THE TERRIBLE history of this submarine

On May 27, 1968, the USS Scorpion, one of the most advanced American nuclear submarines of the time, was declared late at its naval base, it disappeared in the North Atlantic with its 99 crew members.

It’s a completely unbelievable surreal story a nuclear submarine that arrives late normally never happens and well what happened is much more dramatic than that but then what happened to the USSR Scorpio well that's what we're going to find out:

Launched by the Trick bots in Connecticut and commissioned in 1960, the USS Scorpion is part of a new class of smaller and faster nuclear-powered Skyjack-class submarine.

It was developed to monitor Soviet submarines during the Cold War, the Scorpion notably helped to test new nuclear tactics and participated in clandestine missions including the infiltration of Soviet waters to spy on the launch of a new type of missile in 1966, obviously its nuclear propulsion allows it to stay underwater for months and that's what will make it formidable against the enemy. Because it is difficult to detect; it is equipped with a variety of advanced technology for the time: including guided torpedoes sophisticated sonars secure communication equipment; It is able to hide at significant depths and navigate at high speed which allows it to carry out surveillance and reconnaissance missions in hostile and difficult to access areas.

The Scorpion is based in Nor fall, Virginia, USA; she is one of 19 nuclear attack submarines in the Atlantic Fleet at that time; it is 76 meters long and can launch 90 torpedoes from these 6 launch tubes available as much to tell you that it is really a state-of-the-art machine for its time, a machine that costs billions; and obviously inside an over-trained crew.

February 1977 the scorpion is at its normal base where it must undergo a complete overhaul, but the high pressures of the Cold War do not leave time for the technicians to put the submarine back on its feet properly. Major works are delayed, and the Scorpion is only getting emergency repairs in fact they just haven't had time to do a lot of repairs, and it's been done a little bit in a hurry which isn't very recommended on this kind of super technical and very complex gear.

October 1967, this date will mark a new beginning for the Scorpion, not only the crew of the ship follows an upgrade training which is usual in fact in this environment to keep skills up to date, but also to keep the good security practices; but he also receives a new commander and not just any commander: the decorated commander Francis Slattern, and he is 36 years old, that is to say he is extremely young. For a nuclear submarine commander, I remind you February 15, 1968, the submarine leaves Norfolk for its three-month deployment in the Mediterranean it will carry out various reconnaissance and surveillance operations.

May 16, 1968, The Scorpion begins to come to the end of its mission in the Mediterranean, but Sonar Technician 1st Class: Bill Elroy a crew member of the Scorpion since 1964; receives devastating news his wife Julian gave birth on May 16 and the baby did not survive, you imagine you are in a submarine: you receive such devastating news as this it is complicated the commander of the submarine marine.

So decides to divert the Scorpion to the port of Rota in Spain where Bilal rock who has just lost his child, as well as another crew member are dropped off to return an orpheld so makes him the commander, he still has a rather incredible gesture: he diverts the submarine which was on a mission to go and file its crew requests, in particular the one who has just lost his child, so that he obviously goes to his wife's bedside.

May 17, 1968, the Scorpion sends a message in plain text, that means that the message is not encrypted, and therefore this message indicates that he will be back in norfall in 3 days, that is May 27 around 1 p.m. and the message comes from the slateric commander the commander of the submarine he takes the opportunity to report his position northwest of the Azores, it is a little off the coast of Portugal.

May 20, 1968, The United States Navy orders the USS Scorpion to conduct a last-minute high-tech spy mission Commander Terry and his men must intercept a Soviet naval task force, which is located in the southwest of the Canary Islands;

This enemy force consists of an eco2 class diesel-electric submarine a destroyer an underwater rescue vessel and two hydrographic survey vessels is a tanker, the scorpion is ideally suited for this mission, what better than a submarine to avoid detection it is therefore sent to this area to go scouting for espionage.

21 May 19, free at this time: the communication from the Scorpion submarine is intercepted by a naval base in Greece.

Before being sent back to as Commander Submarine White which means Commander Submarine Force Atlantic the message center of the American submarine force in short it is now midnight, and the Scorpion is now having an unusual time without giving sign of life in fact in this kind of building does not give sign of life whereas normally.

He had to go back, well that's very rarely a good sign, and that they know that May 23, 1968; my canon: which is even second-class radio, and responsible for the daily processing of top secret messages from the submarine at sea; begins to worry, because he knows very well that when this kind of nuclear submarine building is late unfortunately there is a big problem.

Mike works with many other bright young sailors even in a big room full of encryption machines in the radios leads it's as the name suggests people who run anything radio on a wall a big chart followed the current operational status of each of the 104 submarines assigned to the submarine force Atlantic and growing suspicion that the Scorpion is in an extremely serious situation.

Normally, the Scorpion has the order: to transmit in burst every 24 hours an encrypted code, which once decrypted reads check 24 scorpion submarines.

This is a message, which indicates that the submarine has not been sunk, that everything is fine every 24 hours. We're here so maybe not "hello" we're here,

But all is well it's every 24 hours here, and there is no longer this message and the day before no message came out, as I tell you, from the secure TV printer, which Mike the radio uses even.

When Mike is about to finish his working hours; he hands over to his colleague Ken the tree; he tells her that Scorpio is behind on his transmission; he goes direct, following in the office of the deputy: John walker junior, and asks him on his side, if he has any.

But know late coming from Scorpio they are superior at that time, he will not even answer him verbally; he'll just give him the name of the head when your director doesn't even speak anymore, and who signs to answer you don't smell good; at the start Mike he's not going to panic too much, he's going to try to find excuses for the delay of the submarine, in fact they see each other a little bit because deep down inside he knows very well that it's going not wholesale.

He will say that this delay was not really worrying because the submarines were always late for several legitimate reasons; ranging from equipment malfunctions to a simple oversight, in fact he knows very well deep down those things are not going well.

24 May 1968, when the next morning Mike walks through the door of his department, he sees a large group of senior officers in several Admirals and a Marine Corps General, he sees them talking in low voices and taking control of the workspace of the radios-man.

When you have admirals and a general, who has just taken control of a workspace, which normally is intended for subordinates: it is not good there are decisions that are going to be taken which are extremely serious.

Mike and Ken, they are speechless, they have never seen this before, and in fact during the night the Scorpion, so the submarine has still not given any news; Mike in the ear and hears some superiors say that the Scorpion has sunk, and the entire crew is dead.

And from that moment, in fact, the tension will rise to its maximum, because Mike and the rest of the radio stations did not know at that moment that they were about to attend the one of the greatest cover-ups in American naval history.

Literally, the burial of the truth about what had happened, for the Scorpion therefore for this submarine, in parallel Vice Admiral Arnold Shad commander of the Atlantic submarine fleet is that the Scorpion no longer responds, he decides to give no alert either to relatives or to the media.

It's unbelievable, there's a submarine with 99 crew members, he knows there's something wrong, and it sank literally, and the guy doesn't say anything to person May 27, 1968.

We are thus on May 27, 68, and it is the day when the scorpion is supposed to return to the base; the families of the sailors are gathered on the edge of the coast they ignore that the Scorpion has already sunk, and that their relatives are all dead, it is the same day that the concealment begins and that the American navy officially announces, that the USS Campion and her 99 sailors were lost at sea around 1 p.m. on Monday, May 27, 1968.

The families finally go home, not yet aware of the drama, the superior services tell them that there was only a radio cut, and that the weather conditions explain this small delay.

At the same time, the American fleet is on its way to find the Scorpion's cobblestones; Elroy therefore the one who left the submarine at the port of rattan in Spain, to join his wife because he had lost his baby; remembers turning on his TV and seeing the statement on the news, and he immediately understood that the submarine: it had sunk, and he will even say that they never announced anything like that.

When they announced it on television, I knew that the Scorpion had obviously sunk, he is a professional, he works on it, he knows very well my canon is fodder the Navy in the ground the truth.

Under the eyes, and stroll the families, just to drive the nail a little more, the chief of naval operations the admiral: Thomas hearer gives hope to the close relations; he will say this the weather is very bad there, don't worry; but the weather may be calm the ship may have been held up by the storm, and she may return to port soon.

This is completely crazy; because the guy knows very well that everyone is dead, and he says that he can still come back.

I don't know Moscow; he wanted to hide the trick, but at some point, that, namely and therefore another lie Mounir knows very well that the Scorpion sank on May 22 less than 8am; before the panicked group of senior officers begin to regroup in the communications center.

And in fact, it's completely crazy: because there the lies will continue the 9th day; a man knocks on John Craven's door; chief scientist of Project Kraken; handles the search, and the man tells him he has something that should be a big help in finding the submarine, but he wants assurances that his identity won't be leaked.

The price of cooperation was absolute anonymity, obviously Craven he won't hesitate for a second, he'll tell him OK give me the info, and you'll remain anonymous, obviously there's a submarine to find, he can't refuse hyper-important information, which could precisely make it possible to find the submarine.

It is not possible therefore, he accepts Craven therefore proceeds to the analysis of the data, from the two networks of additional hydrophones, and precisely this analysis will prove fruitful: because there we still do not know what happened, why this nuclear submarine disappeared.

It is now 5 months after the disappearance of the Scorpion, which finally found them 740 km south-west of the Azores, off Portugal at a depth of about 3 km.

The discovery is made by a CAF Trieste 2 building, it is an underwater vehicle manned and operated by the US Navy.

In total, we will proceed to 9 dives, these investigations have confirmed that the Scorpion was divided into three large sections; nothing indicates however an explosion of torpedoes outside.

The small research submarine, which will pick up the large nuclear submarine, will take several photos.

We see a huge trench in the mud of the seabed, which the submarine dug, which indicates that it came to crash on the moving bottom, we also see, that the front hull of the submarine broke; you should know that whatever the cause of the sinking: a major ingress of water occurs putting everything out of order, even before the crew can issue an SOS.

Sinking further to the bottom, the Scorpion reached its maximum depth of pressure resistance, between 600 and 700 m, which resulted in the implosion of its thick hull into two or three parts.

A multitude of longer debris, a trajectory of several kilometers the lightest debris are carried even further by the currents the reactors, are found intact and left at the bottom of the waters it could have been cataclysmic if the reactors were completely dislocated you imagine nuclear reactors exploding in water.

It's Chernobyl, but worse, it is very likely that the submariners had time for long minutes to descend this doomed knowledge, you should know that they died instantly who did not have time to suffer because there was such a powerful change in pressure at the time he imposed that it was instantaneous but then what exactly happened to the scorpion to this submarine [Music] .

On January 31, 1969, and after scrutinizing all the photos and US Navy elements, writes his report and returns it. The problem is that it is not deemed conclusive at all, nor does it satisfy the certain cause of the loss of this submarine cannot be determined from any evidence.

Currently, available the statement, the most definitive to date from 1993, and a cry undermine the floods to control which would have caused an explosion, or a cataclysmic event as it is marked, one also blames a torpedo of the Scorpion, which would have exploded on its own.

Knowing well that there is absolutely a proof for the torpedoes, and that especially the torpedoes they were intact, therefore that does not really hold; everyone is skeptical, and everyone wonders, but what can cut a submarine in three, and in fact at that moment the story will take another turn.

One of the men, who is the most virtuous in concealing the truth of Scorpio, has finally spilled the beans, it was during a telephone interview from his home in Florida, that former Vice Admiral Arnold will swing literally the folder, smashing all the official releases to bits.

And he will say, this when he was coming out of the Mediterranean submarine, we as planned diverted them to the Polaris base at Rota in Spain; for a few days for a torpedo load and to get things it may need before leaving the area the submarine reported that they were in such good condition that it didn't even need to stop.

Arnold then confirmed a finding of the court of inquiry:

That a Soviet naval exercise including at least one nuclear submarine was underway southwest of the Canary Islands, and so he will add this in the interview: We had background information on a Soviet task force operating in This general area, so we advised the sub to slow down to take a quick peek to see what might uncover as far as we know.

They never took an accountant, and they never reported that he had to report to us shortly after and that's when we had a bit of suspicion because they didn't report themselves, they did not register.

Then when we got to their limit of their check in they were first flagged as being a little late I remind you of the nuclear subs being late if ever my sign globally actually saying that so some years later forty years and well Arnold is an admiral; he will admit for the first time that the submarine may have been sunk by a Soviet ship.

And so, 40 years later, as I told you Mike and Ken also decide to break the silence publicly, they will claim to have heard their superior say that the Scorpion was sunk during a confrontation with a Soviet submarine and what was their reaction and thoroughly hush up the matter.

We also know now that the sensors of the Russian Navy SOS surveillance network are also passing and well these sensors they heard the explosion, and Mike will conclude by saying a Soviet submarine was followed leaving the area at high speed.

Except the problem, they have no proof, yes of course there was an explosion, yes a Soviet submarine was seen in the vicinity, but for what reason a Soviet task force with only two fighters at the interior could succeed in eliminating the Scorpion, which is obviously much more efficient and at the forefront.

Obviously, the doubt there will remain, in fact there will probably never be conclusive explanations for the loss of the USSR, even if the Soviet thesis remains the most probable since the loss of the Scorpion and the very expensive another sub-marine.

The United States Navy has never lost any other submarines and in fact the strange and unexplained disappearance of this submarine is probably one of the most mysterious stories of the Navy and especially the United States Navy.

You imagine all this time there has never been any really validated explanation