Before Brandi knew it she had discovered over a hundred of the sunken planes. “They should have flown more, lived longer, but they were sunk in perfect condition,” Brandi told the Dailymail.
Finally, an Explanation?
She discovered the site about five miles off the coast of Roi-Namur in the Marshall Islands.
The planes, as it turned out, were neither shot out of the sky nor did they crash land into the sea.
Eerie Memorial
The aircraft were leftover remnants from WWII, surplus American aircraft that were dumped into the sea after the war ended.
The underwater planes stand as a ghostly memorial to a war that claimed the lives of tens of millions of people across the planet. But still, one mystery troubled Brandi.
Sunken Treasure
Why had the planes been abandoned?
Exploration of the wreckage became Brandi’s most strenuous and difficult project to photograph. Brandi explained that the wreckage was exceptionally hard to photograph given the depth.
WWII Planes
The planes are located around 150 feet under the water, and the time divers are capable to stay under that far is limited.
The over 150 planes sat at the bottom of the ocean for over 70 years, lost and forgotten as the decades passed.
Answers
Planes found at the site included: TBF, the TBM Avenger, the Douglas SBD Dauntless (dive bomber) and the F4U Corsair.
The planes were intentionally thrown in into the sea from Allied aircraft carriers after the defeat of the Empire of Japan. Disposing of the planes allowed the military to avoid adding them to their already surplus supply of aircraft.
Old Habits
The maintenance and storage of the planes were simply not reasonable financially.
Additional sites where wasteful dumping of Allied or US equipment have been found in the region.
Battle of Midway
Wreckage off the island paradise of Vanuatu has revealed that US military dumped bulldozers, jeeps, trucks, semi-trailers, fork lifts, tractors, clothing, corrugated iron and even Coke bottles into the sea.
The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, crippled the American forces in the South Pacific but failed to destroy American determination for an Allied victory against the Axis powers.
Marshall Islands during WWII
Six months after the attack at Pearl Harbor, US forces retaliated against the Japanese at the Battle of Midway.
The Marshall Islands were a strategic geographic position and were the easternmost point in the Empire of Japan’s defensive ring in the early stages of WWII.
The South Pacific
The Kwajalein Atoll was home to the Japanese 6th fleet administrative center, tasked with the defense of the Marshall Islands.
The number of air and naval battles in the South Pacific have made the region an underwater graveyard. Sunken ships and planes line the ocean floors.
Sunken Ships
Underwater photographer Brandi Mueller has also dived at locations where Japanese ships and planes have been discovered.
Underwater photographer Brandi Mueller has explored many WWII graveyards on the seafloor. Many of the items found and photographed by Brandi were in excellent condition, preserved by the deep sea for decades.
Chuuk Lagoon
The sites serve as eerie reminders of a brutal and horrific past.
Another amazing WWII site Brandi has explored is located on the seafloor of the Chuuk Lagoon in the modern-day Federated States of Micronesia.
Amazing Findings
Chuuk Lagoon was the Empire of Japan’s main naval base in the South Pacific theatre.
An incredible amount of Japanese war relics have been found at the bottom of Chuuk Lagoon.
Japanese WWII Planes
Allied forces sank twelve Japanese warships, 32 merchant ships and destroyed at least 249 aircraft during the battles that took place in and around the island.
The most common Japanese planes found in the South Pacific wreckage are the Mitsubishi G4M, dubbed the Betty Bombers by Allied forces.
After the War
In Japanese, the planes are referred to as Hamaki, or cigar, due to their shape.
Imperial Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, in a recorded broadcast by Emperor Hirohito, officially bringing the Second World War to a close.
On August 28, 1945, the occupation of the Japanese home islands by the Allied forces began.