[11] Later that year, a team of researchers headed by the National Maritime Museum director Kevin Sumption concluded their investigation into the sinking of AE1.

[12] Beyond the search immediately after the submarine's disappearance, there were no concentrated efforts to locate the wreck of AE1 for the next 60 years, until the 1970s, when John Foster, a RAN officer working in Port Moresby, became interested in the story.

His original plan was to investigate up close with a submersible, but mechanical issues prevented it, and Calypso instead performed a magnetometer search of the area, finding no wrecks.

[13] Foster had continued archive research into AE1's disappearance, supplemented with visits to Rabaul and nearby islands to see if references to the submarine appeared in any community's oral histories.

A third expedition in November 2003, supported by the Maritime Museum of Western Australia and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, conducted searches off Mioko and nearby islands, again with no success.

[13][14] Further oral evidence supporting the wreck of AE1 being off Mioko was learned during one of the 2003 expeditions: Foster discovered that the Tolai people had a legend of a "devil fish" appearing offshore on the day that AE1 disappeared.

[13][16] During early 2012, the minehunter HMAS Gascoyne and the survey ship HMNZS Resolution detected a potential wrecked submarine in Simpson Harbour.

[13] Between 6 and 9 September 2014, Yarra conducted searches around the Duke of York Islands, prior to a memorial service for the centenary of the submarine's disappearance.

The search off Mioko Island was carried out in November, and was conducted by a mining survey ship towing a multibeam echosounder array.

Volcanic activity was also identified as a factor, due to the disruption it causes to local magnetic fields, affecting the operations of magnetometers.

Additionally, the search areas contained large numbers of shipwrecks due to heavy military activity around New Guinea during World War II, along with the disposal of ships in later years.

This expedition was funded by the Commonwealth Government and the Silentworld Foundation with additional assistance from the Submarine Institute of Australia and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

[23] RV Petrel was enlisted to survey the wreckage, where it was discovered that the submarine's ventilation shaft is approximately 60% open, indicating that the most likely explanation for AE1's sinking is flooding with a subsequent implosion below crush depth.

[25] The exact location of the wreck was not announced by the Australian government at the time of discovery, in order to protect it from "unauthorised salvage attempts."

[27] The sculpture takes the form of a stainless steel wreath, 6 metres (20 ft) in diameter, which projects patterns of light onto the water at night.