USS Scorpion (SSN-589) Found: ORANGE KAPOK Mystery on Declassified Exhibit 7-2
They Found a Sailor on Deck: The ORANGE KAPOK Detail That Changes Everything About USS Scorpion
Declassified U.S. Navy document EXHIBIT 7-2 - orange kapok life jacket hide - crew remains in life jacket found at 10,000 feet. Sketch from wreck site of USS Scorpion (SSN-589). Document formerly SECRET, now UNCLASSIFIED. Source: U.S. Navy Archive. Digital enhancement - OxanaOxana.com, 2026
EXCLUSIVE: Original restoration & research by OxanaOxana.com - Do not copy without link.
USS Scorpion (SSN-589) - The 4th Version. What Does ORANGE KAPOK Hide on Exhibit 7-2?
In May 1968, the nuclear attack submarine USS Scorpion (SSN-589) was returning to her base in Norfolk after a three-month deployment in the Mediterranean. There were 99 men on board. On May 22, she sent her last message - and fell silent. At that moment she was about 400 nautical miles southwest of the Azores.
Scorpion was a Skipjack-class nuclear torpedo submarine. Her hull had a revolutionary teardrop shape - the first in the US Navy - allowing her to reach 30-33 knots submerged. Faster than many surface ships of that time. Length 251 ft 8 in (76.7 m), beam 31 ft 6 in (9.6 m), submerged displacement about 3,500 tons. Armament: six 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, up to 21 Mark 37 torpedoes and two Mark 45 ASTOR torpedoes with nuclear warheads. Crew - 99 men: 12 officers and 87 sailors.
She was built at the height of the Cold War. Fast, stealthy, and deadly - a perfect hunter for Soviet submarines. But this time, the hunt became her last.
Her captain was 36-year-old Commander Francis Atwood Slattery. He took command on October 17, 1967 - just seven months before the loss. Before that, he served as Executive Officer on the first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus (SSN-571). Slattery was an experienced officer. But even he did not know that his last order would lead to the death of his entire crew.
Of the 99 men on board, no one survived. Their names are engraved on a memorial plaque in Norfolk. The boat is a war grave. 64 women were left widows, 99 children - fatherless.
Among them were those who were not on board that day. One crew member, PO1 Joseph Underwood, left the boat in Rota a few days before the disaster due to health problems. Another sailor left for family reasons. The other 99 went on their final voyage.
In October 1968, the oceanographic ship USNS Mizar found the wreck at a depth of more than 3,000 meters, 400 miles southwest of the Azores. The search was long and difficult. Dr. John Craven, the Navy's chief scientist, used Bayesian search theory - the same used to find the hydrogen bomb off Palomares in 1966 and later to find the Titanic. The method worked. Mizar found Scorpion on the last day of the planned mission, when the team was already preparing to leave.
On May 22, 1968, the nuclear attack submarine USS Scorpion (SSN-589) with 99 men aboard was lost in the Atlantic. For 50 years, the U.S. Navy kept the full truth classified. I have restored her last photographs and found a declassified drawing of skeletal remains on the bottom at a depth of 10,000 feet.
The hull was broken into two main sections. The operations compartment was virtually destroyed, the sail was torn off and lay on its port side. The after section of the engine room had telescoped into the hull by about 50 feet. The torpedo room remained intact but was separated from the operations compartment by hydrostatic pressure. The propeller shaft with the screw had separated from the hull and lay separately on the bottom. One running light was in the open position - it could have remained so after the port call in Rota, or it could have been knocked open by the implosion.
In 1993, the U.S. Navy declassified part of the documents. However, there is still no consensus. There are three main theories.
Version 1: Detonation of her own Mark 37 torpedo. According to this version, a torpedo may have gone active, the crew tried to eject it, and it struck the hull. The Court of Inquiry called this the "most probable" cause but did not state it with full certainty.
Version 2: Battery explosion. This is argued by Bruce Rule, lead acoustic analyst at the Office of Naval Intelligence. He analyzed acoustic signals recorded by hydrophones at the time of the loss. According to his data, at 18:20:44 on May 22, there was an explosion of hydrogen outgassing from the battery. It killed or incapacitated the crew. Then at 18:42:34 the hull collapsed at crush depth after loss of control. This version is also supported by other submariners - for example, Commander Bob LaGassa, who served on the sister ship USS Skipjack (SSN-585).
Version 3: Collision with a Soviet submarine. Promoted by journalist Ed Offley, author of "Scorpion Down." He claims the U.S. Navy knew the truth from the beginning and covered it up to avoid World War III. However, he himself acknowledged that the official inquiry found no evidence of Soviet submarines in the area.
Version 4. What does the inscription ORANGE KAPOK hide on the diagram?
In the declassified U.S. Navy report on the loss of USS Scorpion (SSN-589) there is a sheet - Exhibit 7-2, Page 2 of 2. It is a sketch of the debris field on the bottom, made from footage from the bathyscaphe Trieste II.
On the diagram it literally says:
ORANGE KAPOK LIFE JACKET SPREAD OUT ON BOTTOM.
In most books and articles about Scorpion, this same item is called differently - a Steinke hood, an escape hood for ascent from depth. But the primary source says something else.
A member of the professional submariners community drew attention to this detail during a joint analysis of the document. With his permission, I present his logic in my own words:
Kapok is not a Steinke hood. Kapok is a topside life jacket. It is worn only on the outer deck when the boat is surfaced. Inside the pressure hull you don't work in it - it is bulky and gets in the way. If a man in kapok is found on the bottom, it means at the moment of the casualty he was on deck.
The same document contains a second detail that supports this idea:
Right Leg on the Bottom; The Left Pant Leg was "Floating" or Suspended Above Skeleton Form
That is how a body lies that got snagged on something on deck - on a lifeline stanchion, on a cleat - and went down with the boat. A standard kapok has great buoyancy and would have kept the body on the surface, even after death.
What does this change? The official version assumes Scorpion was at depth. If a sailor was on deck in a kapok, it means the boat at the moment of the disaster was surfaced or in the process of an emergency dive 400 km southwest of the Azores.
Why would the boat be on the surface? This opens a field for hypotheses that were almost never considered before:
Surfacing out of necessity. Radio transmission, ventilation, a casualty requiring a man topside.
Visual detection. A surfaced boat is much easier to detect visually.
A WWII mine. As noted in the same discussion: the Atlantic was swept after the war, but it is physically impossible to sweep the entire ocean. In 1968, only 23 years had passed since the end of the war, and a drifting unexploded mine could theoretically have survived.
I emphasize: this is not a claim about the cause of the loss, but an analysis of an inscription on an open document. The official cause of the loss of USS Scorpion is still considered undetermined. I am only showing that the primary source Exhibit 7-2 (UNCLASSIFIED) says ORANGE KAPOK, not Steinke hood, and what conclusions follow from it according to submariner safety logic.
The official U.S. Navy position, recorded in a 1971 memorandum, states: "The cause of the loss of USS Scorpion is undetermined."
The loss of Scorpion became one of the main reasons for the creation of the SUBSAFE program - a safety system that has protected American submarines ever since. After the tragedies of Thresher (USS Thresher, SSN-593) and Scorpion, the U.S. Navy completely revised its approach to operating nuclear boats. Since then, no American nuclear submarine has been lost.
Today, in 2026. 58 years after the tragedy, the mystery of Scorpion remains open. The boat lies on the bottom of the Atlantic at a depth of 10,000 feet. Access to her is closed - she is a war grave.
Part of the archives on the loss of Scorpion is still classified. This breeds new theories and suspicions of a cover-up. The families of the lost still have not received a final answer.
The daughter of Chief Walter Bishop, MaryEtta Nolan, who was 8 years old at the time, recalled: she and her mother were waiting for a call from the military, but instead heard on the news that the boat was declared missing. The families waited on the pier in Norfolk in rain and wind on May 27, 1968. They believed they would see their husbands, fathers, brothers. Instead, they got only silence. And a question that no one can answer to this day.
Author: OxanaOxana, May-September 2026. Original on oxanaoxana.com
Sources: Naval History and Heritage Command, U.S. Navy report 1968/1993, acoustic analysis data by Bruce Rule.
Author: OxanaOxana © 2026
Original restoration and analysis: OxanaOxana.com
Original article, photo restoration and diagrams: Read here on OxanaOxana.com
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