New Panasonic FF EVA2 NAB 2020 ???

[Doug Jensen]

The book on the Glomar Explorer is a great read. The most interesting part is how they built this thing out in the open (was it Long Beach? I can't remember) and kept a lid on its true purpose. The hows and whys and how close they came to having the secret purpose leaked is really interesting.

I've read a couple of books on the Glomar Explorer and in case anyone is interested in learning about this great story, I think the best one is "The taking of K129". The cover story during construction was that it was being built to mine manganese nodules from the floor of the ocean in 5000 meters of water in the north Pacific. The cover story held even while a Soviet ship shadowed them during most of the recovery of the submarine. Personally, I don't think the mission was a success as most of the sub broke free from the claw and could not be recovered. I think the parts that they got were of little value, but it is still a great story. They started to gear up for another attempt to get the rest of it that got away but the cover story fell apart before they could go again and so the mission was scrapped.

 

[Doug Jensen]

I think the master stroke of the entire Glomar Explorer escapade was the Howard Hughes coverstory. Get this larger than life character involved and then no matter how outlandish people just accept it because Howard Hughes. Fantastic.

The Howard Hughes involvement was more than just for a cover story. It was actually the only way they could fund the project by funneling covert funds into the project. You'd think the government could just write a check or do whatever they want with the money, but it's much more complicated than that and the accounting for construction costs, operation, and ownership of the ship had to be covered up as well and was in some ways harder than hiding the purpose of the ship. The bean counters always have to ruin all the fun.