Misdirection
Known as “Israel’s Titanic,” the country’s only submarine ever to disappear sparked a three-decade obsession to find the vessel and its missing crew. Fueled by wild rumors, psychic visions, and scientists led astray by their own evidence, the search left traumatized families and a nation desperate for answers in its wake. Decades later, four men—including the world’s greatest submarine hunter and the submarine’s dead captain—finally cut through the maze of misinformation to uncover the truth. A half-century-old mystery about how easily fiction can become facts feels eerily—and urgently—relevant today.
FOLLOW ME, CENTERED: JOE LIEBERMAN, UPHEAVEL, THE JOURNEY OF MENACHEM BEGIN
Project Overview
On January 26, 1968, the INS Dakar, an Israeli submarine with a crew of 69 disappeared. After a sweeping 10-day hunt, the search ended. But the mystery surrounding the sub had only just begun.
For the men’s families, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, the trauma did not fade. As with post-October 7 Israeli hostage families, the Dakar families remained steadfast. They were relentless, talking to government officials, the navy, the media, and anyone else who would listen. The navy had to find their men.
The Dakar’s loss came only months after the Egyptians had blown an Israeli destroyer out of the water. Despite its overwhelming victory in the Six-Day War, the Israeli navy still battled its enemies on the open waters and was desperate for answers.
Why did it take more than 30 years to locate the sub?
Perhaps because searchers allowed the Dakar’s buoy – the only piece of physical evidence found after the sinking – to play mind games with them. It became their oracle – and their magician. It mesmerized Israel’s best scientists who told a story of a submarine that seemingly could time travel.
Adding to the fear and disorientation, psychics filled the information vacuum, telling families hungry for answers that their men were captured by the Soviets, or envisioning a James Bondian-type ship that swallowed the Dakar.
Three men were at the center of this story re-examined the science and pushed aside the fantastic conspiracy tales. They were an Israeli navy diver, a brilliant, stubborn oceanographer, and an American explorer and submarine expert.
There was also a fourth naysayer, the dead captain of the Dakar whose past actions and brilliance eventually overcame much of the wild speculation.
Though this is a little-known event outside Israel, what happened to the Dakar is a cautionary tale for everyone, every country, and every navy.
Misdirection is a submarine tale that takes place almost entirely outside of the submarine. It is a story of how the hunt began…and how, after years of misdirection, it was solved with the wisdom of a few individuals, the true story of a dead man, and the persistence of the crew’s families.