MEET
CHARLES R.
PELLEGRINO
Charles R. Pellegrino (born 1953) is an American writer, the author of several books related to science and archaeology, including Return to Sodom and Gomorrah, Ghosts of the Titanic, Unearthing Atlantis, and Ghosts of Vesuvius. Dr. Pellegrino earned a PhD in the early 80s. Dr. Pellegrino has been to the Titanic several times.
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Dr. Pellegrino has been to the Titanic several times, including 1996 and 2001. In 1986, Dr. Pellegrino went on an expedition with Bob Ballard and a section of his team to the Pacific Islands, and Bob Ballard `thrust" a copy of Walter Lord's A Night to Remember, into Dr. Pellegrino's hands, and that is when he became fascinated. He was personal friends with George Tulloch, Walter Lord.
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Bibliography​
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Her Name, Titanic: Untold Story of the Sinking and Finding of the Unsinkable Ship (1988)
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Ghosts of the Titanic (2000)
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"Farewell, Titanic: Her Final Legacy," (Foreword by Tom Dettweiler), John Wiley & Sons, N.J. (2012).
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"The Californian Incident," Shoebox/Kindle, Canada (2013).
Filmography​
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Ghosts of the Abyss. With James Cameron (2003)
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Aliens of the Deep. With James Cameron (2005)
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Did you know?
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On Charles first trip to Titanic, he and the others went to the Galapagos rift in search of new hydrothermal vents in the late Autumn of 1985, through Christmas of that year? According to Charles, they were there with the robot Argo - which had just discovered the Titanic in September. Charles whole purpose of being there was to be working with argo and exploring the vents while designing the Europa space probe with Jim Powell at Brookhaven National Laboratory (a version of which was animated by Jim Cameron in his 3D IMAX documentary, "Aliens of the Deep.") When he boarded the ship, he had no interest in or knowledge of the Titanic!
Aboard that ship of polymathic thinkers, he stated that he became infected with their interests and that Ballard now thinks a lot more about space than he did in 1985. (Also, it was Ballard and Detweiler who thrust that copy of the W. Lord illustrated edition into Charles hands, to get him talking less often and all-too-annoyingly about space!)
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also...
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Charles states...
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"Titanic does appear in some of my other books: "Ghosts of Vesuvius" (non-fiction). FICTION: The Titanic is central to mine and George Zebrowski's SF novel, "The Killing Star" (which informed the reboot of "Battlestar Galactica"). It's just as central to the prequel novel, "Flying to Valhalla" (which informed "Avatar"). In Arthur C. Clarke's novel, "The Ghost from the Grand Banks," the character Jason was based on me (and also on a misunderstanding Arthur had about something I reported from New Zealand) - and in the end, standing with Ballard, is me, over the grave-site of the character based on me. (You'll notice that in "The Killing Star" and "DUST," I killed Arthur Clarke: There was a period in which Arthur and I killed each other in our fiction - repeatedly.) The Titanic also appears, metaphorically, in my novel, DUST. Walter Lord appears as himself, in a recent novel by two friends: "The Darwin Strain."
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9/9/21
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With Dave Gardner and Jill Carlier, on one of Dave's great New York City Titanic tours.
January 11, 2013
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Charles Pellegrino. "Farewell, Titanic. Her Final Legacy". John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2 Mar 2012).
In address of his books, I have to say that I sincerely love them, and I consider Charles Pellegrino - with his brilliant literary style, encyclopedic knowledge and with his deep American-Russian scientific connections - one of the best and of the brightest 'Titanic' writer!
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-Eugene Nesmeyanov