Updated coordinates - 1/4/2003
The secret mission of the (Hughes) Glomar Explorer was to raise
a Soviet nuclear submarine that had sunk in the Pacific, resting on
the ocean floor nearly 17,000 feet below. After months of futile
searching by Soviet vessels, it became apparent that only the US
knew the location of the sunken submarine.
With financing from Howard Hughes, Global Marine supervised
construction of the Glomar Explorer, and operated it from 1973 to
1975 under contract to the US government. Glomar Explorer went to
sea on June 20, 1974, under the cover of a deep-sea mining
operation, found the sub, and began to bring a portion of it to the
surface. An accident during the lifting operation caused the
fragile hull to break apart, resulting in the loss of a critical
portion of the submarine, its nuclear missles and crypto codes.
However, according to other accounts, material recovered included
three nuclear missles, two nuclear torpedoes, the ship's code
machine, and various code books.
The Los Angeles Times broke the story in February 1975, and by
March 1975 numerous news stories linked the Hughes Glomar Explorer,
a ship publicly listed as a research vessel owned and operated by
Summa Corporation, and the secret US government operation.
The ship has since been converted to support oil drilling in the
Gulf of Mexico.
In order to log this virtual cache, please
email your answer to this question -
Who was the builder of the item on display, and what
material did they use?
Please do not include your answer in the logs, even if it is
encrypted.
I recommend an evening or weekend visit to the cache,
due to its exact location.