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The videos, shot using U.S. Government equipment while the Enterprise was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, were broadcast throughout the U.S.S. Enterprise in 2006 and 2007, and featured female sailors making jokes about wanting more time to wash each other in the shower room, men joking about rectal exams, and other sexually charged behavior. They were shown to the 6,000 member crew a couple times a week via closed-circuit television.

The man who masterminded and starred in them is Capt. Owen Honors -- now the commander of the carrier, which is weeks away from deploying.

According to senior Navy officials, the videos — which were apparently produced for the crew's entertainment and as a "morale booster" —first surfaced when Honors was executive officer of the ship. A senior Navy official told NBC News that although senior officers up the chain of command were aware of the videos at the time, Honors and others were simply told to "knock it off" and there was apparently no formal disciplinary action taken.

The investigation was ordered Friday by Adm. John Harvey, the four-star head of the Navy's Fleet Forces Command, after the videos were detailed in The Virginian-Pilot. The paper also posted a link to some of the material, but edited it so that expletives were censored and some identities of junior Navy crew were disguised.

The Navy issued a statement Saturday, saying in part "production of videos, like the ones produced four to five years ago on USS Enterprise and now being written about in the Virginian-Pilot, were not acceptable then and are still not acceptable in today's Navy. The Navy does not endorse or condone these kinds of actions."

Although the Enterprise is scheduled to deploy within weeks, Navy officials say in light of the investigation it appears unlikely Honors will command the ship.