Project AZORIAN: The CIA Built a Giant Claw to Steal a Soviet Submarine

Project AZORIAN sounds like a conspiracy theory invented after three coffees and a documentary marathon: build a massive ship, pretend it is mining the deep ocean, lower a gigantic mechanical capture device more than three miles down, and secretly lift a lost Soviet submarine while Soviet ships are nearby.

According to the CIA, that is essentially what happened.

The target was K-129

A Soviet Golf II-class submarine sank in the Pacific in 1968. The Soviet Union searched for it and eventually abandoned the effort. U.S. intelligence located the wreck on the ocean floor.

The potential intelligence value was obvious. The problem was engineering. The CIA says the submarine was thousands of tons and more than three miles below the surface.

Enter Howard Hughes and the Glomar Explorer

The public cover story was commercial deep-sea mining. Howard Hughes provided a plausible reason for construction of an enormous specialized ship. Behind that cover, CIA engineers and contractors designed equipment capable of reaching the wreck and attempting to lift it.

The Glomar Explorer reached the recovery area in 1974. During the lift, the submarine section broke apart and part of it fell back to the ocean floor. The operation nevertheless recovered a portion of the wreck.

The cover story eventually cracked

The mission became publicly exposed after secret documents connected Hughes to the operation and reporting began to reveal the ship’s real purpose. Plans for another recovery effort were abandoned.

Project AZORIAN is useful for conspiracy research because it demonstrates two things at once: governments can conduct enormous secret operations, and the best evidence for those operations eventually comes from documents, participants and physical records—not from treating every rumor as equally likely.