New film unravels mystery of the Russian ‘spy whale’ | Whales

When a white whale, mysteriously kitted out with covert surveillance equipment, was first spotted in icy waters around Norway five years ago it seemed like an improbable chapter from a spy thriller. But working out the true identity and secret objectives of this beluga, nicknamed Hvaldimir by the Norwegians, quickly became a real-life puzzle that has continued to fascinate the public and trouble western intelligence analysts.

Now missing clues have surfaced that finally begin to make sense of the underwater enigma. The makers of a new BBC documentary, Secrets of the Spy Whale, believe they have traced the beluga’s probable path and identified its likely mission.

Hvaldimir, whose nickname is a combination of hval, Norwegian for whale, and the first name of Russian president Vladimir Putin, has regularly been described as a Russian “spy whale”. After all, the harness it wore bore the words “Equipment of St Petersburg” and seemed designed to carry a small camera. But the film uncovers new evidence that he might have been trained as a covert “guard whale”, rather than being sent out to sea to conduct maritime espionage.

“Our latest findings about the potential role that Hvaldimir had been trained to do bring us closer to solving the mystery,” said Jennifer Shaw, director of the film, which airs on BBC Two on Wednesday. “But they also prompt many further questions about what Russia might be seeking to guard in the Arctic, and why.”

After 10 months of research into the strange history of marine mammal training, the documentary team met one of the last remaining veterans of an early US Navy programme run from Point Mugu in California. Former dolphin trainer Blair Irvine, now in his 80s, explained how he had developed the programme. “Swimmers create bubbles, bubbles cause noise. The dolphin’s hearing is extremely sensitive and in this context it was unfailing,” he said.

Irvine and his team trained dolphins to swim like sentries, listening out for intruders. They would push a paddle with their rostrum, or snout, to sound an alarm if they detected noises. The Soviet Union soon launched its own programme using similar techniques. A phalanx of dolphins is thought to have guarded the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. Kept in floating cages, they were trained to warn of the approach of any underwater saboteurs.

The documentary includes evidence given by whale expert Dr Eve Jourdain, who details patterns of behaviour she had observed while watching Hvaldimir in Hammerfest harbour in 2019. She had seen the whale swim right up to touch the cameras being carried by anyone who tried to swim close by. “It was obvious that this particular whale had been conditioned to be putting his nose on anything that looked like a target,” Jourdain told the film-makers.

Shaw told the Observer that the whale found on the Norwegian coast had shown every sign of having been recruited as part of a security patrol. “As we sat interviewing Blair Irvine in America, thousands of miles away from Hammerfest, it dawned on me that I might be sitting opposite the man who had devised the exact training system Hvaldimir had been conditioned by, albeit 50 years later.”

In the 1980s, as the strategic importance of the Arctic grew during the Cold War, a new branch of the programme was launched in the northern Russian city of Murmansk. Here, Shaw suspects, these mammals were used to guard the ballistic missile submarines of the Northern Fleet. A former Soviet dolphin trainer and nuclear submarine commander Volodymyr Belousiuk, who was stationed in Murmansk at this time, reveals in the documentary that instructors turned their attention to whales because dolphins became ill in sub-zero temperatures.

“We knew we wanted to uncover more about the true identity of the whale,” said Shaw. “It’s a mystery that has captivated people around the world. But it also gave us an opportunity to explore the history of marine mammal training within the military – something that few people are aware of as it has been steeped in secrecy for decades and many of those who knew the truth are sadly no longer alive.”

The collapse of the Soviet Union saw funding for marine mammal programmes reduced, but the appearance of the “spy whale” was one of several signs of reinvestment. Imagery of a Russian Navy base at Olenya Guba revealed the presence of two large floating pens containing “white spots” thought to be belugas.

Hvaldimir was found dead earlier this year by two men fishing in Risavika Bay, southern Norway. Police opened an investigation after animal rights groups claimed he had been shot. However, an autopsy showed he had died after a stick became lodged in his mouth.