News Declassified comms with/from the USS THRESHER

N_Molson

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Stumbled on this, seems that the USS THRESHER nuclear submarine didn't implode instantly as it was believed, but that some of the crew (using the mainframe sonar) still was able to receive and transmit 24 hours later ! Also they heard "metal on metal banging" even later... Also implies USN just lied about this accident.

Interestingly the water samples initially took by the USS SEAWOLF show "20 times background radioactivity", which is "attributed to an error"...

So looks like the submarine took several days to actually sink, go below crush depht and eventually implode... A lot of question marks...

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...after-its-disappearance-according-to-new-docs

Bruce Rule, a naval acoustic and SOSUS expert who testified at the Thresher inquiry, has stated:

“This YouTube video is false, the Seawolf report the presenter is reading from is correct, but the final report certified it was false readings. Seawolf was confused by the active sonar and noise created by the destroyers and the diesel submarine Sea Owl searching for Thresher on 11 April 1963, the day after she was lost. She mistook all sounds from the searching ships as banging on the hull and sonar pings from Thresher. It was a mistake.”

 
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Urwumpe

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I think I rather stick to the final section of the article: The crew simply believed that they had found something. The prelude to the search operations already suggested that they had been really strongly looking for any signs of the Thresher, regardless how weak.

Also, the possible signals and other sounds had been really weak evidence of Thresher still existing - and if it did, it would leave the question, HOW the Thresher did that. Controlling depth just above crush depth in a badly disabled submarine, but unable to surface? That is hard to believe. I think the rapid sinking and implosion theory is still way more sound.
 

Arvil

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With a bunch of destroyers upstairs running around pinging, and the human propensity to suggestive hearing and wishful thinking, I agree
 

N_Molson

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Controlling depth just above crush depth in a badly disabled submarine, but unable to surface? That is hard to believe.

Yes, keeping near-neutral buoyancy for 24 hours or so seems a bit weird. But crazy things happened in some others submarines accidents. That could be a slow sinking then crush. But yes, the Seawolf clearly requested "silence above" a couple of times, and the strong thermal layer made subwater/surface comms near-impossible, which didn't help coordinating the search effort. They probably could have run straight into the other searching submarine hull with a bit of bad luck. Also the fact all the ships involved were US made things more difficult, as they used the same SONAR devices operating at similar frequencies.

We also can't completely exclude the possibility of USN brass covering their ***es.
 
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