The Hedgehog Report – Phoenix Edition

The model of the sunken and deteriorated K-129 submarine. Image public domain

The year was 1968. The Soviets lost one of their nuclear subs, K-129, to an accident resulting in the deaths of the entire crew as they were crushed in the depths of the ocean as the sub sank to the bottom of the Pacific.

The Soviets launched a search for the lost vessel arousing suspicions in the American intelligence community that the Soviets had lost a ship.

At the time, Soviet thinking was that something lost in the deep ocean was simply gone and there was no way to find the precise location of the wreck, much less recover it.

They didn’t know that the USA was recording acoustic data in the northern Pacific, and upon studying the data found evidence of an implosion, on March 8, 1968, and that the precise location could be determined–and in fact by July of the same year the US Navy had located the wreck site and photographed it.

The idea of recovering an intact Russian sub stirred the imaginations of the US Defense Secretary and National Security Advisor, who proposed a clandestine plan to recover the wreckage.

Project Azorian.

A recovery vessel called the Glomar Explorer was built for this sole purpose of recovering the Soviet sub.

A “cover” was needed, and they used billionaire Howard Hughes, and they claimed the recovery ship was his, and was being built to mine manganese nodules from the ocean floor. The science program NOVA did an episode on it, unknowingly(?) pushing the ruse.

Finally after a few survey trips to the site, the recovery vessel arrived on the scene on July 4, 1974 to attempt the recovery.

It was later learned that the Soviets were suspicious about a salvage attempt and were monitoring the situation. The top brass in Russia did not believe such a salvage was possible.

The official results of the salvage was that during the lift, the claw used to grab the sub suffered a failure, resulting in two-thirds of the sub to break off and sink back to the bottom.

The claim is that 38 feet of the bow was successfully raised, including two nuclear torpedoes. Bodies of Soviet sailors were reburied at sea.

The entire operation was video recorded by the CIA, but it remains classified.

A Time Magazine reporter, Jack Anderson, leaked the story of the recovery, preventing any subsequent attempts at further missions to the site.

That was the official story. There have been numerous questions raised by all of this, with varying opinions as to what actually happened:

1) The official story is true.
2) The entire mission was itself a ruse, covering another unknown and still classified mission.
3) The mission was more successful than what has been suggested, and in fact the entire sub was recovered.
4) Only small artifacts were recovered, but the real mission was to take detailed photographs and measurements of the sub.
5) Other.

Here is a longer summary of the project:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian

Which option do you believe happened, from the above five choices?