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Heavy Lifting · Deep Secrets

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_08]: So, my grandfather was the first officer on a ship called the Glomar Explorer.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_08]: But first, I want to talk to you about the Freedom of Information Act, past 1966.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_08]: meant to help hold the government accountable.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_08]: A.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_08]: Hey Uncle Sam, show me your receipts kind of vibe.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_08]: A law that allows people to ask the government specific questions and in theory, the government is then legally required to oblige.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_08]: Journalists use it.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_08]: Historians use it.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_08]: People who think there is an underground lizard army use it.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_08]: The catch, being that the government, is able to, A, sharpie out what they deem to be confidential, B take months to respond to you and C completely redact and never truly release the Epstein files.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_08]: The Freedom of Information Act is one of the reasons that it feels like sometimes history is being unwritten.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_08]: Cover stories, whether away and eventually the government will tell you what it once
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_08]: But what is the CIA supposed to do when they just can't answer a FOIA or a freedom of information act response?
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_08]: What if something is so top secret?
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_08]: There shouldn't even be files for them to sharp you out to begin with.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_08]: What do you do when you can't answer those files don't exist because they do?
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_08]: But when you can't say yes, because the repercussions might kick off World War 3, that's why the CIA loared up to invent the most foolproof 100% legal way to never answer your question.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_08]: We can neither confirm nor deny.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_08]: a legal phrase with a permanent place in pop culture featured prominently in mission impossible the James Bond franchise and marbles the Avengers.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_08]: Even high schoolers use it when claiming that their eyes aren't bloodshot and they don't wreak of weed.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_08]: In 2014, the CIA's first tweet on Twitter was we can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_08]: We can neither confirm nor deny.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_08]: A bureaucratic phrase that loosely translates to, hey, fuck off.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_08]: Arguably, one of the most famous legal phrases in history, and its name, the Glomar Response.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_08]: Hi, before we dive in, I just wanted to say if you're new here, welcome to Deep Secrets.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_08]: I'm Hunter Hill, and alongside my sister, Kalen, we've been unraveling this unbelievable true story of our grandfather's secret life with the CIA.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_08]: 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.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_08]: So if you haven't already, please follow or subscribe to Deep Secrets wherever you're listening to this.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's the easiest way to make sure you don't miss an episode as we continue uncovering this story.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_08]: And if you're enjoying the show, leaving us a rating or reviewed, genuinely helps more people discover the show.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_08]: You can follow our show at Deep Secrets Pod, online Deep Secrets Pod.com, and of course, you can always find me on social media at Hunter Hill Comedy.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_08]: All right, let's get into it.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_08]: Um, get directions going.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_08]: Google Maps take us to the Pentagon.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_08]: All right.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_08]: OK. That's the weirdest thing I've ever put in my Google Maps.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: How are you feeling about this?
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_08]: How am I feeling about going to the Pentagon?
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_08]: I'm nervous, and you know, because we're
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_08]: making a podcast about secrets and we're not allowed to bring any phones or electronics in, so if they pack this, no one would ever know.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_08]: No, I'm not worried about it being the bag.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's why our dynamic is fun and different.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_08]: Of all the doors, I thought stand-up comedy might someday open for me.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_08]: The Pentagon was never one of them.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's a fun weekend, I was excited, Kailin took the train down from New York because I have five shows at the DCM-Proffs.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: You guys were talking about conspiracy theories earlier.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: Which one of you's job?
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, thank you for your service, man.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know that you serve because you got to take our cash, you know.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: Did you serve?
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: Selective services.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_08]: Selective services.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_08]: What does that mean?
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: I set up for the job.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_08]: See, you were born?
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_08]: Is that how that went?
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_08]: You just haven't moved the Canada yet.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_08]: Thank all of us for our service and being, you just pay taxes.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: The trip was off to a great start.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_08]: Originally, we were just going to check out the spy museum, do some research out in about.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Then I found a business card in my backpack, left over for my last USO tour with the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_08]: The Vice Chairman I was with retired in September of 2025, but he was the longest serving member of our military.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_08]: Essentially, the Vice Chairman is only outranked by two people, the Chairman, and the President of the United States.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_08]: Anyway, through a Hail Mary email sent to someone whose real-life business card says Special Agent, Kiana and I have now spent a day exploring the Pentagon and we didn't even have to sign a press restriction agreement for going all of our civilian privileges.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_08]: Spoiler alert, there are lots of weird posters of headset posts as Uncle Sam, all of them say I want you to use AI.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I was like, hey, Hagseth, I won't you out of my fucking life.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_08]: Fiona and I have weirdly been in a room with him once, and I literally had to physically pull down her arms that were brandishing middle fingers.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_06]: Yes, you did.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_08]: Just to be clear, we were at a retirement ceremony for the vice chairman.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_08]: I was lucky enough to do the USO tour with, just don't want any of you thinking that we go to clan meetings or that Kallen is into really bad tattoos.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: No, but seriously, I would never like voluntarily share air with that man.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_08]: Look, I get it.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_08]: I do not like heggseth, I hate him, I hate his politics, but I will say at that retirement ceremony he made a joke, and without me telling my body to do anything, I'd laughed.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_06]: Oh my god, you should be embarrassed.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_08]: I am.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_06]: Sure.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, back on track.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_06]: So the Pentagon, the hallways are lined with trophies and military accomplishments of our nation's history.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_06]: And through the Malker countries taught brass the most decorated service members, all of them with missions of the utmost importance, and all of them with secrets.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_08]: And not just like infidelity or something, we mean like national secrets.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_08]: Though from what we've learned from grandpa, infidelity could have been in there too.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was crazy walking through the halls of the Pentagon, just knowing that this is where Grandpa's mission started.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_08]: And it turns out we weren't the only ones diving into our family's past.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_08]: There was another guy in our small group who had been to the Pentagon before when he was seven years old in the 70s, where his dad brought him to see a jetpack get tested.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_08]: tucked away on the fifth floor behind an unmarked door that can easily be been staked for coke closet, lies, narrow.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_08]: The National Underwater Reconnaissance Office, so classified, its existence would remain unknown for decades, erased from defense department records and official organizational charts, and a literal desk would John Pergnoski's name on it.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_06]: OK, so think of U.S. intelligence, like trying to keep tabs on the world, but from literally every angle.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_06]: The National Recon Office, NRO, is basically like the eyes of the sky, or space technically.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_06]: So they specialize in launching and running these super advanced satellites that orbit the Earth, while they're super quietly collecting information.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_06]: So if something important is happening anywhere on the planet,
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_06]: the NRO is like, no worries.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_06]: We can most definitely see what's going on from above.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_06]: It's all very high tech, very Google or the classified.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_06]: But the National Underwater Recon Office, which is referred to as NRO, is a name people used for underwater espionage.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_06]: It's kind of the opposite direction.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_06]: So instead of looking down from space, it's about snooping around underwater.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_06]: So you can kind of think submarines under water sensors and tech the operates in the deep ocean.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_06]: Resatellites are probably useless, honestly.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_06]: And if something sneaky is happening under the sea, this would be the office that covers it.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_06]: So in very simple terms, NRL is what is going on up there.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_06]: NRL is what's going on down there.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_06]: same goal, gather intelligence, keep tabs on threats, but once from outer space and the others from the deep ocean.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_08]: And in 1969, John Pergnowski of the CIA pulled into the vast parking lot of the largest and most secretive office complex in America.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's the same parking lot the kiln and I were just sitting in before we were firmly told that we weren't allowed to park there.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_06]: So you guys fun story.
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_06]: We got to park a detergant on the other side of the highway and run a mile.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yes, we thought we arrived early, but then the whole parking mix up happened and we ended up sprinting two and in front of the Pentagon, which I've always found in my experience to be the most conspicuous way to approach the U.S. military in its secrets.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_08]: If I could run it back, if I could do it all over again, I would recommend a calm but confident walk and we had to run there twice.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_06]: It was all my fault because I left my ID in the car.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_06]: If you ever get the chance, check them with a Pentagon security while you're dripping and sweat and trying to catch your breath.
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_06]: They really, they genuinely love it.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_08]: From its inception, Perry Goski and Neuro operated under the strictest security protocols.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_08]: Its mission?
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_08]: The government's most clandestined project, the capture of the K-129.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_08]: With the mystery of the missing submarine, it became clear that the next frontier of espionage might not be in the sky or at our space, but the depths of the ocean.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_08]: In this office, for this secret mission, the CIA would begin crafting the most audacious heist in history.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_08]: And after all these years, our guy at the Pentagon still refused to show us that on Mark Door.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, so apart from the Pentagon on the East Coast, Pyrengoskian Creek also set up shop in an office in LA by LAX and is one of these off-the-grid offices that are already cleared and linked to the CIA.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_06]: So at this point,
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_06]: no one can know what they're up to.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_06]: The less people clear to know about this mission, the better, and quite literally not even the CEO of Global Marine has any idea what they're actually working on at this point.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, the CEO was essentially told by Croquet, you're going to see some crazy work orders with even some crazy or price tags attached to them, and I can't tell you what we're working on, but just know that all the checks are being sent, and they're going to clear.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_06]: There were major cloak and dagger vibes, and there were spaces reflecting the stakes.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_06]: It's just, they're working in a windowless room, access through double doors, secured by cipher locks that require an alphabetical or numerical code.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_08]: I guess the same measures that once hit our nation's biggest secrets in the 60s are now what pro gun lobbyists think our middle school should use.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_08]: Not only was secrecy paramount, but paranoia was at an all-time high.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_08]: The Russians had already successfully planted listening devices in several U.S. buildings.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_08]: They even mixed microphones into the concrete that built one of the U.S. embassies.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's nuts.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, you read about the hoops that people had to jump through just to get to work.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_08]: Each morning, our grandfather would get picked up in a car, driven to another house where he would have to change his appearance and be given a fake identification.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_08]: And then a different car would drive him from that second house to global marine satellite office near L.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_08]: the message was ominous, yet clear.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_08]: Whatever happens behind these doors, stays behind the doors.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_08]: It was new territory for global marine, a company that was used to engineering contracts for oil companies and not covert CIA projects.
• 11:44
  [SPEAKER_08]: Perigoski handed crook something called the Green Book, a dossier of government-clear ideas concept personnel, some from the CIA, some from the Navy,
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_06]: So Crook looks over the approveless of engineers and ideas and almost immediately threw them all out.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_06]: He knew they were not in a position to cut any corners.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_08]: We sat down with someone who's made a career of making people laugh and making people think.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_08]: She played Amy Fairfowler on the Big Bang Theory, and a real-life eminominated actress author filmmaker, podcast host, and neuroscientist, Myem Bialic.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_08]: Myem, thanks for being here.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's fun, I'm so used to looking at a screen and talking to artificial intelligence, so it's nice to look at a screen and be talking to actual intelligence.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's so refreshing.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am an actual human.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_08]: We're wondering if you were to hypothetically design a ship to steal a six million pound submarine off the bottom of the ocean in the 1970s how you might go about doing that.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, I was raised on like Tom and Jerry and Roadrunner.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I'm literally picturing like some sort of rope system with some elaborate knots that have been tied by a sailor and you put an edge around each of the sides of the hot dog because I'm picturing it just looks like a hot dog and then you lift real hard.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, honestly pretty close.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_06]: Pretty close.
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_08]: If the agency wanted that Russian submarine, Crook argued that it would only come up via the dry lift or like a brute force method.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_08]: None of this maybe we should use gas balloons bullshit.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_08]: We just needed to grab it.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_06]: so they have the brute force method locked in, but now they're going to need more brain power, right?
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_06]: So Pyrongoss Gini is the clear global marine engineers, and not ones from his green book, but one that Curtis has worked with and is familiar with.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_08]: From the jump, deep down in his heart of hearts, crook knew that there was only one engineer that was brilliant enough to pull off this truly first of its kind, borderline insane, batshit crazy mission.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_08]: his name was John Graham, a legit genius who had a hand improving the existence of play tectonics.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_08]: There was only one fairly sizable snag in getting Graham cleared for the mission.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_06]: Graham is an alcoholic, a non-starter, as far as the CIA is concerned.
• 14:08
  [SPEAKER_06]: And you know, they obviously wouldn't usually want to hinge the stakes of full-out nuclear war on someone who might just relapse and then just drunkenly tell everyone he crosses paths with, that he's going to steal Russian nukes.
• 14:19
  [SPEAKER_08]: Exactly.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_08]: Graham was global marine's chief naval architect.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_08]: He literally grew up making model ships with his dad, but he hated the water.
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_08]: He didn't swim, and up until a couple years back, he was more likely to drown him booze than the sea.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_06]: So, if they're going to pull this off, they need Graham on the team, and he wants in.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_06]: In fact, before he's cleared, Crook even gives him some initial work under the guise of something else, and Graham, like, immediately knows he's being kept in the dark.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_06]: But he's passionate about this project and he wants to make the glomer explore his legacy.
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_06]: So, he tells Crook and Perigoski, listen, you trust me with this?
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_06]: I promise you, I will never drop the ball.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_06]: I will give you the best years of my life.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_08]: Which sounds like a line he maybe had some success with before with his wife.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_06]: So they decided to trust Graham.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_06]: No micromanaging, just let the man cook.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, no micromanaging, but a good amount of monitoring to make sure he didn't fall off the wagon.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_06]: Just about every part of the Glomar Explorer was a first of its kind.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_06]: The ship is massive.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_06]: It's the length of three football fields.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_06]: And the whole center of the ship was essentially a hollowed out secret compartment, called a moon pool.
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_06]: And it was so big that guess what you guys, it can hold a Russian nuclear submarine.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_08]: And remember, this is all happening at the tail end of the 60s, early 70s.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_08]: I am such a nerd for this ship.
• 15:39
  [SPEAKER_08]: There were two massive sliding, essentially trapped doors on the bottom of the ship, leading into the moon pool.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_08]: And the entire moon pool, the whole center of the ship, was gimbalized, just like a massive steady cam.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_08]: So when it was at high seas, while the rest of the ship would rock and fall victim to the waves, the center compartment would lay still.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_06]: not only that, but they actually place engines around the entire ship.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_06]: So even in rough sea conditions, it would stay within a circle radius of 15 feet.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_06]: Which is really nuts when you think about it, like if you picture perfect storm waves coming at you and a boat just not moving, it's pretty unheard of.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's crazy, even the pipes they used had to be invented because nothing currently existed.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_08]: They could withstand that amount of pressure.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_08]: In record time, Graham's team had a ship that matched Crook's ominous orders, massive, audacious, and totally secretive, having said that, it also looked like something no one had ever seen before, so how are they going to pass this off to the rest of the world?
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_08]: What were the American public and the Soviets going to believe this ship was used for?
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_08]: I'd like to share this quote with you from the US Naval Institute.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_08]: There is a world that is totally and everlastingly surreal, never seen, never visited, never exposed to photonic energy of any frequency.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_08]: It is beyond darkness, a solid blackness covering about 50% of the earth's crust.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_08]: A depth between 13 and 19,000 feet, it's known as the abyssal plane.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_08]: More people have been to the moon.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_08]: It is a world where slight changes in sea pressure and temperature, precipitate minerals around small particles of shark teeth and skeletal remains to form millions of years worth of nodules rich in manganese, cobalt, iron copper, and titanium.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_08]: They range from the size of a small marble to more than six inches in diameter, and they cover most of the Pacific Ocean floor.
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_08]: It is taken mother nature millions of years to produce these nodules, a few small fractions of an inch per millennium, which in today's resource conscious world should demand careful, serious deliberation, before deep ocean mining is permitted.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_08]: and the CIA thought that deep sea mining just might make the perfect cover story.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're going to talk about a specific part of the Pacific Ocean tonight called the Carrienne Clipperton Zone or the CCCZ.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_08]: This is from a 2024 episode of John Oliver's last week tonight.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: And deep sea mining companies are now scrambling to get their hands on what they love to describe as a battery in a rock.
• 18:19
  [SPEAKER_08]: which in a very weird and real way makes our grandfather's mission pretty timely.
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he had a warm company leading the charge, the metal's company has gone on to argue that those nodules could end up saving the planets.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_08]: And one of the reasons it's so crazy to hear John Oliver talk about this in 2024 is because in the 1960s, deep sea ocean mining was an industry that the CIA completely made up.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: So tonight, let's talk about deep sea mining.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: It might sound super dramatic and cinematic, but it's true.
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: Global Marine was an actually planning, on mining manganese nodules.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: They just needed to make it look like they were.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_08]: So the Glomar Explorer was constructed to lend itself to the cover story.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_08]: The Moon Pool is a cover to lift nodules.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_08]: The pipe string is to drill the ground, and although it was an insanely large ship, it was built to look industrial and somewhat boring.
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_08]: So why Maganese nodules of all the fake reasons to be in the middle of the Pacific?
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_08]: Why those little weird lava rock-looking nuggets?
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: So first, manganese nodules were having a moment in the late 60s.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: Scientists had just discovered them sitting on the ocean floor, packed with manganese, nickel, and copper.
• 19:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Some people were even hyping them up as a future of resources, even though no one had actually figured out how to mine them yet.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was very like big bro just trust us energy.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: And the great thing is mining manganese nodules conveniently requires everything project azurean actually needed to do for real, because you need a ship that can hover in one exact spot for weeks.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: Massive vertical pipes going miles down, experimental tech, no one has ever seen before, and endless delays, breakdowns, and engineering challenges.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_08]: In other words, if your ship looks insanely over-engineered and barely functional, that's not a red flag.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_08]: That's just deep-sea mining.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_08]: That's wizard's chest.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: Another fun detail, Manganese nodules are scattered, so they're not in neat little piles.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: So if the ship stayed parked over one specific patch of ocean for a suspiciously long time, totally fine, because you're just mapping the field.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: No one expects past progress because no one knows what progress is supposed to even look like.
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_08]: So I guess like politically, it probably worked even better.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_08]: Mining nodules didn't belong to any country.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_08]: They were in international waters.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_08]: Which meant no one could say, hey, that's ours.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's not like the Soviets could exactly roll up and accuse the US of stealing rocks.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_06]: Yes, exactly.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_06]: And the science is obscure enough that journalists and foreign intelligence agencies couldn't really easily call BS because if you ask too many technical questions, the answers get complicated fast.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_06]: And complicated answers are honestly great
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_08]: So Magenese nodules weren't random, they were actually a pretty phenomenal excuse.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, okay, you guys, you messed up planet Earth, coming at me.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: That man is named Gerard Barron, and he's positioned himself at the forefront of this industry, and supposedly once he had a marketing firm to portray him as an Australian Elon Musk.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_06]: The next part of the cover was finding a scapegoat to own the ship.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: He denies that insisting he'd never compare himself to Musk as he considers him a wants in a generation genius, which gives you some hints of where the story is about to go.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_06]: The Glamour Explorer wasn't exactly a safe business, but building a massive mining vessel for an industry that didn't even exist yet, pretty much looks like potential financials to aside.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: More than 80% of the world's oceans remain unexplored and unmapped, and there are still so much that we don't know about how mining could affect it, and whether it's actually worth doing a
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_08]: In fact, while the CIA was figuring out how deep-sea nodule mining might work, they came to a pretty clear conclusion.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_08]: The economics didn't.
• 21:58
  [SPEAKER_08]: What they could realistically recover would likely never justify the enormous cost, meaning anyone seriously pursuing it would have to be either incredibly rich, completely out of their mind, or both.
• 22:10
  [SPEAKER_06]: So, who could possibly sink an obscene amount of money into something that risky, secretive and weird, a lunatic billionaire crazy enough to do it?
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_06]: Drumroll, please.
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_06]: Howard Hughes.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, okay, but which version of Howard Hughes?
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_08]: Like, like, handsome Howard Hughes or the weird OCD one that looked like limini snick it.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_06]: So, if you're picturing the Scorsese film, this is the part of the timeline where Howard is living as a recluse in Vegas.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_06]: He's pissing in bottles, he's not cutting his nails, completely off the grid.
• 22:44
  [SPEAKER_06]: At this point, he's less of a titan and more of a myth.
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_06]: So the public knows a few things about him.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_06]: He has more money than he knows what to do with.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_06]: He invests his money in absolutely insane projects, and he's a toriously secretive and paranoid.
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_06]: So it's widely believed this man is losing his mind.
• 23:05
  [SPEAKER_08]: Well, it sounds like that makes him pretty much the perfect cover.
• 23:10
  [SPEAKER_08]: Every government should have an unhinged billionaire to take advantage of.
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_08]: Now we just have Elon Musk to take advantage of us.
• 23:17
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's like the same formula but a reverse uno.
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_08]: So okay, like every detail on his public persona really catered to this cover story.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_08]: wildly expensive ship, of course.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_08]: No transparency, classic use.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_08]: A project that didn't quite make sense on paper sounds about right.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_08]: If anything didn't add up, people didn't question it.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_08]: They just shrugged and said, yeah, that sounds like something Howard Hughes would do.
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_06]: Yep, typical Howard, nothing to see here.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_06]: And honestly, it's actually a brilliant cover story.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_06]: The guy is so reclusive, it wouldn't be weird if he just never shows up to anything.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_06]: And all they needed to do was like, plaster his name everywhere to pass it off his legitimate.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_08]: I think Trump's trying that now.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_08]: Ha ha ha ha.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_06]: He is, isn't he?
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_08]: Okay, so they got though.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_08]: Why was the bow being built?
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_08]: Who was the bow being built?
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_08]: But that still leaves of course the issue of how the ship would be built.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_08]: Global Marine had miles of drafting paper, but they didn't actually manufacture anything.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_08]: Cut to a sleepy steel town, just south of Philadelphia, called Chester, home to a shipyard by the name of Sun shipbuilding and dry dock.
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_06]: and the great people of Pennsylvania didn't know it, and honestly, probably never would.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_06]: But a lot of them were about to start participating in one of the largest cover stories and conspiracies ever.
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_08]: 250 engineers, 20 purchasers, and over 3,000 men worked on the physical production of the Glomar Explorer.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_06]: All of them believing they were working for the Howard Hughes and the brave new world of deep sea mineral mining.
• 24:46
  [SPEAKER_06]: Pyrongoski couldn't risk being there himself, but he sent someone in his place to keep an eye on Graham to make sure he wasn't drinking and that production was on schedule.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_06]: So it turns out it wasn't just the Russians that the CIA had to worry about.
• 24:58
  [SPEAKER_06]: They also had the Navy trying to spy on them.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_06]: In fact, the Navy quietly placed three men on the crew that worked at Sonship Building.
• 25:06
  [SPEAKER_08]: Apparently these Navy guys were like super bad at it and all wore the exact same uniform to the job It was like so obvious that they were sneaking around one of the CIA guys could have just as well just gone.
• 25:16
  [SPEAKER_08]: Hey Phil is that you
• 25:19
  [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, they're pretty bad at it.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_06]: It was pretty embarrassing.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_08]: Having said that though, even though everything was supposed to be top secret, the CIA intentionally wanted certain parts of the ship to be constructed in the open so it could be reported on.
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_06]: The ship is so massive and different looking.
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_06]: They know it would be incredibly suspicious if the press didn't cover it until it was in the water.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_06]: They didn't want this like floating island of a ship to magically appear.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_06]: America has to feel like it's there every step of the way.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_06]: So what do they do?
• 25:48
  [SPEAKER_08]: Anyone who spent much time in Pennsylvania will tell you that they seem to be a population of people who get a lot of pride out of honest work.
• 25:55
  [SPEAKER_08]: Like as a comic, I always feel like you need to bring your A game to Pennsylvania because the audience kind of already hates you for being able to make money by telling jokes that.
• 26:05
  [SPEAKER_08]: And there are five guys they work with in a warehouse who are definitely funnier than you are.
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_08]: So this contract was a big deal.
• 26:13
  [SPEAKER_08]: This whole town was rallying around the glomer.
• 26:15
  [SPEAKER_06]: The ship was completed on schedule and put in the water after an obligatory bottle of champagne christening and even more obligatory press release from execs at the Q's tool company.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_08]: Wait, why do we do the whole champagne christening thing?
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_08]: Why does that come from?
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_08]: Seems like we're wasting perfectly good bubbly.
• 26:32
  [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, let's see what Google says.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, for as long as mankind has sailed the oceans, there's been some form of ceremony to mark the launch of a new ship.
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_06]: The Babylonians chose to sacrifice Oxen while the Vikings offered slaves to be their sea god.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_06]: Both believe these acts would bring them good luck and save travel.
• 26:54
  [SPEAKER_08]: Okay, so we still don't know why we do the champagne thing, but at least we're not throwing animals or people into the sea's tribute.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_08]: Great.
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_06]: Also funny story about the christening is that the lady who was doing it did it wrong twice So they actually like wasted three bottles of champagne Jesus lots of bubbly a lots of bubbly So the ship is constructed, but nothing secret has been placed or mounted to it There's no pipe string no giant claw no top secret communication system.
• 27:23
  [SPEAKER_06]: It's just the ship and it's base level operating equipment
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_06]: So, no tech or gear on the Glomar leaving Pennsylvania would have suggested or even been affiliated with its actual mission.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_06]: The entire moon pool or the center of the ship was pretty much just a big empty room, the size of a gymnasium.
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_08]: So now, the Glomar needs to sail, try, float.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_08]: What does a ship with motors do?
• 27:45
  [SPEAKER_08]: Journey?
• 27:47
  [SPEAKER_08]: The Glomar needs to travel from the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania around the southern
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_06]: were pretty certain that our grandpa was there for this maiden voyage.
• 27:58
  [SPEAKER_06]: Our family has grandpa working at Global Marine from 1969 to 1974 as the first officer of the Glomar Explorer.
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_08]: So, weirdly, stand-up comedy keeps providing me insight into weird pockets of our grandpa's secret life.
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_08]: I didn't know what being a first officer entailed, so when I was touring with USO and the Joint Chief of Staff, I asked the Vice Chairman's first officer.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_08]: Essentially, it meant that our grandpa would have been second in command with a role of playing bad cop or the disciplinary.
• 28:27
  [SPEAKER_08]: And pretty much resolving anything and everything that didn't have to be in the
• 28:33
  [SPEAKER_08]: It means he likely would have been vetted and cleared for the entire mission since he was second in command on the boat.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_06]: He would have needed to know the proper course of action if someone came aboard who wasn't authorized or if they faced an emergency he would have had to know the cover in order to protect it at all cause.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_06]: So he would have needed to know what the mission was and the playbook if for whatever reason he suddenly found himself in command of the ship.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: is an navigator on fishing boats in the Panama Canal.
• 29:04
  [SPEAKER_08]: The gloomar left the east coast and headed south, and while on paper that task of sailing the ship to California might seem pretty straightforward, it wasn't.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_08]: Most ships do this all the time, but the help of a handy little shortcut called the Panama Canal.
• 29:19
  [SPEAKER_06]: The only issue here was that the gloomar explorer was literally too big to use the canal.
• 29:24
  [SPEAKER_06]: So the gloomar it's skeleton crew along with grandpa had to sail around the bottom tip of South America, which is known as rounding the horn.
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_08]: A chunk of sea's so treacherous that it's often referred to as the Sailor's graveyard.
• 29:38
  [SPEAKER_08]: It is home to crazy winds, waves that range from 40 to 50 feet tall, and icy conditions.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_08]: And now, this skeleton crew was piloting a first of its kind, never-feel-tested ship, which was terrifying.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_08]: There were reports and mentions of the crew whitenuckling while they heard the steel stretching and popping under the pressure of this voyage.
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, this was the first time all of the math and engineering on paper was being tested in real life.
• 30:06
  [SPEAKER_06]: And because they had only one narrow window each year where the weather in the Pacific would be stable enough to actually steal the Russian sub, they genuinely didn't have time to go through the normal testing.
• 30:18
  [SPEAKER_06]: It was quite literally a singer swim kind of deal.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_08]: Because the center of the ship wasn't housing the claw or lots of the structural mission items, they were without a lot of the engineered reinforcement, and at times sailors stood watching the walls of the ship bend and wave.
• 30:35
  [SPEAKER_08]: Our grandpa had already helped find the Titanic, and now he was sailing through waters in a real life scenario that could have just as easily left him on the next one.
• 30:44
  [SPEAKER_08]: Miraculously, the Glomar makes it around the Cape Horn, and the Crusale's North California with a covert overall of the ship, and its true nature will come into focus.
• 30:55
  [SPEAKER_08]: But when the Glomar made a quick stop in Chile, things went a little sideways, because when they pulled into the country's largest port along its scenic central coast, the country coincidentally was actively overthrowing its government in a full-on military-backed coup.
• 31:13
  [SPEAKER_08]: Leaving the Glomar Explorer, the CIA is $350 million top-secret ship in the middle of a revolution.
• 31:30
  [SPEAKER_08]: Hey, thanks for listening to this week's episode.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_08]: Be sure to follow my, I'm on all of your socials and check out her podcast MindBialex breakdown where she has interviewed more than a few people that have worked with the CIA.
• 31:40
  [SPEAKER_08]: This series is hosted by myself Hunter Hill, my sister Kayl and Hill, and is a nothing to see here production.
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_08]: Executively produced by Hunter Hill, Kaelan Hill, Ed dosic, and produced by Jess Sonemfeld-Jallis.
• 31:53
  [SPEAKER_08]: Video interviews were produced by Kita Mascarrow, and if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to follow the podcast, leave us a review, and subscribe wherever you are listening.
• 32:02
  [SPEAKER_08]: It really does make a huge difference, and helps other people discover the story.
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_08]: You can also join our sub-stack community for exclusive content, including source documents, extended celebrity interviews behind the scenes updates, and much more.
• 32:16
  [SPEAKER_08]: and one last thing, every episode that we coming out as either been recorded in my tiny home office or running and gunning it while out on the road.
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_08]: So thank you so much for being here as my sister and I unravel this crazy story.
• 32:31
  [SPEAKER_08]: Hope to see you next week as we dive even deeper into this secret.