1968: The Year of Lost Submarines

**Discussion begins at 4:35**

1968 is often called 'the year of the lost submarines' because, in a single twelve-month span, four different nations lost four military submarines under mysterious circumstances. The events, spanning both Cold War rivals and allies, occurred at the height of global tensions and remain the subject of speculation, secrecy, and intrigue. The losses involved the Israeli INS Dakar, the French Minerve, the Soviet K-129, and the American USS Scorpion—all vanishing or sinking within months of one another. While each case had its own circumstances, together they created an unprecedented cluster of naval disasters, fueling theories about hidden Cold War confrontations, espionage operations gone wrong, and the perils of submarine technology at the time.

Transcript

Hey, guys.

Hi.

Welcome back, season finale.

FMLA, Kait really stepped up here.

Colleen was going to host this episode, and she got a notice about some career-changing moves.

So.

My certification.

She is studying hard, so Kait stepped up, because she's, you know.

FMLU, Kait.

Our hero.

Kait, what was your, do you want to share your theory with everyone?

Oh yeah, everybody.

I think everybody who has worked in healthcare since COVID, through COVID, and beyond COVID, everybody should get a six-week sabbatical or FMLA.

I mean, it says something if you're taking major surgery over work.

Any day.

I will do that.

I tried to ask my coworkers.

I was like, what if I get like LASIK?

Can I get some personal time for that?

And they were like, no, you will be at work tomorrow.

Also, we have to thank Erin for buying us some coffee.

Yes, Erin.

Love of a girl.

Erin is one of our newer but most dedicated fans.

She's a silent lurker.

I wouldn't say she's silent.

This girl, she was posted at 6 a.m.

on release day on Spotify.

That's her commute.

But she writes, my favorite Scheme Queens, I look forward to every podcast.

Happy hump day.

Erin.

Oh my God.

Thanks, Erin.

And please keep the comments coming because I get a real chuckle whenever I see your comments on Instagram or Spotify.

Thanks, Erin.

My little girl.

Yeah, she comments on Spotify, which I didn't even know you could do that.

You can do that.

On Spotify, you can comment on the individual episodes and you can give us a five-star review or less, I guess, if that's what you think we're worth.

But you can't leave a written overall show review.

Apple podcast, you can leave your overall show review.

But yeah, I enjoy the comments.

Thank you, Erin.

And yeah, thanks for the coffee.

So is it time for our drink check?

Drink check.

Today, Colleen, tell the people what we're having.

It's a Colleen drink.

Honestly, a Colleen Cosmo.

That's got a ring to it.

Yes.

It does.

What makes it Colleen's?

Well, extra icy, I guess.

I don't know.

Extra ice.

Yeah, that's what does it.

Yep.

We're having a Cosmo.

We used Ocean Vodka, which was a discovery that Kait made.

And a little cranberry juice, a little lime juice, a little Cointreau.

And I shook it in the shaker with lots of ice.

It's absolutely delicious.

It's to your liking, perfect.

Also appropriate because it was just announced that, and just like that, has been, I don't know, canceled, ending on its own accord.

But yeah, Colleen probably doesn't know this, but this was really made famous in Sex and the City back in the day.

Oh, that's what you meant by that show.

I didn't know what you meant.

Did you watch Sex and the City back in the day, Kait?

No, I've never watched, I'd never watched one episode of Sex and the City.

Oh my gosh.

I know.

I watch it now.

I love Sex and the City.

I remember watching it in college.

I think my friend had like the DVDs, the, you know, complete season DVDs, and we used to watch them.

So Kait, what are we talking about?

Today, we're talking about the year 1968, which was the year we lost all the submarines.

All of them?

Well, not all of them, but four of them in one year.

Four is a lot.

Oh, okay.

In 1968?

1968.

That's a weird time.

I know.

Was that wartime?

Well, it was Cold War.

I think a lot has to do with the Cold War.

When was Vietnam?

You're right.

Vietnam was going on until the 70s, but I don't think there were submarines.

I don't think subs were like a utilized tool.

No.

Guerrilla warfare was like the warfare they were doing in Vietnam, right?

I'm just thinking, we don't have to lift this up.

Look, how many submarines do we have?

Like hundreds?

Like what's a normal amount?

What do you mean?

Like how many are in the United States?

Yeah, like in the military.

Well, the US.

Navy has 71 submarines.

Whoa.

They call them U-boats in the Navy.

Yeah, it seems like, where would you hide?

Where would you store submarines?

Well, my brother used to work on submarines, actually.

Yeah, they're at port cities.

So in Connecticut and Philly?

You know what?

I'm going to take this back.

I have to correct myself.

Okay.

Not 71?

No, that's correct.

But when I said, they didn't use submarines in the Vietnam War, because yeah, I was thinking like, Kate, they're doing guerrilla warfare.

Well, how did they get to Vietnam?

It was planes, yes.

How long were we flying for?

You don't just have to fly direct.

Right.

Okay.

Where did they have a layover?

It says that they did use subs in the Vietnam War, Google says, they did use submarines in the Vietnam War for intelligence gathering and special ops.

But yeah, I feel like it was definitely not like a World War 1, 2 situation with the subs.

No, no, no.

This all seems to be related to the Cold War, and a lot of confusion about where they went.

This is like they lost the submarines and they don't really know what happened to them.

I don't really have an intro to this.

So we're just going to dig in.

1968 was the year of lost submarines.

So the first submarine that we lost was the USS Scorpion.

The second submarine that we lost was the Soviet K-129.

The third was the INS Dakar, and the fourth was the French Minerve.

So four submarines that were lost and mysteriously disappeared, and the remains of these submarines were not found for a while.

So let's talk about the USS Scorpion.

So the USS Scorpion was a United States sub.

It was a skip-jack class nuclear-powered attack submarine, and it was considered one of the fastest and most maneuverable submarines of her time.

It was commissioned in 1960.

It was 252 feet in length.

It had a single Westinghouse S5W nuclear reactor, and the crew size was 90 dimes.

The Scorpion had six 21-inch torpedo tubes, and all of them were capable of firing both regular bombs and nuclear-tipped bombs.

So all of them had that capability.

So on February 15th, 1968, the Scorpion departed from Norfolk, Virginia and was headed towards the Mediterranean Sea, where she would be making port calls in Rhodes, Spain, Naples, Italy, and Lisbon, Portugal.

The commanding officer on the Scorpion's name was Francis A.

Slattery, and that commander had graduated from the Naval Academy 14 years later, and he was only 36 years old.

So it left in February and May 1968.

The Scorpion was headed back towards Norfolk, and on the 21st, she reached periscope depth, which actually means that like when you reach periscope depth, it means that the sub is far enough under the water that when they send the periscope up, you can barely see, like you should not be able to really see the periscope above the water.

Like they can see above the water, but it's really supposed to be almost like a invisible.

When the Scorpion reached periscope depth, that's about 250 miles south of the, how do you say it?

Azores.

Azores.

Yeah, I was going to say Azores.

Could you tell?

You're going to put a little accent on there?

Yeah, Ibiza.

Ibiza.

Except wait, they don't speak Spanish in Portugal.

I got a really weird accent in Portugal.

Maybe the Z doesn't have to be a th, you know?

Yeah, that's true.

You're right.

As you were saying.

That was the last time that there was any transmission from the Scorpion.

She was 250 miles south of the Azores.

She had reached periscope depth and then, I keep saying death, periscope depth, and then went silent.

There was no other transmission.

On May 27th, when the Scorpion didn't arrive in Norfolk, there was a massive search that was initiated by many of those service branches.

Air Force, Coast Guard, and Navy all went out looking for her.

They searched 450 miles south of the Azores, and they were not able to find the submarine.

So she was basically lost at sea for years after this.

So that was May 27th.

So 10 days later, she was officially declared lost at sea.

Did you tell us how many people were on this?

There was 99 people on the crew.

Did it implode?

There's lots of, you know.

Theories.

Theories, yeah.

I said she was lost for many years.

She wasn't.

She was lost for months.

So she was actually found in October of 1968, about 400 nautical miles off the coast of the Azores.

She was at a depth of 10,000 feet.

So 400 nautical miles is actually 460 miles.

You know, we don't really understand why this is the reasoning or this is like the difference, but you know, maybe Megan's brother can tell us one day what that means.

Cause Megan's brother was a Navy, is a Navy vet, like true service.

But like, again, why aren't they the same?

Is it based on like the speed of an average boat?

Nautical miles are longer than land miles, which we call statute miles, because they are based on the earth's curvature.

Yeah, I guess you're right.

Cause even on land, there's gonna be curvature, right?

Right.

I don't know.

Yeah, still means smarter than us would have to explain it.

Go ahead.

Yeah, full lesson.

Thank you.

Anyway, there was some damage that was observed.

So the bow actually looked like it crashed into the Globigerina ooze on the sea floor.

What are you saying?

Yeah, I was like, is any of the sentence in English?

Yeah, Globigerina, it is like deep sea sediment that is primary composed of like plankton shells.

It's just like seashells on the floor.

I don't know why they call it that.

That's what it's called.

It sounds like it just hit the seafloor.

Did they not know how deep they were?

Or how do they know that something else didn't happen and then the sub sunk to the bottom and hit all these seashells and create a trench?

There's lots of theories.

I'm going to share this theory.

I'm just telling you what the damage was.

The sail was displaced from the hull of the operations compartment, and that hull had completely crumbled, and the boat was actually laying on the port side.

Then one of the Scorpion's running lights was actually in an open position.

A running light is also known as a navigation light.

They're basically lights that are on the outside of the submarine when they're operating at the surface.

It's usually used when there's limited visibility.

They're either limited visibility or they're trying to prevent a collision.

This is interesting because it was in the open position, meaning it might have been open, you know, during...

Meaning they were afloat.

Yeah, either afloat or something was happening.

Exactly.

When I drive my dad's, like, pontoon boat after dark, you always have to turn on the nav lights.

So maybe it was just nighttime.

Maybe they were just up there sailing, and it was nighttime.

Maybe.

So somebody actually theorized that, like, the implosion on the floor, like, of the ocean could have knocked the light into an open position, but who knows?

There's lots of theories.

So one theory is that there was a hydrogen explosion during the battery change.

So this is actually the leading theory, especially after analyzing the ship's battery cells.

The leading theory is that a hydrogen explosion occurred.

This theory was spearheaded by Bruce Ruhl, who's a long-time acoustic analyst for the integrated undersea surveillance system.

And then in a book called Against the Tide, Dave Oliver, who is a retired rear admiral, also says that he thinks it was a result of a hydrogen buildup due to changes in the like ventilation systems.

This is actually consistent because apparently there were two small explosions that they heard in local hydrophones, I guess, underneath the water that correlates with this theory.

There's a couple of theories as far as the torpedo.

So either one, it was accidentally activated, two, it was activated intentionally and three, there was actually an explosion of a torpedo inside the sub.

Whether or not it was accidentally activated or intentionally activated, the theory is that once the torpedo was released, it became fully armed and engaged, it engaged in its nearest target, which was actually the Scorpion herself.

So they had hydrophones underwater in 1968?

I guess so.

I don't know what a hydrophone is.

It's like recording devices underwater.

Because I remember the Bloop, we talked about the Bloop last season.

Oh, yeah.

I'm just surprised that they were doing it that far back.

Not to sound like Colleen, I know there was a world before I was born.

I mean, we went to the moon.

With the same signs that microwaves pizza.

You are right.

I forgot.

This is the same time we were on the moon.

So you're right.

Maybe they were investigating underwater.

Yeah.

Wait, maybe they were distracting us with the moon, or they were really exploring the ocean floor.

Then the question of whether or not it was intentionally firing a torpedo is actually an interesting question.

That leads into the next submarine that I'm going to talk about.

Before you get into it, I'm also confused about, so you said the sail was down.

Yeah.

Because it was completely-

I just don't picture submarines with sails, like a sailboat on the top of the sub.

I know.

Yeah.

I don't picture that either.

They probably reeled in.

We probably sound real stupid.

Okay.

Well, at least I don't think it's the sail like we think of.

I think it's looking at this, and the sail is like, you know, when you look at pictures of a submarine is like a little thing that sticks.

It's metal.

It's the same stuff the sub is made out of.

Oh.

You were describing it, Kait, and I was thinking like the sub services, and they put up their little sailboat, their little sail, and then the sub goes down and they pull it back down.

And that was wild to me.

Submarines give me so much anxiety.

When I look at them, it just immediately, I could never.

Well, definitely don't watch any of the submersible documentaries that recently came out because that will, I'm like, yeah, I would never get in any kind of underwater device.

No, zero percent.

I can't even walk.

You know the boat in Charleston, that big, it's not a boat, the ship?

So this is what we learned of getting this podcast, is that the submarines, you can call them boats.

The Navy respects that, right?

And I think, didn't you have a friend who's worked on a sub and they were like, yeah, we call it a boat?

The U-boat, they call them a U-boat.

It's like the destroyers, if you call that a boat, people get sensitive about that.

Okay.

So we can call these a boat, but you're talking about the ship in Charleston, yeah?

Yeah, yeah, the one that you can tour.

So we went in middle school, we went on a field trip to Charleston, and we went on that boat and I was like, I was panicking down in the like, we had to go tour it and the, what did they call it, the sleeping quarters, that there was like, and all of the like, bunks and how narrow they were, I was like, no, I wouldn't have, I could not live.

So the intentional firing of a torpedo kind of like leads in to my next story.

Story, right, because the Soviet K-129 was another one that was lost to the sea.

And that was not, that's not a United States submarine.

That like it says Soviet K-129, it belonged to the Soviet Navy.

All of these actual, the four submarines that went down, only one of them belonged to the United States.

So this is kind of like all over the world that this was happening.

And again, like I said, it was kind of all this was contributed to like the Cold War was like very much.

Are they just saying the war wasn't as cold as we all think it was?

Yeah, that's what they're saying.

That it was maybe a little bit more, not fighting, but a little bit more aggressive under the waters that, and like very much covered up for that.

I mean, maybe they were like octopi down there, eels down there.

Oh my God.

The coral swimmers down there, like who's to say this was them blowing each other up and not another enemy?

Yeah, you never know.

The octopi city that somebody shared on our story.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

That made me feel itchy.

Just looking at that picture.

I mean, at least we know they die when they procreate, right?

So, only the women.

That's true.

What happens to the men?

Well, the men just keep......putting their goddang tentacles...

.

putting their leg in someone's ear and releasing sperm packets and living their best lives.

Yeah.

So, their sperm packets.

Eww.

Not the ear.

That's where it is.

It's so weird.

So, the Soviet K-129 also went down.

So, the idea is that maybe they actually ran into each other and got into a little scuffle.

So, this was written about in a book called All Hands Down by Kenneth Ewell and Jerome Presley.

And they pretty much said that they think that like while the Scorpion was kind of gathering evidence like on the Soviet Union, because we know we were in the Cold War, there was a scuffle between Soviet K and the Scorpion.

They say that it was actually sunk by the Soviet Marine during a standoff that actually started on May 22nd.

But this kind of doesn't make sense, right?

Because they're in the Azores, and the Azores is in Portugal.

This is kind of, I don't know, this is like not, the story doesn't all line up, right?

Because you would think if they were trying to find some evidence, they would be closer to Russia, but they were closer to the Azores.

Well, I know, I know the Azores has an Air Force base.

Well, yeah, do you think, like an American base?

I was just wondering if like it was possible that these, like were, they kind of in like US territory, you know what I mean?

Like, yeah.

So maybe, so maybe they were over gathering intel, and then they were just down by the Azores and the Soviet K-129, and just kind of intercepted them.

Yeah, or maybe the Soviets were nosing around the United States, you know, around the US base.

Maybe.

Oh, yeah.

Well, what it says is that actually points towards the involvement of the KGB, the spies.

It's always the KGB.

I know, I know.

It says that the KGB might have intercepted like some communications in the US Navy, and then kind of sent the Soviet K-129 down to the Scorpion, down to investigate.

Anyway, according to this conspiracy theory, it kind of means that like both the USS Scorpion and the K-129 incidents, their government, so our government and the Soviet Union, aka Russia, are just kind of pushing this under the rug, like keeping it super hush-hush.

So yeah, they disappeared, and these could be the theories, but like really it's because there was like a scuffle.

So let's talk about what happened to the Soviet K-129.

So the Soviet K-129 was a Golf II class diesel electric ballistic missile sub of the Soviet Navy commissioned in 1960.

It was 328 feet in length, and it was equipped with three SS-95 ballistic missiles and six torpedo tubes.

This sub played a pretty pivotal role in the Soviets strategic nuclear deterrence.

So this guy was like, don't you shoot nuclear bombs at us.

So on the 13th of February of 1968, which was pretty close to when the Scorpion also departed in February of 1968.

So interesting.

Interesting if I do say so myself.

So in February of 1968, it actually was completing port maintenance in February 13th.

And the Soviet Navy was like, it wanted it to turn around in 11 days and get back out into the waters.

So they didn't have a lot of time to prepare.

So the crew kind of rushed to get ready for this new mission, which was they wanted to gather intelligence and the US Navy in Hawaii.

So it was actually coming to spy on us.

So the 24th of February, shortly after midnight, the K-129 set off from Torea Bay, passing Petropavlovsk.

Passing by the Kamchakda.

These Russian names, I'm so sorry.

It was entering the Pacific Ocean.

It was going around some Russian peninsula and entering the Pacific Ocean.

Katerina would be able to tell us the names.

Did you say Petropavlovsk?

Yeah, that's it.

Petropavlovsk.

But there's no A at the end, so I don't know.

Yes.

Sorry, Katerina.

Yeah, Pavlovsk.

You're heading toward Poe Harbor, right?

Yeah, we're headed towards Hawaii.

Okay.

Hawaii.

Hawaii.

There were 14 officers, 84 enlisted.

Ten of these were untrained sailors, and they were associated with, quote, a special mission.

So?

Yeah.

It was headed south towards the patrol area west of the Emperor Seamounts.

So she was headed north in latitude, and then the submarine, they thought, sort of like took an eastward turn.

And she was supposed to check back in with Moscow on March 8th, and that would have placed her about 1,500 miles from Hawaii, but there was no transmission that was ever received.

So the K-129 failed to kind of like report back to Moscow.

This is something that sort of continues to remain an enigma.

Nobody really knows what happened.

And let's go back to the United States.

The United States Scorpion was...

There's a lot of theories that kind of go along with like, oh, maybe the batteries or a torpedo kind of like was, you know, shot and like unintentionally.

Yeah.

But this one, there's not a lot of like theory of actually what happened.

It's just very much a mystery.

Well, I 100% believe what you're saying that they probably, you know, had a scuffle and blew each other up because the, I know I'm just reading that the, that Nixon had the CIA go try to find this.

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

I'm so glad you're about to say this because that was also what I'm going to talk about.

Well, do you want to talk about it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, the point is, why did they have the CIA looking for the ship and not like the Navy?

Right.

Because there was top secret stuff happening.

KGB.

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

So, actually, a couple of people kind of, so the United States went looking for this ship, the English and the Russian, Russia, all like, or I guess the Soviet Union at the time, all went looking for this ship.

And this is really interesting to me because it made me think of something that Bourbon Boy said about like when planes go down, the planes have so much intelligence on them that like the United States have to make sure that they get to the planes first.

Like if there are planes, because there's so much intelligence in them that if another country sort of like scoops up the plane before we can get to it and destroy the machines and all of the intelligence on the planes, then it's like really bad.

Because they don't have to, they can like basically figure out our like, whatever, I don't know, whatever secrets we have.

But we left all of our stuff in Afghanistan.

Oh my gosh.

I know, Megan, I was thinking that too.

So anyway, these multiple countries were going after this boat and trying to find it.

But like you said, President Nixon kind of sent the CIA out there, and this was called Project Azorian, which again, Azores, it's all kind of together in there.

I'm still believe like, I'm kind of believing this guzzle theory, right?

You've sold me.

Yeah.

So the conspiracy theory is that the CIA, well, this isn't really a conspiracy theory, this is actually happened, is that the CIA and the Department of Defense launched a search for this boat and they were actually able to use global underwater surveillance technology to locate this sub 1800 miles northwest of Hawaii.

But they actually were able to recover part of it.

They needed a massive covert operation.

So actually, they spent $350 million on a spy ship, and that would have been equivalent to $1.5 billion today.

They were trying to hide their involvement.

So the CIA didn't want the Soviets to know that they were actually looking for this boat.

In order to disguise what the real mission was, the CIA was saying that it was just part of a deep sea mining operation to harvest valuable minerals like cobalt and nickel from the ocean floor.

But they were looking for this boat.

Then in order to make the ruse believable, the team actually did gather some mineral samples from the-

of course, they did, right?

They were like, let me just actually gather some of the stuff to make the look like this is what I'm doing.

This is classic CIA misdirection, and this is actually hiding what the operation actually was supposed to be doing.

I actually don't think they found it.

In 1974, as part of Project Azorian, the CIA recovered a portion of the K-129 and six sailors' remains.

And then the Soviet actually did like a burial for the six recovered crew members, but that's kind of crazy that they found six people.

You would think that like they would have disintegrated.

What was the timing of them finding them?

Oh yeah, 74, 1974.

So five years later.

And they still found bodies?

Well and it was at a depth of 16,500 feet.

Like what's the pressure?

Right.

I feel like there wouldn't be bodies.

I wonder if there was a part of the ship that was intact still with like an air, like a, like the ship was actually in an air bubble.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of.

Yeah, so this is still very like, again, murky.

They think that like the conspiracy theory is that both of the governments have kind of like covered up what actually happened to this.

Because there's no theories other than this like conspiracy theory about like why it went missing.

It just went missing.

No, it didn't.

They're not even trying to give us ex-cases.

I believe the scuffle in this one.

Mm-hmm.

And all the government, the CIA was up to something.

The world was not as cold as we've been led to believe in our history class.

But they just like sacrificed everybody on the boat.

That's crazy.

Two other submarines went missing in 1968 though, right?

He said the one was INS Dakar.

Yeah, this is from Israel.

The INS Dakar had 68 crew members.

It was a British submarine that was unsold to the Israelis.

This one is also an unknown cause.

It just vanished.

They never found the boat.

Then the wreckage was discovered in 1999 in Greece at 9,800 feet of water.

And it says, they think that it just exceeded its crush depth, and it had whole failure, just like the submersible on the documentaries.

Well, think about getting into a Navy submarine.

And you're like, this is completely safe.

And then it explodes.

Well, then I think, so in the submersible ones, as they're going down, they can hear like the crunching, like micro damage happening to the hull.

But like, they're also like, that's normal to hear that.

And so they were like tracking the frequency and the amount and everything.

And that's supposed to tell them when it was like dangerous.

And then they're just talking about like these passengers were probably just like hearing it like, you know, sound like it's breaking on top of them.

And they're just like, it's okay.

This is normal.

This is normal.

You would die.

No, no, the anxiety I would have.

Yeah, I would know as soon as they close that door, I'd be like, you got to get me out.

No, no.

As soon as they started bolting me in, it would have been immediately no.

I would never even sign up for this.

Let's not, let's go back to the beginning.

I would never say I want to get into this, this ticking time bomb.

I would, I'd never find myself in that environment.

Like, yeah, I would never, I would never seek that for entertainment.

But yeah, the Israelis were pretty quick to declare this, like this was a mechanical failure, this was not enemy action.

Also though, when it, when it sunk, it sounds like it was coming back from having just spent, had like a whole bunch of work done on it.

I mean, I feel like higher likelihood of mechanical failure, right?

If they just were musting around with things, then.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

It's like when you, when you go to the, get your car worked on, and then all of a sudden another lights on and you're like, what happened?

They're like, oh, we forgot to do this.

Yeah.

I'm sure that's something, Kait, that you have.

Oh, you've experienced that, Kait?

Yeah.

You've talked to the mechanic?

Bourbon Boys experienced that.

Name one mechanic.

Go.

Can we just pause to give Kait a round of applause?

She got her license.

She went to the DMV all by herself to get a new driver's license.

This lady was in her mid-30s, guys, and she was sending all of the video or all the pictures leading up to it of her husband briefing her and giving her a folder, handing her her passport because he keeps track of that for her.

The passport in the sandwich bag zipped up, safe, packed for her.

It's so funny.

No, and then she had a little blue school folder, like with all of her documents.

Yeah.

That was so funny.

I can't.

Yay, Kait.

You're going to have to teach Patch and Joey when they're in high school.

Make them go to the DMV and do these things.

No way.

Joey is going to find somebody to do it for her.

She'll go off to college and come back with a ring by spring.

Ring by spring.

What I did tell it again in the MRS degree.

Much to the feminist chagrin.

I just had this conversation with my niece also.

I was like, feminism happened and it was great, and we all got to go to work.

But now some of us don't want to work.

Let me have my voting rights and my own bank account.

Those were good moves.

That was good progress.

But otherwise, feminism is over.

What was the fourth ship?

The fourth ship is called the Minerve, French Minerve.

And she has also a little conspiracy of her sudden disappearance.

So she set off in the evening of January 27th in 1968.

She left Toulon, where she was just supposed to be completing a routine training exercise in the Mediterranean Sea.

They're always doing it in a routine training exercise.

I know.

She was 181 feet long and had 52, like she had a crew of 52.

So kind of small in comparison to the first two, I guess.

Apparently the weather was really bad when she set off.

There was like really strong winds and rough seas.

And because of that weather, there was a French aircraft overhead, but they lost communication and she vanished without warning.

They think that she was about 25 miles off the coast of Toulon and then disappeared into the Mediterranean and was never heard from again.

When they lost communication with her, there was absolute panic over on the shore side of things.

So they, the French Naval Authorities kind of launched this massive search and rescue to find her.

They deployed ships, aircrafts and other submarines.

They were on the water for days trying to find the Minerve and absolutely zero signs of her.

The French government held on hope, along with their families, that maybe they were surviving in an air pocket, trapped at the bottom of the sea.

But as time passed, it became pretty clear that this, that the French Minerve was not going to make another, you know, a reemergence and that the crew members had actually lost their lives.

So some of these, some theories started to emerge.

One was that it had met mechanical failure.

Another was that it could have flooded, especially at the depth that it was at, it could have flooded.

However, there isn't any concrete evidence.

And it's continued to be unresolved for the past five decades.

Yeah, but then in 2019, she was found in three pieces at 70, like at almost 8,000 feet.

And so you would think they would, they should be able to tell if they've got the pieces, whether it was, I guess you can't really say it was a flooding, right?

That would be really hard to say.

True, it's been submerged.

Where did they find it though?

Where was it?

It was 28 miles south of Toulon.

So like she lost, they lost communication at 25 and at 23 or 28 miles she was found.

Yeah, it had a rudder that was known to malfunction.

And so one of the theories is that the rudder got jammed and it went in like a downward direction.

And then it descended and imploded.

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh.

That's awful.

That's terrifying.

At least when you have uploaded it, it's over before you even know what's happening.

Yeah, before you have any idea.

Yeah.

But they knew that that boat was going down.

So I just was curious.

I looked this up like how many submarines have we lost in the last 50 years?

Zero.

So the fact that you lost four in peacetime, well, not really peacetime, the fact that they lost four in this one year that was not like an active war is kind of wild.

Yeah.

That was a little chilly between the major countries.

World powers.

Yeah.

Well, this was a more serious historical conspiracy theory.

But I agree with you, Kait.

I think there is a conspiracy.

I think at least the first two had a scuffle, and the governments were clearly trying to cover it up.

That's why the CIA was involved.

Right.

We didn't do as deep a dive into the second two, but from what it sounds like, yeah, they just were unfortunate mechanical failures, right?

And these, again, these and the submersible documentaries make me never want to do anything underwater.

Ever.

Ever.

No.

No.

But I think it is really interesting that they were all kind of, again, in the 60s when the Cold War was going on.

It is really interesting that they lost four within months of each other.

It wasn't even just like a year.

It was like within months of each other.

Okay.

Colleen, do you have any thoughts?

I definitely believe in the scuffle.

And it's sad, though.

Yeah, all those people on those boats that are dead, like young men probably.

Yeah, we're talking like over 300 people in these four stories.

Which one was it?

The French government was like, maybe they're surviving in an air pocket.

Right.

That sounds like the worst.

I don't know.

I guess it's good to have hope, but that is like such a jump.

Is it like France known for having like, it's the worst military?

Isn't that like a historical bit?

Like since the revolution, France has been horrible.

Well, there was a bunch of college kids fighting in the revolution, you know.

They had Lafayette, and then again, they had Do You Hear the People Sing?

But those were just a bunch of college boys.

Singing the song of angry men.

Is the French military a bad military?

They're ranked top 10.

They're placed seventh out of 145 countries.

So I would say that they're probably pretty strong.

Right.

Well, no, I think the bigger issue Colleen, is that they don't follow through on their support of people.

Right?

They just abandon people in need.

Although we abandoned them after the Revolutionary War.

I don't know anything about those stuff.

If you liked musicals.

Oh, I was thinking your AP history.

This is all Hamilton and Les Mis that I'm talking about, Kait.

Okay.

Yeah, that's my only historical knowledge of these times.

I used to whip out so much knowledge of trivia.

That was all from musicals.

Guys, just a reminder, don't forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages at 3SchemeQueens.

That's the number 3 SchemeQueens, all one word.

We're also on Reddit, same username.

If you want to check out our website, go to 3schemequeens.com and you can find links to our social media accounts, our Buzzsprout page, all of our episodes, additional content, our contact page and our discussion board where you can engage with us and share any updates on the topics that we have discussed.

Let us know how we're doing and what you want to hear next.

There are also opportunities to financially support us.

There are links to buy us a cup of coffee, links to our recently updated merch store and affiliate links.

And as always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, listens to likes.

Okay, Colleen, what should the people do?

Because Kait's been talking the whole time.

The people should send this video to three people who are afraid of submarines, to give them the info they need to thus convince more people not to get onto a submarine.

Literally.

And then after that, they should like, rate, follow.

What else do we make them do?

Scroll on down, leave us a five-star review.

Yeah, and leave us a review.

And leave us a comment.

And a comment.

We're gonna pop in with a little bonus episode for you guys at some point during our break.

Colleen wanted to do it for the season, but we felt like it was a stretch, so it's just gonna be a little bonus epi during our break.

Otherwise, come back, and we're gonna have the next three weeks of each of our favorite episodes, and we will see you after Labor Day.

Yeah, then we'll do it next Tuesday, so we can't make that joke.

Yeah, we'll see you the Tuesday after Labor Day.