I'm a former US Navy Operations Specialists. We were pulling into Chile for there naval birthday and parade celebration there was a Chinese Hospital ship already in port for the parade, looking through our Ship Optical system (a high powered camera) we could help notice the vast amount of antennas on top of the ship....

Shocked that the Glomar Explorer wasn't brought up. I mean, building a scientific research vessel with the sole purpose of recovering a Soviet nuclear submarine kinda meets the criteria.

I love the idea of any nation having a government-funded (even partially) vessel with cutting edge sensor equipment and not using it, to whatever extent, to gather intelligence. If the Royal Navy was secretly arming merchant ships 109 years ago, it would be very odd if they, along with everyone else, weren't doing vaguely similar things now, but 109 years more advanced.

The line between civilian scientific and military 'oceanography' is gray and fuzzy! Considering China has an integrated civilian/military infrastructure, I'd be surprised if they didn't. So yes, they have one. And so do many other nations.

The UK's David Attenborough so called "research vessel" is also one of these. I live not far from Cammel Lairds, the shipyard in which it was built along side Type 45 and frigate refurbishments. Large, black wrapped equipment was craned on to the ship many times under military armed guard.

Yes on the Independence and the Kitty Hawk I have personally seen the China spy fleet and the Russian spy fleet ships. Using yachts is a low cost instead of military craft.

Completely ignorant conjecture on my part but here's my theory: trip north provides framing and plausible deniability, and when they were closest to Taiwan, they were picking up their surveillance drones

I...kind of presumed they had one already. I figured most major nations would. 🤷🏽‍♂️

Even their merchant marine fleet carries out clandestine operations in coordination with the “coast guard”.

The resolution of said ruckus. I love it 😂😂

Shouldn't this be on Into the Shadows? 😏 An odd Megaprojects. No matter, im going to enjoy this regardless.

This feels like a Warographics video

As usual, superb writing and execution.

Now if warographics could get back to this style of reporting that would be great. No very obvious bias and straight facts exactly why I love the Whistlerverse and its content. Oh and Simon or writers y’all can happily use Whistlerverse if you think it’s good.

1:05 - Chapter 1 - The zhuahai cloud 11:00 - Chapter 2 - Those in glass house

Can't the ship do both things. It reminds me of when the US Navy funded a search for the Titanic so they could find a Russian submarine that had sunk.

Without actually watching the video.... the answer is YES. But it's nothing new or unique. 10 year US Navy Veteran.

These ships look quite innocent in comparison to the chinese paramilitary shipping fleet.

Hello Simon, you make KZfaq worth switching on the TV keep it up mate from a fellow Brit Everything you do is so informative I love the mega projects😊😊😊😊

Refering to the entire Pacific theater of WWII as a "little ruckus starting in Hawaii"... absolutely gold

Quite an exciting video on something not really talked about in history books.

Let's be honest here, if they don't have a secret spy fleet then someone isn't doing their job...

How is this news day? It's a normal Tuesday!

Good one fact boy

could you do a vid on chernobly? i realy would like to see another nuclear power plant vid

Nice analysis. Your writer should've been a navy intelligence analyst.

Why is this on MegaProjects and not Warographics or Into the Shadows?

This story is like when another Civ (in civ 6) sends a scout to your territory, then they stick around a little too long. So you send a singer over and the scout runs off. Was it a scouting run, or are the assessing the defenses if they were to attack?

I think the idea of a spy ship goes back a bit further than what's mentioned in the vid. probably by thousand of years.

A bulbous bow doesn’t necessarily indicate anything, it’s a fuel saving measure to even out the water line that runs along the hull as the ship makes way through the water.

That they didn't have spy ships, that would be news.

can you make a video about the F-20 tigershark

its for monarch kaiju research

This episode of Megaprojects is brought to you by the word 'Allegedly'.

of course it's a spy ship even a fart over there has a military connection!!!

The phrase "US condoned Chinese research" does make one wonder. More importantly. The subject ship does look a lot like Stingray. If Gerry Anderson or his decendants are taking note. There may be some copyright infringement! Lol. Great video as usual.

One of the captured USS Pueblo sailors spoke at my high school graduation.

All hail our robotic underlords. No really, hail them, or they'll surface at night and shoot your super yacht

The Peanut Farmer is putting in work.

I always thought that their fishing fleets are spy ships

During the Cold War, the Soviets were blatant with respects to their fishing trawlers. I saw one on the back side of Maui during a landscape photo trip. It was a rust bucket that was painted red. On the top was a really big white dome, which looked like the upper two-thirds of an incandescent light bulb. The edge of the roof was covered with antennas. The local TV stations also got wind of the vessel and sent aerial crews to tape footage for the evening news. This occurred at the same time one of our (US) submarines sailed between Lanai and Maui on the surface, which p**sed off quite a few locals.

Noah was just doing oceanagraphic research. It was only by chance that he had all of his pets aboard.

Glad i watched this before it gets taken down.

"If it quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck"

The one thing I can say for certain about her is, she is one beautiful ship!!

well... Simon, why don't you do one about the Japanese "Antarctic scientific research" vessel? Or is that too controversial?

Why is this a surprise? Every great power and Evan some lasser powers have spy ships? Par for the course.

It’s like Beau of the fifth says. “ Foreign Policy is an international poker game where everyone is cheating“

Does a Bear sh*t n the woods?

Here's a challenge. Watch the show Deadliest Catch. Pay attention to the boats in the distance. If you see one with more than 5 antennas, that's a spy ship (either Chinese or Russian).

Let me guess, you didn't know that Bob Ballard's search for Titanic was a cover story for a classified US Navy operation to find sunked US submarines.

Gotta love the fact that China’s spy fleet is so pitiful that Megaprojects has a video just calling out their ships

Well...DUH!! We are not all simpletons.

Anyone catch the dolphin breaching in the old WWII film at 13:23?

Yeah, you lost me at harrier. I still call em jump jets, btw what is faster 2wd or 4wd?

Thats kind of a dumb question. Every nuclear armed nation has at least one ship that's a spy ship rather they announce it or not. Let's not forget. In late 2023 and early 2024, an Iranian ship that was in the red Sea was always nearby when the Houthis launched missiles and drones at ships. The U.S. accused it of being an Iranian spy ship. Where it went, so did the drones and missiles go. The U.S launched a cyber attack on it and the attacks died down a bit shortly after.

I need an autograph Simon

civilian spy fleet eh? what i'm hearing is we should be bringing back privateers.

What kind of spy fleet would you expect it to have?

But Simon... China and Russia have the opinion that all assets in the nation are state assets. And will use them to an extent that would even make the Stasi envious! But they are also very clever at hiding it behind the veil of plausible explanations of civilian use. After all, a private yacht can go anywhere. and they just happen to have their military grade survey equipment running at all times......

100% yes

Secret😂😂😂😂

I don’t really have an issue with it. I’d be surprised if they didn’t

To answer the primary question…most likely. It’s probably there, probably wider spread, and probably simpler than you think.

Well, they’d be pretty silly not to have a spy fleet. As a US military veteran, I’m absolutely sure we have them, not because I’m privy to any insider information but because I know how valuable they’d be. It would be irresponsible of our government not to have such vessels. Similarly, I have to conclude that Chinese leaders made the same decision in the support of their national interests.

Of course the Chinese have secret spy ships. All the super powers do.

Kinda like their water powered missiles and rockets.

I'm pretty sure the US, Russia, France, the UK etc all do too.

The answer is no because saying yes would be a paradox

Hear me out here, what if these ships are doing actual marine research. Because they all appear to be returning to submarine bases I think that they are mapping the sea floor so they can provide accurate maps for the submarine fleets. That's not saying they're not pulling double duties and doing a bit of spying on the side.

Honestly, this is pretty plausible. Most of Chinese manufacturing has civilian and military purpose dual purpose, if you could say.

When quoting a source with "From the horses mouth at 2:00 please play or link the source video for us to independently translate, I don't speak mandarin but I'm sure many commenters do and I also have access to people who do and can verify that info to add legitimacy to your claims. it would ease my mind if you could confidently supply your claims easily without having to spend an evening verifying your essay independently

With every move he makes another chance he takes Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow Secret agent man Secret agent man They've given you a number, and taken away your name

Does America, Britain, France, India..... everyone (that can afford one).. dah....doh... Homer Simpson day in the navy.

OK Let's say it is a spy fleet. What is wrong with that?

the chinese, a geat bunch of lads 😊

No reason there couldn't be a "black box" of electronics installed someplace behind a few bulkheads that was attached to every antenna and piece of equipment capable of detecting RF energy which collected every bit of spectrum that could be detected. It could then compile everything and burst it out via some kind of satellite communications system. If it was geo fenced to only do this when far(ish) out to sea, it could easily do this and remain undetected. I'd be surprised if every ship constructed in china didn't have something like this built in, with the owners/operators (potentially) completely unaware. If the systems were low power enough and redundant enough then a solid state system could very well operate uninterrupted for years with no need for maintenance.

I just always assume that every Chinese vessel is a military ship. Including the hundreds of Cosco owned ships docked at American and European ports on a daily basis. Thousands of shipping containers, if only a handful held nukes the world would collapse.😢😢

I remember when the ‘Russian trawler following US battle groups around was a cliche.

Doesnt america have Therese chips also?

Yes, it's already well known to us in ASEAN. I just wish the American public did.

A nice looking ship, whatever its real purpose.

We don't know. It's a secret.

Both the US and the Soviets had totaly not military spy fleets during the cold war

Every big country has secret fleet. 😂

normal ppl: wow, that's scary ppl with an eye on the ccp: this was old news in 2010

There was a satellite that Was like that. It had military use, so it could destroy other satellites.

Simon says he won't continue to speculate on what is or is not a US spy ship on account of he doesn't want to jeopardize his CIA funding from Mockingbird

Stole everything like thieves!

this isnt really anything new.. militaries around the world ALWAYS get first pick of technologies developed on their soil.. the USA has plenty of ships built for civilian purposes that were also used for military missions.. some were adapted and refitted back later while others were never needed to be changed..

Pretty sure this is a Bond Movie plot

9:58 Also, given the fact that we're hearing about these ships via a YT channel, maybe it's not such a well-kept secret. Either that, or... Maybe you're the next Tom Clancy, pumping out all kinds of otherwise unknown military information, sending a few governments scrambling, around the world, in order to (Try to) find the source of their leaks..? Anddddd... Maybe That's why you were forced to flee your homeland, made to pack up the family and move them, and yourself...across the Continent, never gaining even a moment's rest, as you're constantly harassed, harried, and otherwise hounded relentlessly...lol

Oops, not a secret any more.

Watch this from 10.07 So what if it is???

I'm confused... Is it a video about China's "megaproject" or an illustration of China's "whataboutism"?

That'll cost someone a torpedo

sorry Simon, but read the headline already knew the answer. of course, it F'in does. have seen many fleets of Chinese "fishing fleets" lately? 2+2 anyone?

Did someone drop you “a little brown envelope” Simon? I think maybe they did

tofu dreg secret spy fleet? good luck wit dat

If you want to spread a rumour whisper it to someone as a secret.