Hypotheses and rumors about the disappearance of the Minerva
The file of the commission of inquiry had been classified as "Confidential Defense" and no one could have access to it without a valid service reason.
This silence from the authorities would allow the emergence of numerous rumors about the causes of the disappearance.
This article from a 1968 TV magazine is the first rumors that begin to circulate
These rumors, sometimes fanciful, were amplified by the fact that those who had access to the file described it as "empty" and that it contained no sensitive or interesting information. This seemed contradictory to the "Defense Confidential" status.
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The Navy did not want to make its mistakes public.
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The causes of the accident were concealed for reasons of economic and commercial interests
This thesis is the one developed by Le Monde in 2000 and regularly taken up since by other daily newspapers (see Controversies page).
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The Minerva was said to have been on a secret mission
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The crew was incompetent, starting with its commander.
This hypothesis has circulated primarily in military circles. The commander's widow has been attacked on this point on a personal level, and she has even violently left dinners to which she had been invited following such accusations. The commander's sister, the wife of a naval officer, also had to deal with it.
The LV André Fauve at the Naval Academy in 1967
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The crew, still alive, captured by the Russians, was held in the gulag in Siberia.
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The Minerve had suffered a failure of a new type of weaponry that it was testing.
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The Minerve had been sunk by the Algerians during a secret operation off the Mers El Kébir base in Algeria, which France had just returned to Algeria.
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The Minerve was apparently the victim of an accidental firing of a "Malafon" missile from the Galissonière where they were undergoing testing.
The ship's logbook, however, states that the boat was moored at the quayside in Toulon that day.
Journal de borde de la Galissonière le 27/01/1968
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The wreck was reportedly located by the Americans in the early 1980s.
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UFOs, extraterrestrial intervention...