back to article GERONTIC 'Ghost ship' prowled the undersea cables of the 1940s

A "ghost ship" which helped develop the world's network of undersea cables - and worked for the former British Cable & Wireless firm, nowadays renowned as partner to the Five-Eyes spook alliance under the secret codename GERONTIC - has been discovered deep beneath the waves near Hawaii. The ship in question is the Dickenson, …

  1. The Vociferous Time Waster

    Tenuous

    historically interesting - thel GCHQ link in the story is pretty lame though

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Lousy, cheap, click bait.....

    ...wow a ship laying phone lines almost 70 years ago, somehow is tied up with GCHQ today?

    Next weeks head line.

    GPO are terrorists as exchange used in 1947 handled a phone call made in 2013 to a convicted terrorist.

    Shame, it could of been a interesting article without the crap.

  3. wolfetone Silver badge

    The Philidelphia Experiment

    I bet this was the actual boat that was used!

    See Reg, if you went along those lines with the story no one would bemoan the use of GCHQ/Five Eyes for click bait.

  4. Chronos

    NUMA

    Do I sense a new Dirk Pitt adventure? "GERONTIC: Pitt and Giordino discover a ghost ship filled with highly sensitive 1940s communications technology and must race a group of international whistleblowers known only as 'The Vultures' to protect its secrets."

    It's a wreck, guys. A ghost ship floats about on its own without a crew. More than that, it's a deliberate wreck. The bloody navy sank it on purpose. Perlmutter would have known exactly where, when, what ordnance was used and the Captain's family tree without so much as demanding a bacon butty. It would be a very short book.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: NUMA

      "Perlmutter...without so much as demanding a bacon butty.

      Upvoted for the Boys Own Adv... Dirk Pitt books reference.

      1. Matt 21

        Re: NUMA

        Given the location I wonder instead if McGarrett's mum is hiding on it.

        Or perhaps Nine Wilde and Chase are fighting another megalomaniac to find a clue to Atlantis's sister island which was left on the ship by a the relics of the Nazi spy system just after the 2nd world war.......

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. VeganVegan

    I did enjoy seeing the HURL acronym

    Somebody has a sense of humour.

    Having a little experience floating out on the high seas, I've done my share of tossing my cookies, head in the head, etc. when the conditions got rough.

    One of my jobs as a deckhand was to swab the vomit trails off the sides of the boat after trips carrying lubbers out for a joy cruise.

    Dramamine is your friend.

    1. paulf
      Paris Hilton

      Re: I did enjoy seeing the HURL acronym

      The USA of America has other fine examples. I saw these buses on a mountain holiday, some years ago:

      Tahoe Area Regional Transit (TART)

      http://www.placer.ca.gov/Departments/Works/Transit/TART

      Paris, yeah, because.

      1. Blake St. Claire

        Re: I did enjoy seeing the HURL acronym

        This just in from the Department of Redundancy Department:

        The USA of America?

        Right. And our neighbors, Estados Unidos de Mexico de Mexico.

  7. Gray
    Windows

    Seems fitting enough ...

    After years of faithful service, to get a torpedo up the arse for one's reward.

  8. Stevie

    Bah!

    ""It is always a thrill when you are closing in on a large sonar target with the Pisces submersible and you don't know what big piece of history is going to come looming out of the dark" "

    Or what non-Euclidean piece of pre-history will loom out of the eternal darkness to drive the RoV operator mad with what he sees when he turns on the floodlights.

    Have these fools never read any Lovecraft? I'd have thought it essential reading for anyone contemplating a jaunt over the festering sludge of the abyssal plain of the Pacific Ocean.

  9. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

    Lost in translation

    Entirely missed by the ignorance of the journalist reaching to achieve god knows what is that the USA didn't have working torpedoes during WW2.

    This probably explained how ramming an old ship with one wouldn't cause a great deal of harm, unless you count sinking that is. But we don't know if that was due to penetration with an offensive weapon or if it just tripped over some cable.

    Now let's have an article about how useful their general purpose bombs were 20 years later.

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