Federal officials, who have long struggled to assert protective authority over the resting place of the Titanic, say the site may harbor many undiscovered corpses and thus should be accorded the respect of a graveyard and shielded from looters and artifact hunters.

“There are people inside,” said James P. Delgado, director of maritime heritage at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors the wreck....

The bold federal assertions are dividing Titanic experts. The most experienced divers say they doubt that bodies lie intact in unexplored compartments of the deteriorating ship.

“I’ve seen zero human remains,” James Cameron, the moviemaker and explorer, who has visited the wreck 33 times and extensively probed its interior, said in an interview....