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We're Going To Need A Bigger Boat · Deep Secrets

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so remember last episode when I told you that random story about my grandpa giving me those charts to give to my marine bio teacher?
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think on and I just figured out why he gave me that what the fuck look.
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner that it never occurred to me to maybe I don't know look up when those missions would have occurred or what they entailed.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm kind of shaking right now.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so according to this, the Mariana Trench and its deepest point were first explored and charted by the trieste and the deep sea challenger and that mission left Southern California in October 1959 for Guam.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, and you know, Grandpa was living in SoCal at the time, and that he worked in Guam.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and in 1960, the trius literally touched down at the bottom of the Challenger deep, and the Challenger deep is like the deepest point of the ocean, like on Earth, the deepest point.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: Jesus, oh, okay, it says here, it's 35,800 feet deep.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you put Mount Everest in there, the top of Everest was still be 6,700 feet underwater.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's not a place, humans are supposed to be.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: No.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And not our grandpa at all.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is deeper than a commercial airliner flies.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the pressure on every square inch of the tree stay was twice the amount of weight of two armored humvees.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you kidding?
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are the chances of him giving you that map, and this checking out on a timeline?
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: That is what a fucking flex to just hand those over to me to unknowingly hand over to a high school marine bioteacher?
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's wild.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's insane.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: Man, grandpa was a boss.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is actually a huge breadcrum because up until now, there's been this massive blank in the timeline.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: All we really know was that he moves to California 1950 and then something like 15 years later, he's suddenly working for a company mining minerals from the ocean.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's a wild jump with almost zero context.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: But this helps fill in the gap.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: Now we know that after casually charting and exploring the deepest part of the planet, just a light hobby, the tree state gets upgraded and fully outfitted back and so count.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in 1963, it sent back out with a glow-up and a new sexier name, the Trius II.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And its mission was to search for the USS Thresher by charting and photographing the North Atlantic.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: The Thresher, by the way, was a missing U.S. nuclear submarine.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: And here's why this is insane.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: While they're out there looking for the Thresher, they accidentally find something else, something huge, something that was never supposed to sink.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: They find the wreckage of the Titanic.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: Hi, before we dive in, I just wanted to say if you're new here, welcome to Deep Secrets.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Hunter Hill, and alongside my sister, Kaylan, we've been unraveling this unbelievable true story of our grandfather's secret life with the CIA.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: What started as a family mystery has turned into an investigation involving Cold War espionage, a sunken Soviet submarine, and a whole lot of questions we never thought we'd be asking.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: So if you haven't already, please follow or subscribe to Deep Secrets wherever you're listening to this.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's the easiest way to make sure you don't miss an episode as we continue uncovering this story.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And if you're enjoying the show, leaving us a rating or review, genuinely helps more people discover the show.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: You can follow our show at Deep Secrets Pod, online DeepSecrets Pod.com, and of course, you can always find me on social media at Hunter Hill Comedy.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Alright, let's get into it.
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, this Titanic thing is blowing my mind.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe we've traded positions and you're the one who needs to touch grass though.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I didn't know New York had its cold snap already.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I guess it makes sense when you think about it.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, of course, the military would have a reason to spend the money to chart the ocean, but but why would anyone spend that kind of money to maybe find an old ship?
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, those dots do kind of like perfectly align with that mission, and we know that he charted the Mariana trench, and that they did find the Titanic looking for the U.S. assessor.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we also don't have like necessary proof that he was on there, I happen in 1985.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: But there was also only like a handful of people probably that were capable of having that knowledge and information in order to do that.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not completely implausible, but you know, I get like the recognition of being crazy, so I'm going to be skeptical on that.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: How many other discoveries were made by the military and then passed on years later as scientific ones?
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's crazy to think about if like Grimba actually worked on that boat that there was even more things that he had to keep secret about.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: Kiln and I were lucky enough to sit down with our friend and comedian Ron Funches to talk about all this.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's wild.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was like a relief to find out that he was in the CAA during this time period and it wasn't like he was late.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: not trying to, like, suppress civil rights or so, like that.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, wrong.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, wrong.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for asking.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, if we found out he was, like, on MK Old Church, and then he tried to underprivileged communities.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: No podcast.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's what I was talking about.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's what I was talking about.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's okay that Jim had some secret.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so the U.S. had lost a submarine, so I guess Russia losing the K-129 wasn't a first or last.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: In fact, in 1968, Russia, the U.S. Israel and France all acknowledged losing submarines.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: It became known as the Year of the Lost Submarine.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: I guess, in very specific, tight circles of people, which is still terrifying that weapons like that can just go missing.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let that sink in, weapons like that.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: can just disappear, which brings us right back to the CIA, literally one day after ordering everyone out of global marine task Curtis Crook one question, the three CIA agents return, the mouthpiece in the middle with thing one and thing two right by side.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: They ask Crook if he had time to think about their question any further.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: And Crook said, yeah, I think it's a Russian sub, and I think it's possible.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Aaron Gasky replied with a simple, good, I'll get some papers drawn up, sign them, then, and only then, I'll tell you everything else.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like, what are the chances of all these timeline things adding up and him not being involved in all of this, you know?
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like, how is this, like, dad and his brothers and sisters just don't seem to like have a clue about how epic and top secret all this was?
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, like, what does dad think grandpa did for work?
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: Should we...
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: She would just call and ask, I don't think we should mention the CIA or anything, not until we have more, but we could just see what he says when we ask about what he did for work.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, sure, let's do it.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 7:24
  [UNKNOWN]: Okay.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Hey, Dad, I'm here with Keanu.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Can you hear me?
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: Hey, we were wondering, what did Grandpa Jim do for work?
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: For Global Marines, he was first made on the Walmart Explorer.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: What does that mean exactly?
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, we really didn't know.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Come here, we just, you know, we really didn't have at the time a reason that.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you guys all just chalked up what he did to, that he worked on ships and that he was gone along?
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: You're sure it was a global marine that he worked for?
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: We went to global marine company, picnics.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: How long would he be out for at a time?
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do you be gone for long periods of time?
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: Five months, sometimes, six months, sometimes more.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wow, and he never told you where he was going?
• 8:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, he wouldn't ever talk about what he was doing.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: At some point, we were told that this ship was mapping the floor of the ocean.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: That was our understanding what were your kids.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's all you guys know.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: that are you eating a salad?
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you guys have enough, I need to get back to work.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you guys could see the grinch-like grins on our faces right now, but okay, so I guess the chances of grimp on not being involved are pretty close to zero.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd say, yeah, we're gonna have to think about how we're gonna tell dad about this.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a great idea.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's going to think we're fucking with him.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Or high.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Or that we're high and fucking with him.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then he might cry.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Historically, the United States of America has had a significant advantage over its enemies.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: That isn't derived from an arsenal or military spending budget.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: It is the belief in the mission.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: For the most part, in broad strokes, being in thinking that we are on the right side of the story.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is why, after World War II, many of the world's top scientists and minds defected to America and in the aftermath of defeating the Nazis and the Axis, they began inventing and revolutionizing the way that we saw the world.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: For instance, the U2, the CIA spy plane, completely revolutionized the way that we were able to map the world and fly so high that from its cockpit, you can see the curvature of the Earth.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: before it mapping was more of an approximation.
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: So while Russia was working with an approximate 30-mile range of where the submarine could have been, we had it down to four.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Another one of those advancements was the Navy's system of hydrophones, a network of underwater sonar buoys working as a mesh network communicating across each other.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: Imagine the ocean is one big group chat, there's whales, waves, cargo ships, now imagine if the Navy found a way to silence everything in the chat except for submarines.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: So when the K-129 hit the bottom of the ocean, that's how we heard it.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's a line from the hunt for Ed Octobre where Sean Connery is giving this speech to his crew right before they embark on their mission.
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: He essentially says that it used to be that explosions and firepower is what used to scare our enemy, but now it is our silence that haunts them.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's very true.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Together, YouTube and the Hydrophones showed how Cold War Spying worked.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was no explosions or boots on the ground just terrifying surveillance endeavors.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Either above you or below you, they were gone before you even knew they were there.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: You don't hear fighter jets until they've flown by, our new drones and their cameras don't make a peep.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not familiar with any of what Space Force is up to, but it seems just about everything worth being scared of wouldn't give you a heads up until it was too late.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Submarines are still some of the scariest things ever built.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: They can carry payloads larger than entire nation's arsenals.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Modern nuclear subs can run for months, sometimes years, without needing to surface except for food and water.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: They're quiet.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: nearly impossible to detect, and they can go practically anywhere.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's water.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Back in the Pacific, Russia insisted nothing was wrong.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: While almost constant Russian traffic flooded the area, either in the air or on sea, surrounding where they thought the K-129 might have been.
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: All other Russians persistently assured us and the world that nothing had gone lost.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: Nothing was missing.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: The U.S. had experienced in trying to locate lost submarines of their own, but trying to hunt down an enemy submarine laying somewhere on the ocean floor while your enemy was looking for it as well, that made things a little more complicated.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's about the time that the CIA let the Navy know that they were going to need to borrow a submarine that could go much deeper.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: enter the halibut.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: A vintage 1959 nuclear submarine that could dive deeper than most.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: And after a quick overall from the CIA, it was outfitted with a two-ton robotic fish complete with cameras, strobes, sonar, and radar.
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: I wish we had a clip of exhibit doing a CIA version of PIMP-My Ride here.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I know you love robotic fish, so I put a TV in it.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: The halibut's crew had just returned to Pearl Harbor when the U.S. became aware of all the unusual Russian traffic a thousand miles off the coast of Hawaii.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: So the halibut's crew was sent back out with a cryptic mission, just take pictures.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Just take pictures with your special issue, robotic fish.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: Millions had been spent trying to develop these cameras to operate in deep sea ocean environments where virtually no light existed.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: The halibut's robotic fish was controlled remotely through miles of available cabling and the halibut patrolled the area in question, they moved slowly, quietly, making sure not to make a single noise that may alert any of the Russian boats and subs in the area.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: The halibut took over 20,000 pictures, almost all of them rendering nothing but darkness and rock.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: Every now and then a photo would reveal a creature that hadn't been documented before.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Imagine taking 20,000 photos, having no idea what you're actually looking for.
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: But you're also accidentally discovering new species of sea life, and you have no idea that you're tiptoeing around a sunken Russian sub-holding nuclear warheads that could just be waiting to go off.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: You and your team can see all of the Russian movement in the water above you through the sonar, and your entire team is doing their absolute best not to make a single noise so that your submarine doesn't pop up on theirs.
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: Over 20,000 photos of darkness, and then all of a sudden, you take your next photo.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: And there it is.
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: And without having any mission directive or being told what you're looking for in the Russian invested waters, you ready to up to your commanding officer with one message?
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: We found what we're looking for.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, Keel, and so the halibut crew is able to photograph Russia's missing sub, then what happens?
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's actually pretty badass, so the halibut returns to the port in Pearl Harbor, and the film is immediately handcuffed to the rest of a man in a black suit, who then gets into a black limo, and that man flies directly to the Oval Office.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the film comes off his wrist and his hand delivered to President Lyndon B. Johnson.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, shit, okay, so big deal.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: yeah, for sure.
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Lyndon B. Johnson, at this time, is kind of at the end of his term.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Nixon is going to be the guy coming in, but Lyndon is like really, really excited about all this information, but he's, you know, hesitant to pull the plug on the mission because Nixon could come in and scrap it all, wasting a bunch of tax dollars.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so years back, Russia had actually stolen one of our ships in a proxy way with North Korea and it was called the USS Playblow.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Nixon in his presidential campaign claimed that something like that would have never happened under his watch.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this really seemed like a perfectly gift-rapped opportunity to not only get even, but one of Russia in a really big way.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, but wouldn't that kind of mission go to the Navy?
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: Why would this CIA be handed the keys to something like this?
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because of security level?
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, no, it was because its EIA didn't have checks and balances the same way the other branches of defense did.
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the CIA had just proven with the YouTube spy plane that they could get things fucking done.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if the Air Force would have created or invented that plane, they would have to submit plans to go through the proper channels.
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where the CIA just built the first of its kind aircraft in just one year.
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Fuck.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, okay.
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: Wait, that's crazy.
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Wow, okay.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: So no matter how they were going to go about this stealing the submarine thing, they didn't want to waste time getting anyone's approval.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, pretty much.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: So the CIA confirms the location of the Russian sub then rushes to team up with Curtis Cook and global marine and what try to steal it.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, couldn't they just have divers lower down to selectively take pictures and grab what they need?
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I mean at that depth, the pressure would crush you, and there was no telling if the war heads were exposed or leaking, especially like they needed to find a way to steal the entire thing and bring it into an environment where it would be safe enough to explore.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, ships and rucks have been retrieved before, but the K129 was four times deeper than any other attempt made, so the summary was like 4,000 feet deeper than the Titanic, so scuba divers or a makeshift submersible for billionaires was never going to cut it.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Man, thank you for being the one to go deep on the investigating here between my standard material and my dad brand I don't think I'd ever be able to keep all these details straight things.
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm drawing as hard as I can I feel like I'm kind of losing my mind sometimes Yeah, you don't look great.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like one more sleepless night of research I'm gonna start looking like the chick from the ring for sure.
• 17:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay Hey, uh why
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, why spend all this money to go through all this trouble to find a Russian submarine that the Soviets were desperately assuring everyone wasn't there?
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, for starters, yes, Russia was telling everyone they hadn't lost anything, but also there were constantly sending out ships and planes to patrol an area where a sub might go missing.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there were telling one story while other actions just completely told another.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: But also, capturing the K-129 would be like the ultimate Intel grab in a few ways, like, okay, so grabbing the on-board codes, essentially like their secret translator for de-corrupted messaging, would be like hacking the enemy and being able to read all of their classified conversations past and present.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the US is actually able to pull this off during World War II, which a pan, and the press even leaked it in the L.A. times, but thankfully, I guess the Japanese Intel community were more of a Washington Post crowd.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Also, I'm sure the same way we were making big strides in engineering with the U2, we probably had zero idea how the Soviets were making their weapons and war machines.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, exactly.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the Soviet submarine engineering was also a complete mystery.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: So studying the design of it would let the US know exactly what they were up against, and you know, honestly maybe even copy some ideas.
• 18:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: Not to mention the nuclear warhead.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And being able to reverse engineer them and understand how the enemy built their nuclear weapons would just be a psychotic game changer.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, if they could somehow pull this off, it would be the biggest intelligence high-studded ever happened certainly in the Cold War, but honestly, maybe ever.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, that's why the CIA went full mission and possible in finding a plan to retrieve it.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, do you think Grandpa was Tom Cruise?
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: No, to talk.
• 19:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Our country is allowed to just take other countries' submarines like is that legal?
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, it's probably not, but since Russia was so loud about them not losing a submarine, it meant that the U.S. had legal ground to claim that they weren't taking anything that belonged to anyone.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like essentially we could legally spin it off like a deep sea beach cleanup.
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so how do you steal something that heavy without breaking or jeopardizing anything inside?
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: while your enemy is also looking for it.
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, did this all start out in a conference room with someone saying something like, okay, guys, let's throw them out there.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: No such thing as a bad idea.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, by like conference room, you mean probably like a secret room in the Pentagon, then yeah.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so secret the Papa John's trucker wouldn't have bought it.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: The CIA pitched crook on some straight up crazy sounding ideas, like using underwater balloons filled with gas, which is essentially borrowing from the logic of the Titanic pitch of filling it up with ping pong balls.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, yeah, it's all really ridiculous.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: But sometimes in life, the people who look at the impossible and throw out the crazy shit are the people crazy enough to actually get it done.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, ping pong balls and gas balloons sound like a joke, but what they actually decided to go with doesn't read any better on a crazy meter either.
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Why, what did they land on?
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know those arcade qualities?
• 20:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I was doing with my hands.
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: Literally, that's what was in my hands.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: I was like, oh my god, so it's a boat and a thing and a trap door and then there's a little thing.
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: How many quarters did it take?
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: A lot of quarters.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of, a lot of sex, a lot of quarters.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair, I still think it's a step up from raising the Titanic with ping pong balls.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so how does that even work?
• 21:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: The country's greatest minds assemble and what they come up with is underwater claw machine?
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: So now the question, now the mission is, how do you build a massive pinpoint accurate claw that can be secretly deployed at sea?
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Is capable of lifting 5.4 million pounds?
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: can be lowered three miles deep into the ocean through steel cabling, without anyone specifically Russia, seeing or noticing a submarine that isn't supposed to exist, being taken from right under the enemy's nose.
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: Hey, thanks for listening to this week's episode.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Be sure to follow Ron Funches Online and catch him on the road when he comes to a Sydney near you, and if you want more Ron, which I'm sure you do, you can watch our full length video interview with him exclusively as part of our deep secret sub-stack community.
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: This series is hosted by myself Hunter Hill, my sister Kaelan Hill, and is a nothing to see here production.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Executably produced by Hunter Hill, Kaelan Hill, Ed dosic, and produced by Jess Sonnumfeld-Jalice.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: The video interviews were produced by Kita Mascaro, and if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to follow the podcast, leave us a review, and subscribe wherever you are listening.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: It really does make a huge difference, and helps other people discover the story.
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: You can also join our sub-stack community for exclusive content, including source documents, extended celebrity interviews behind the scenes updates, and much more.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: and one last thing, every episode that will be coming out as either been recorded in my tiny home office or running and running it while out on the road.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: So thank you so much for being here as my sister and I unravel this crazy story.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: Hope this year next week as we dive even deeper into this secret.