The Mysterious Disappearance of 4 Submarines Around the World: Mystery or Mystery of 1968?
The Mystery of Disappearance. 1968. Over the course of 12 months, four submarines from four countries—Israel, France, the USSR, and the USA—disappeared with all their crews. In different oceans. Under different circumstances. To this day, no explanation has fully resolved the mystery.
318 people went under.
January 25 — The Israeli "Dakar" disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea between Crete and Cyprus. 69 people were missing. The search for the submarine lasted 31 years.
Two days later, on January 27, the French "Minerve" disappeared near Toulon. 52 people were missing. The commander's last message: he heard "strange sounds following the submarine" and was planning to dive to investigate. After that, contact was lost. The search for the submarine lasted 51 years.
March 8 — The Soviet K-129 lost contact near Hawaii. 98 people, three nuclear missiles. Six years later, the Americans secretly raised part of it from the seabed—the CIA's Operation Jennifer. The world only learned what they found inside 40 years later.
May 22—The American nuclear-powered Scorpion disappeared in the Atlantic off the Azores. Ninety-nine people were missing. She was returning from a secret mission.
Coincidence? The Cold War? Secret underwater duels? Or something that still hasn't been named? In this investigation, you will learn:
Why four countries are losing a submarine each in five months—the first time in peacetime
What the Minerve's commander heard before diving
How a Palestinian fisherman found the Dakar's buoy a year after it disappeared
What the CIA hid for 40 years in Operation Jennifer
Journalist Ed Offley's version of the "secret underwater duel"
Why the Americans had the Soviet coordinates for the Scorpion's sinking
What unites all four disasters, technically and politically
The story is based on documents from the Israeli, French, and US navies, materials from Operation Jennifer, Ed Offley's book "Scorpion on the Bottom," the testimony of Admiral Zubkov, and an interview with Esther Raanan, the widow of the Dakar's commander.
Esther waited 31 years for her husband. She said in an interview: "I couldn't get married again. I wasn't divorced. I wasn't a widow. I was nobody."
This statement applies to all the relatives of all four disasters of 1968. For decades, they were nobodies.
00:00 — DISAPPEARED FROM RADAR
00:51 — ONE YEAR — FOUR BOATS
06:35 — WHAT IS "DAKAR"
12:01 — THIRTY-ONE YEARS OF SEARCH
19:45 — WHAT WAS FOUND AND HOW SHE DIED
28:02 — "MINERVE" — AND STRANGE SOUNDS
36:27 — K-ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE
43:47 — "SCORPION" — AND THE VERSION OF A RETURN STRIKE
52:13 — PATTERN OR COINCIDENCE
59:40 — THOSE WHO WAITED
01:06:52 — WHAT REMAINS UNANSWERED
01:12:54 — FINAL
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