
GSF Explorer, formerly USNS Hughes Glomar Explorer (T-AG-193), was a deep-sea drillship platform built for Project Azorian, the secret 1974 effort by the United States Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division to recover the Soviet submarine K-129.

USS Halibut (SSGN-587), a unique nuclear-powered guided missile submarine-turned-special operations platform, later redesignated as an attack submarine SSN-587, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named after the halibut.

The Hughes Mining Barge, or HMB-1, is a submersible barge about 99 m (324 ft) long, 32 m (106 ft) wide, and more than 27 m (90 ft) tall. The HMB-1 was originally developed as part of Project Azorian, the top-secret effort mounted by the Central Intelligence Agency to salvage the wreckage of the Soviet submarine K-129 from the ocean floor.

The K-129 was a Project 629A diesel-electric-powered ballistic-missile submarine that served in the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Navy–one of six Project 629 strategic ballistic-missile submarines assigned to the 15th Submarine Squadron based at Rybachiy Naval Base near Petropavlovsk, commanded by Rear Admiral Rudolf Golosov.

Phantom is a 2013 American submarine thriller film about a Soviet submarine during the Cold War in the 1960s. Todd Robinson wrote and directed the film. It stars Ed Harris, David Duchovny and William Fichtner.

Project Azorian was a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in 1974, using the purpose-built ship Hughes Glomar Explorer. The 1968 sinking of K-129 occurred approximately 1,600 miles (2,600 km) northwest of Hawaii. Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about $800 million, or $4 billion today.

USS Swordfish (SSN-579), a Skate-class nuclear-powered submarine, was the second submarine of the United States Navy named for the swordfish, a large fish with a long, swordlike beak and a high dorsal fin.