Fisherman Discover ‘Spy’ Beluga Whale Trained by the Russian Military

This certainly isn’t something you hear about every day.

According to this, Norwegian fishermen recently made quite the discovery. Apparently, they spotted a beluga whale bounded by straps of some sort. They jumped into the water to help the whale and noticed that the straps didn’t get there by accident.

“When I was lying in the water, he came all the way up to the side, and I managed to reach the front buckle and open it,” one of the fishermen stated, according to the Daily Mail.

Norway’s Directorate of Fisheries also shared photos of the whale with straps around its body on social media around.

‘White whale off the Finnmarkkysten coast that had tight straps fastened around the body is free,’ the caption read.

‘Crew from the Fisheries Directorate’s Sea Service are trained to release whales from ropes and fishing gear and, together with the local fisherman Joar Hesten, they managed to liberate the whale.’

So what’s the deal? Where did this whale escape from?

They seem to believe that this whale was in Russian captivity. They were trying to train it.

Inspector Joergen Ree Wiig of the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries, who was at the scene, said the harness was branded with ‘equipment of St. Petersburg’ and featured a mount for an action camera.

This has prompted speculation the animal may have escaped from a Russian military facility.

So…a SPY WHALE?

Audun Rikardsen, an arctic and marine biology professor at the department of arctic the Arctic University of Norway, also spoke to the Norwegian national broadcaster Russian Navy keeping whales in captivity.

‘We know that in Russia they have had domestic whales in captivity and also that some of these have apparently been released. Then they often seek out boats.’

It should be noted that Russia’s not outright denying the use of spy whales.

Meanwhile, Russia has dismissed claims its ‘spy whale’ had been caught snooping on the fishing vessels of a NATO country — despite the Defence Ministry in Moscow previously admitting to experiments using these mammals for espionage.

So there you go. “Spy whales” are A Thing.

See? Learnin’ something new every day…

h/t Daily Mail