
The CIA's most famous ship headed for the scrapyard - cryoshon
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-09-07/ship-built-cias-most-audacious-cold-war-mission-now-headed-scrapyard
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vcarl
> From about 1970-74, the CIA managed to convince the world that billionaire
> inventor Howard Hughes had decided to invest millions to mine “manganese
> nodules,” balls of heavy metals that lie on the ocean floor. Via fake press
> releases, events, technical specs and front companies, the CIA convinced the
> world that Hughes was leading a new ocean-mining rush.

This sounds exactly like James Cameron's astroid mining. I wonder if we'll
find out in 50 years that the CIA was recovering a Russian spaceship.

~~~
cryoshon
The most difficult task of discovering these charades is openmindedness.

Imagine, after all of the press releases and discussion around manganese
nodule harvesting, saying Howard Hughes wasn't interested in mining manganese
nodules at all, but sunken Russian ships. You'd be labeled as crazy. First
off, people would be asking where the heck you got the idea that something
along the lines of manganese nodules could actually be a cover story for the
CIA. Then, you'd be slammed for saying things counter to the mainstream
narrative. Finally, if you were somehow gaining a lot of traction (but how
could you! who even cares about recovering sunken Russian ships) you might get
a visit asking for your silence.

~~~
MichaelGG
Being openminded isn't much of a start though. How do you narrow down which
seemingly-normal things are really facades for something? How do you privilege
the hypothesis[1]?

If you were, in this case, claiming it was because the CI was looking for
Russian ships - what evidence do you have? Given enough conspiracy theories,
at least _one_ will be right. But that one right one shouldn't be accorded any
point if there was no reason to believe it over other ideas.

1:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/)

~~~
mirimir
In the 60s, there were many "conspiracy theories" about capabilities of US spy
satellites. Now we know: [http://www.space.com/13287-secret-spy-satellite-
designer-rev...](http://www.space.com/13287-secret-spy-satellite-designer-
reveals-lifes-work.html)

And CIA experiments with LSD. Virtually nobody took those stories seriously at
the time.

~~~
autobahn
the point is, the validity of particular conspiracy theories lends no
particular credence to others.

~~~
thaumaturgy
You're exactly right. Otherwise, this logic would lend support to, for
instance, the notion that the moon landings were faked, merely because other
conspiracies have turned out to be true. And nobody that's sane really thinks
the moon landings were faked, so we find that other conspiracies being true
doesn't really help with evaluating any given conspiracy.

Or maybe more succintly: we need more Edward Snowden and less Alex Jones.

~~~
hugh4
What we need is more people capable of entertaining an idea without
necessarily believing it. People who can acknowledge multiple possibilities
and put reasonable plausibility ratings on them without getting too
emotionally involved with any of them. People who can say "Yes, the widely
accepted story is probably true, but here's five or six low-probability
alternative possibilties."

~~~
mirimir
This!

This is one of the key skills that I got from my training in science. That and
literature research. And designing experiments. Getting emotionally attached
to some hypothesis is very dangerous. But on the other hand, sometimes the
hypothesis is OK, and it's the experimental design and technique that are
hosed.

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aembleton
I found this video of the burial of the soviet sailors incredibly respectful:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFWMo7aHDRo&noredirect=1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFWMo7aHDRo&noredirect=1)

~~~
pavel_lishin
I wonder how much of it was done as a hedge against the time when this would
eventually come out.

"Sure, we tried to steal your sunken sub. But look, we played nice."

~~~
Loic
No, this is part of the marine culture. It comes from the fact that the see is
the strongest, keeping everybody humble in face of nature.

~~~
samstave
Sea

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takinola
Once when I was offshore on a drill ship, I remember being utterly fascinated
when I read about the story of a CIA ship pretending to search for "manganese
nodules" but was in actual fact searching for sunken Russian submarines.

I almost blew my gasket when I realized the ship in question was the same one
I was sitting on at the time.

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pavel_lishin
Project Azorian was also featured in Charles Stross's "The Jennifer Morgue",
which takes this particular CIA mission and its cover, and wraps it in
something supernatural.

A+ read.

~~~
mindcrime
I enjoyed the heck out of _The Jennifer Morgue_ (like all the other Laundry
Files books) but - until now - had no idea any part of it was based on
something real. This is rather mind-blowing. Nice job by Mr. Stross, weaving
in some interesting real-world stuff into his quite fantastical world.

Now I'm going to feel the need to go back and re-read the rest of the Laundry
books and see if I can find any similar tie-ins.

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jonah
The secrecy following the attempt led to creation of the now widely known and
used Glomar Response: "We can neither confirm nor deny..."

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-
deny/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-deny/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response)

~~~
MBCook
That was my immediate thought when I saw the headline. I couldn't think of any
other ship the CIA could possibly be famous for.

And the only reason I know the term Glomar is because of that fantastic Radio
Lab episode.

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bubbleHead
The K-129 was diesel-powered:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_\(1960\))

The missiles were nuclear-tipped, though.

More reading:
[http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960)](http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_\(1960\))

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ChuckMcM
It would be incredibly cool if someone bought this ship and used it to
actually mine manganese nodules. Or alternatively create a vacuum for methane
clathrates. Park it next to Shell's new LNG ship, vacuum up a few billion cu
ft of natural gas.

For reference, the composition of Manganese Nodules:
[http://crustal.usgs.gov/geochemical_reference_standards/mang...](http://crustal.usgs.gov/geochemical_reference_standards/mangana1.html)

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baerga
I just love the root of the "neither confirm nor deny" terminology.

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whoopdedo
A similar thing happened when the USS Scorpion sunk. The Navy wanted to check
the wreckage and recover or destroy the nuclear warheads, but without tipping-
off the Soviets. So they hired Robert Ballard and had him use the cover story
of searching for the Titanic. That he actually found it was a nice bonus.

So remember not too long ago when James Cameron made a big deal about
exploring the Mariana Trench? Makes you wonder what else was down there that
we won't find out about for another 40 years.

~~~
ceejayoz
What? Ballard found the Titanic in 1985. Scorpion was found in 1968, by a Navy
ship as part of a public search.

 _edit:_
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080602-titan...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080602-titanic-
secret_2.html) says Ballard was involved in checking the nuclear reactors of
Scorpion and Thresher to make sure they were safe, but that was years after
their wrecks were found, and not nuclear warheads.

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samstave
Make sure to watch the documentary. It's amazing.

~~~
kelvin0
Which documentary? Do you happen to have a link? Sorry I was not able to infer
which one you mentionned

~~~
samstave
[http://m.imdb.com/title/tt2042455/](http://m.imdb.com/title/tt2042455/)

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brc
So what part of the submarine did they get? Or is that still classified?

