On November 10, H. Chavez called Contragolpe host Vanessa Davies in the middle of the show to break the news that a US nuclear-powered submarine had been spotted in the country's territorial waters. According to Chavez's on-air account, an “unidentified” and “large-size” submarine appeared on the radars of the Venezuelan submarine fleet which was conducting regular exercise, but, being an extremely fast-moving vehicle, easily escaped the Venezuelan boats that took to trailing it. Chavez stressed that the Venezuelan navy responded to the provocation with due restraint and did not open fire during the incident.
As a matter of fact, this was not the first US submarine invasion of Venezuela's territorial waters on record. In April 2002, on the eve of an attempted anti-Chavez coup, US Defense Intelligence Agency operatives were supposed to hold a coordination meeting with the perpetrators aboard a US submarine. In September 2005, the USS Virginia, a US attack submarine, left the Naval Submarine Base in Groton, CT, for a 70—day reconnaissance raid in the Caribbean Sea. The Virginia and other US submarines are known to have paid a number of uninvited visits to Venezuela's territorial waters since the time.