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In the summer of 1974, one of the strangest ships ever built stood almost motionless in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The ship was about 620 feet long, and a According to its owner, billionaire Howard Hughes, the Hughes Glomar Explorer represented the future of deep-sea mining. The public was told that its goal was to collect valuable manganese nodules from thousands of feet underwater. But the mining operation was a cover, because more than 3 miles below the ship lay the wreckage of the K-129, a Soviet ballistic missile submarine that had disappeared 6 years earlier with nuclear weapons on board. The Soviet navy searched for it and couldn't find it, but the US discovered it. And now the Central Intelligence Agency was trying to do
something it had never done before. Hidden beneath the Glomar Explorer was a huge mechanical grappling device. If the CIA had managed to secure the wreckage and lift it, they could have gained access to Soviet missile technology and other closely guarded Cold War military secrets. But how did the United States manage to find a submarine that the Soviet Union itself could not find? How could someone lift thousands of tons from over 3 miles under the ocean? And what happened when the CIA finally closed its huge machine around the wreckage? Let's try to find out. Hi, I'm Mike Droberg, a Marine Corps veteran and filmmaker. And we will try to answer these questions in today's episode of "Forgotten History."
The beginning of the most difficult 26 days in Marine Corps history with conflicts in our armed forces. The 36th President of the United States died this afternoon. Tell their children and women here to cancel it. In February 1968, K-129 departed from the Soviet naval base of Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula. It was a submarine with ballistic missiles of the Golf-2 class. Despite being sometimes referred to as a Soviet nuclear submarine, the K-129 itself had a diesel- electric power plant. It carried three ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, capable of being launched while the boat was underwater. Its commander was Captain First Rank Volodymyr
Kobazar, and the crew consisted of approximately 98 people. On February 24, K-129 entered the North Pacific Ocean and headed for the patrol area northeast of Hawaii. This was part of the dangerous routine of the Cold War. American and Soviet submarines moved silently beneath the world's oceans, carrying weapons capable of destroying cities. Their value depended on remaining invisible. A nation could attack a missile silo or bomber bases, but finding every submarine somewhere under millions of square miles of ocean was much harder. Then, in March 1968, K-129 disappeared. Scheduled communications were missed, and the Soviet fleet launched a large-scale search. According to later US intelligence records, at least 53 aircraft
and 37 ships were ultimately involved. They found nothing. After about months, the search ended. K-129 and its crew disappeared in the Pacific Ocean. The reason for the submarine's sinking is still a matter of controversy. Among the proposed explanations are a mechanical malfunction, a weapons incident, and a collision with another submarine. US officials denied that an American submarine had hit the K-129, and subsequent photographs of the wreckage did not answer all the questions. A former US submarine officer who participated in the Azorian project claimed that the cause of death could have been
flooding through the snorkel system. The exact sequence of events that led to the destruction of K-129 remains unknown. For the Soviet fleet, one thing was obvious. The submarine disappeared. Moscow did not know that the United States was monitoring the situation, and US intelligence had something that the Soviet search teams did not. A much smaller area of ocean to search. The United States has developed sophisticated underwater surveillance systems capable of detecting and analyzing remote explosions, equipment operations, and other disturbances underwater. Data collected after the disappearance of K-129 helped US intelligence narrow down the area of possible
wreckage location. The Navy sent the Helibat, a specially modified reconnaissance submarine, to investigate. In August 1968, approximately 5 months after the disappearance of K-129, the Gelibat found the wreckage. They lay at a depth of about 16,500 feet beneath the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Now the United States knew where he was, while the Soviet Union had no idea the US had found him. The intelligence capabilities were obvious. The wreckage could have contained encryption equipment, sonar technology, anti-submarine warfare equipment, and nuclear warheads. The secret proposal for the US mission described the ship's lift as an opportunity to obtain information not available from any other source. But finding K-129 and raising it were
completely different tasks. The wreckage lay about 4,000 feet deeper than the Titanic. Divers couldn't get there. Conventional lifting methods were useless, and nothing like this had ever been attempted at such a depth before. Even if engineers designed a device capable of capturing debris, the operation would require a huge surface vessel, visible to anyone nearby. The problem was no longer simply how to raise the submarine. And how to do it without revealing the actions of the United States.
The answer was the Azorian project. This video is sponsored by Nola. Everyone says you should invest in yourself, but no one advises you to start with a mattress. That's exactly what I did when I chose Nola Evolution. I've been sleeping on it for a year now, and honestly, it's a huge improvement. I fall asleep faster, sleep longer, and wake up feeling much more refreshed. I also wake up with less pain than before. Nola is known for its cooling technology, pressure relief, and durability. Their mattresses are designed, assembled, and shipped from a factory in Arizona, without harmful chemicals or fiberglass. Delivery directly to your door is free. The mattress is rolled up in a box and its installation is quick and easy. You also get 365 nights of
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submarine to the surface. There was virtually no opportunity for a full-scale rehearsal. The real mission was to be a full-scale test. Everything had to work the first time. The engineering challenges were extraordinary. The created capture device weighed about 2,400 tons. The heavy-lift system aboard the ship was designed to handle a load of about 14 million pounds. Miles of pipes were to connect the ship to the mechanisms below under enormous weight. These pipes could stretch for dozens of feet. At the same time, the waves constantly raised and lowered the ship. If this motion were transmitted
directly to the pipe string, the forces could destroy the lifting system. Therefore, engineers developed a compensation system to isolate the lifting equipment from sea vibrations. Another problem arose. If K-129 really reached the surface, no one should have seen it near the ship's side. That's why the Glomar Explorer was built with a huge hole in the middle-a lunar pool. The capture device and everything it carried could be lifted directly into the ship. After that, the door under the ship could close. From the outside, other ships would only see an unusual mining vessel. And inside, CIA personnel could stand next to a Soviet
submarine with ballistic missiles. However, the ship itself could not be made invisible. The finished vessel, about 620 feet long, inevitably attracted attention. So instead of hiding the Glomar Explorer, the CIA decided to simply hide its true purpose. Howard Hughes provided the perfect cover. His companies were related to aviation, defense technology, film production, and ambitious engineering projects. Hughes himself was known for his secrecy and unusual projects. If he had announced that he was spending huge sums on an experimental vessel to extract minerals from the ocean depths, the idea would have sounded strange, but to Howard Hughes it was entirely possible. The cover-up legend was based on manganese nodules- mineral deposits on the seabed.
Commercial deep-sea mining was largely experimental at the time, so there was no established idea of what such a vessel should look like. It was extremely convenient. The huge mechanical gripping system could be mistaken for mining equipment. Miles of pipes looked quite logical. Almost every unusual detail required for a secret mission could be justified by a public purpose. Deception ceased to be just a newspaper story. It has turned into a plausible industrial project. Global Marine worked on the ship and its operation. Lockheed worked on the capture device, while Honeywell worked on the positioning and data processing systems.
Construction of the Hughes Glomar Explorer began at Sun Shipbuilding in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1971. By 1973, the ship arrived in Long Beach, California. There, in an example of near- perfect camouflage, a secret CIA submarine recovery ship Hughes's famous creations-a huge wooden airplane known as the Spruce Goose. The cover-up worked for years. Technical publications discussed the deepwater mining project. Commercial observers considered it legitimate, and US assessments found no evidence that the Soviet side understood the ship's true purpose. By the summer of 1974, after years of development, construction, and secrecy, only one crucial
test remained. Go out into the Pacific Ocean, lower the car, and see if it can actually lift the submarine. Glomar Explorer entered the Pacific Ocean on June 20, 1974, and reached the operation area on July 4. Nearly six years after the USS Halibut photographed K-129, engineers began assembling the lifting tubes and lowering the grabber under the ship. The operation was slow and complicated. And then the Soviet ships appeared. CIA planners had been waiting for this possibility. One Soviet ocean tug remained near the Glomar Explorer for about two weeks. Although other Soviet ships appeared during the mission, the rescue team continued its work.
The cover with the extraction seemed to work even as the capture system moved towards the Soviet submarine hidden at a depth of 3 miles. Eventually, the Soviet observers withdrew. The capture device continued its descent until it finally reached K-129. On the seabed, the task seemed simple. Place the grabber around K- 129, close it under the boat and lift it. In fact, the submarine was damaged and had been under a layer of sedimentary rocks for over six years. Later testimony from one of the Azorian project participants describes the final efforts to install a capture system around the debris as lasting about 10 hours. Then the climb began.
Thousands of tons hung beneath the Glomar Explorer while hydraulic systems compensated for the movement of the sea. Section by section, pipe by pipe, K-129 began to rise from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. For the first time since 1968, a Soviet submarine left the seabed. Engineers have already accomplished something extraordinary. But the most dangerous part wasn't so much grabbing the debris. The hardest part was holding them up during the three-mile climb. Halfway up the climb, something went wrong. The support sections of the capture device could not withstand it, and a large part of the K-129 broke away. After years of planning and
construction, the people aboard the ship could do nothing as they watched most of their target fall back into the abyss. But all was not lost. A smaller part remained inside the capture device. The crew continued the ascent and lifted the surviving debris to the Glomar Explorer's internal hangar. The doors under the ship closed. Hidden inside an American ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, there was now part of a Soviet ballistic missile submarine. According to later testimony from a participant , the surviving section was approximately 38 feet long. Its structure was badly damaged, and silt and ocean sediments were leaking from the wreckage. The people who entered the hangar were wearing protective gear, as initially no one could be
sure of the level of radioactive contamination. What exactly American intelligence managed to obtain remains one of the most controversial parts of the history of the Azorian project. Initial targets were cryptographic equipment, missiles, nuclear warheads, and other classified materials. But what the planners hoped for and what was raised are not the same thing. Captain Jack Newman, who participated in the inspection of the raised wreckage, later wrote that there was no cryptographic equipment or instructions that the planners had hoped to find. The CIA's public history takes a broader stance, arguing that
the operation did not achieve all of its objectives but nevertheless contributed to the US understanding of the However, there was one find whose importance had nothing to do with intelligence. The remains of six Soviet sailors were found in the raised section. Mission planners had anticipated this possibility and had already decided that any remains should be treated with respect. Returning them directly to the Soviet Union would expose the entire operation. Therefore, the six sailors were buried at sea aboard the Glomar Explorer with military honors. The Glomar Explorer successfully raised part of the K-129, but most of the target
still remained on the ocean floor, so preparations began for a new attempt. This time, the CIA knew that the system was capable of reaching the wreckage. But even before the first mission set sail, something had already happened in Los Angeles that ultimately made a second attempt at ascent impossible. Theft. In June 1974, shortly before the Glomar Explorer set sail for the Pacific Ocean, a group of armed robbers broke into an office associated with, they used cutters to break into the safes and filing cabinets. Among the stolen materials were documents linking Hughes, the CIA, and the Glomar Explorer. The CIA wanted to return the materials, but that meant involving other law enforcement agencies. The FBI and the
Angeles Police Department were involved in the case. Each additional attempt to return the classified document risked drawing more attention to the secret within it. In late 1974, journalists began hearing rumors that Hughes's vessel was doing something much more interesting than collecting rocks from the seabed. CIA Director William Colby personally asked some reporters not to publish what they knew. For a while, the story was kept secret. But on February 7, 1975, she floated out . The Los Angeles Times published an article linking the robbery, Howard Hughes, the CIA, and the submarine operation. Journalists flocked to Long Beach, where the Glomar Explorer was being prepared for another mission. On March 18, syndicated columnist
Jack Anderson took the story nationally. The Azorian project was no longer secret in any meaningful sense. The Ford administration faced a strange problem. Confirming the reports would mean admitting that the United States had secretly raised part of a Soviet submarine. Categorical denial created its own problems. So the government chose a different way to respond. He neither confirmed nor denied these reports. The phrase "neither confirm nor deny" would later become a common government response when the mere admission of information could reveal something secret.
By the summer of 1975, the Soviet Union realized what the Glomar Explorer was really doing and began monitoring the crash site. The White House canceled further lifting operations. The CIA never returned for the rest of K-129. The Azorian project required years of intelligence work, the involvement of Howard Hughes, and an elaborate commercial cover-up. Most of the boat fell off during the ascent, and some of the intelligence the CIA was looking for apparently remained unobtainable. The Soviet Union also never recovered the remains of the sunken ship. In the end, the secret was revealed not because Soviet intelligence discovered the mechanism under the Glomar Explorer. It began to unravel after robbers stole papers from an office in Los Angeles.
The robbers were never identified or caught. The CIA hid the purpose of one of the strangest ships ever built, but ultimately failed to cover the paper trail. However, as an engineering achievement, the Azorian project was extraordinary. Almost nothing like this has ever been attempted at such a depth. Almost two decades later, in 1992, one final chapter of the Azorian project appeared. CIA Director Robert Gates traveled to Moscow and met with Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Gates revealed that a section of K-129 raised in 1974 contained the remains of six Soviet sailors.
He gave Yeltsin a video recording of the burial ceremony, showing how the bodies of the sailors were returned to the sea with military honors, as well as the Soviet naval flag used during the ceremony. After the meeting, Yeltsin spoke warmly of Gates, describing him as an intelligent and highly professional person. Around the same time, Yeltsin posthumously awarded the Medal for Courage to all 98 sailors who died aboard the K-129. For almost 25 years, the families of these sailors knew only that their loved ones had disappeared somewhere under the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The mission, which secretly raised part of their submarine from the ocean floor, also provided burial for six of them. The Glomar Explorer eventually left the
exploration world. Ironically, a ship built around a fictional mining operation later conducted real deep-sea mining trials before being converted into a deep-sea oil drilling vessel. After decades of service, it was decommissioned and dismantled for scrap metal in 2015. But questions still remain. How much useful intelligence information was obtained from K-129? Was the result worth such extraordinary expense and risk? And if an entire ship and a fictitious mining operation could be created around a single secret mission, what other Cold War operations remain unknown? Share your thoughts on the Azorian project in the comments below.
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