Explore how a 1944 ocean experiment revealed the SOFAR acoustic channel, later enabling the U.S. Navy’s secret SOSUS listening network to pinpoint the 1968 loss of the Soviet submarine K-129. The episode then follows the extraordinary cover story built around the Glomar Explorer and Howard Hughes, showing how the CIA turned secrecy into a carefully staged illusion.

This episode unpacks the 1968 loss of the Soviet submarine K-129 and how U.S. SOSUS hydrophones used the SOFAR channel to pinpoint the wreck thousands of miles away. It then explores negative knowledge—the power of knowing what your adversary does not know—and how that secret drove the elaborate cover story behind the CIA’s recovery plan.