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2025-09-02 Home Front: Politix

US wanted to hide secret mission from USSR while searching for Titanic – oceanologist

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Posted by badanov 2025-09-02 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [1781 views ] Top

1 The rest of us heard about this 20 years ago.

Posted by ed in texas 2025-09-02 07:53|| 2025-09-02 07:53|| Front Page Top

2 Then there was Howard Hughes' Glomar Explorer and the recovery of USSER sub, under cover of deep sea mining...

Posted by Glenmore 2025-09-02 11:57|| 2025-09-02 11:57|| Front Page Top

3 under cover of deep sea mining

A cover story so successful that world + dog freaked out that the wretched Americans were going to corner the world's supply of undersea magnesium nodules and directly led to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The ensuing hubbub was quite amusing given that previously no one had given a poot about mining metals on the seafloor because it was just too damn deep to work.

The recovery of the Russian sub, Project Azorian to the CIA, is quite the tale. Nobody had marine salvage experience at 16,000 feet, so it was time to invent the Glomar Explorer. It mostly worked. The sub was raised kinda sorta intact but parts broke off during the lift and some of the lifting grapples failed.

The recovery was successful, even though they did not raise the submarine intact and at one point during the lift, a missile slid out of its tube and everyone had to stand around waiting until it hit bottom to see if they were going to die in a nuclear explosion.

Posted by SteveS 2025-09-02 16:15|| 2025-09-02 16:15|| Front Page Top

4 SteveS - we are TOLD some of the grapples failed and key parts of the sub were lost.....

Posted by Glenmore 2025-09-02 16:55|| 2025-09-02 16:55|| Front Page Top

5 The 2020 Muse Entertainment documentary The Real Hunt for Red October claims that the story of Red October is based on the loss of Soviet submarine K-129, which was lost in 1968, and recovered by 1974's Project Azorian.Wikipedia

Posted by Bobby 2025-09-02 17:27|| 2025-09-02 17:27|| Front Page Top

6 ^ Good point, Glenmore! Luckily, they managed to salvage Capt. Ramius.

Posted by SteveS 2025-09-02 21:10|| 2025-09-02 21:10|| Front Page Top

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