There is a memorial to those who died at the Arlington National Cemetery, which includes the ship's main mast. There is also a memorial, consisting of the shield and scrollwork from the bow of the ship, in Bangor, Maine. The fore mast of the Maine is located at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. There is a traditional in-joke among midshipmen at the Academy that the Maine, with its main mast in Eastern Virginia and its fore mast in Central Maryland, is the longest ship in the Navy.

Causes of the sinking

The facts

Because of the uproar the sinking of the Maine caused in the United States, President McKinley demanded an investigation into the cause of the explosions immediately. A U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry arrived in Havana and began its investigation. Survivors and eyewitnesses testified for the court, and several navy divers explored the sunken ship, hoping to find clues as to what may have caused the disaster. All parties involved concluded without a doubt that the explosion of the forward six-inch ammunition magazines had caused the sinking. Why those magazines had exploded, no one could determine conclusively, and doubt remains as to the exact cause to this day. There have been four major investigations into the sinking since 1898. From the four inquiries, two theories have emerged: one, that a mine in Havana Harbor had exploded underneath the battleship, causing the explosion of the magazines; and two, that spontaneous combustion of the coal in bunker A16 created a fire that detonated the nearby magazines.

External mine theory

The theory that a mine, allegedly planted by the Spanish as a way to deter the efforts of the United States to take Cuba, is the assumption that most Americans came to immediately after the sinking, because it provided the stimulus for war that the U.S. had been quietly seeking. However, all parties now recognize that even if a mine had been involved in the sinking of the Maine, the Spanish government had nothing to do with it, because it would have been unreasonable for Spain to provoke an attack and bring itself into a war where it would most certainly lose its last precious colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Rather, the mine could have been placed to defend the harbor and unintentionally drifted to where the Maine was moored. Alternatively, the mine could have been used by Cuban rebels in the hopes that the attack on the Maine would be blamed on the Spanish and so trigger a war between the United States and Spain.

Some key evidence indicates that the cause of the sinking was an external mine. First, many of the witnesses stated that they heard two distinct explosions several seconds apart. If anything else besides a mine had triggered the magazine explosion, then witnesses would have only heard one blast, because the only explosion would have been of the magazines. The only reason that two explosions would have been heard is if something besides the magazine had exploded, such as a mine. A coal bunker fire would have caused the magazines to explode, but it would not have caused an additional explosion.

Another piece of evidence of an external mine was the observations of divers who examined the bottom plates of the Maine. These bottom plates were all bent inward. If an internal explosion had occurred, the bottom plates would have been bent outward, away from the explosion. An external blast would have blown the plates inward, consistent with the evidence. A large hole in the side of the hull was also observed with the edges bent inward. On the floor of Havana Harbor, 
a large hole was noticed, presumably from the explosion, although it could be argued that an explosion of that magnitude would have put a hole in the harbor floor, regardless of whether the explosion was internal or external.

Two problems with the external mine theory remain. One is the absence of dead fish in Havana Harbor the next day. Assuming that fish lived in the polluted waters of the harbor, many of them should have been killed if a mine exploded in their habitat, but no one reported seeing any floating in the harbor. Also, no one reported seeing a geyser of water thrown up during the explosion, a common sight when mines explode underwater. Many feel that if an external explosion had occurred, it most certainly would have been coupled with a geyser.