Secrets of the Spy Whale (2024) Movie Script
To live in the Arctic Circle,
it shapes you as a person.
It makes you tougher in some ways
because you have to fight the cold
and the snow and the wind.
I thought this was the safest place on Earth.
It's so far away from civilisation.
But after what happened here in 2019...
that has changed.
Ingay is one of the northernmost
islands in the world that is inhabited.
Around twenty people live here.
I have been fishing all my life.
Between that and my family,
that is what keeps me going.
When you spend a lot of time at sea,
you build up your own understanding
of how nature works.
The days are never the same.
Me, my brother and my father
were out fishing.
Spring was Starting to break through.
The seagulls are preparing to nest,
and it's a very nice part of the year.
Late in the season the fishing
starts to get very hard,
SO we were Changing location for our nets.
Suddenly...
we saw a white shadow in the water.
Normally, in these waters,
you don't see anything white.
Sometimes we come across
a big piece of plastic,
sometimes halibut can be, we call it sunbathing.
This white shadow was big
and moving towards us.
It turned out to be a beluga whale.
It was really strange.
I've been fishing here twenty years plus.
This region ts not natural habitat for beluga whales.
I've never seen one in these waters.
As it came closer, we saw that
it was entangled with something.
First, we thought it was a rope or some fishing gear.
It's a strap.
But when it came really close
we realised it looks like there's some
arranged harness or something
and we started wondering what's going on here?
Maybe some scientists have tried
to capture a beluga whale
for some experiment or something
and then he had broken free.
He's looking for fish.
Yeah it looks like it.
The whale starts rubbing against the boat.
I heard about animals in distress
that instinctively knew that
they need help from humans.
I was thinking that this is one smart whale.
Sometimes when you're out fishing,
we get a fish that has been caught before
and you can actually see how fishing lines
or net are growing into the skin.
The tissue could grow over the harness
to make big sores and cuts In him.
If nobody did anything, the whale would die
and I was looking at...
not a good death.
On our fishing boat we can't reach down to the water.
So I decided to call for help.
They're almost here. It's better with the people
who know what they're doing.
The Fisheries called me
they asked us to keep the whale there.
Come, come.
Yes, you will get help. They're coming soon.
We were just trying to connect.
Yes, they are coming.
I remember thinking, just try to be gentle
and not scare him away.
In ways I could actually feel we were trying to connect.
We came from different worlds but there was a bond.
It's incredible.
How the hell are we getting it off?
Be careful.
Now. He's coming up.
Jeargen told me that they had a rifle on board
and they were trained to to put the whale down.
I was very determined to actually help this whale.
It was clear to me that somebody
needed to go into the water.
I realised that this is the only opportunity we have
and that we need to do it right now.
People had put him in this situation tn the first place.
So I thought it was really important for us to make it right.
I offered to put on a survival suit
and make an attempt from the water.
My father wasn't too keen on that idea.
So he was,
my son you're not going Into the water with this whale.
I just said that it is my boat, I will go into the water.
On your boat you're the captain, on this boat I am the captain.
Now we can get him.
Are you going in?
Yes, I'm going in.
The water, it is freezing.
If you don't have a suit on
you will start hypothermia in minutes.
The beluga whale came straight towards me.
Now he comes.
And it was, it was a very special moment.
It was scary.
I was not certain how this would go.
The whale was bigger than I had imagined.
And I was like, drifting away from all the other boats
and I was alone in the water.
And this beluga just came
all the way close to my body
and you could just feel him touching me.
If he grabs hold of me and drags me under
he could probably hold his breath longer than me
so I will have a problem.
At one point he came really close to me, really slow
and I managed to slide my fingers
over the harness until I reached a buckle
and I then I just pressed it
and you could just feel it popped.
And I just shouted to the fisheries that "I got one."
The second buckle was further down on his stomach.
I gave it a couple of tries but it was out of reach.
There it ts.
Yes. Now it's stuck to the boat.
Take the wheel.
The whale came really close.
I could see that he was just looking
at me and I was looking at him.
When he was ready to dive, I hooked it on the harness.
This ts it.
We just burst out in this primal scream.
It is one of the best moments tn my life.
Fantastic.
That was amazing.
That was amazing.
That was amazing.
I said to myself, okay, whale just go north -
and you will find your own
and never look back and see you once again.
He just made this little slap with his tail
and you could just see the white shadow
disappearing in the deep waters.
And I was just thinking, this ts the last time I see him.
Just wish him good luck on his journey.
Beautiful.
Come and get a cuddle.
My God.
Come, come.
Oh my God.
Go around?
So talented.
This is for a GoPro?
"Equipment St. Petersburg" it says here.
A beluga whale in a harness spotted along the
Finnmark coast Is attracting attention.
A beluga whale in a harness spotted along the
Finnmark coast is attracting attention.
An unusual whale has been /urking around boats
off the coast of Northern Norway.
An unusual whale has been Iurking around boats
An unusual whale has been /urking around boats
off the coast of Northern Norway.
It wore a harness that was very tight.
Did you get a fish?
Are you going home with us to Hammerfest?
Yes you are!
People from all over the world have flocked
to the harbour in Hammerfest
to catch the white whale, which has become
the summer's major tourist attraction.
is this for real? Oh my God, it's for real.
Take it, take it, take it.
lt wasn't us who brought the
nuclear nightmare to the world,
but in the name of the revolution
we built our own bomb.
My father served in Sevastopol from 1961.
Sevastopol was very significant for the Soviet Union
because It was the main base
of the Black Sea Fleet.
My father told me that at Balaklava, in Sevastopol,
there was a research laboratory.
It conducted a number of studies
related to the sea.
I found out that dolphins were being trained there.
There was very strict and limited
access to these people.
When I joined the army
I was in the Marine Corp Regiment.
At that time it had a centre
for training combat swimmers.
At that time it had a centre
for training combat swimmers.
I was approached by the head of the
combat dolphin training centre, Kalganov
and he selected several people, including me
because I was a master of sports rowing,
and I was a good diver and swimmer.
The first thing he asked me was
Are you afraid of dolphins?
I said 'No. Why should I be?
He said, Will you jump? I said, I'll jump
and when I jumped into the water,
three dolphins came up to me
I stroked them and we found contact.
Everyone went to dances with girls,
and every weekend I was at the centre,
spending the whole time with dolphins.
That's how I became friends with dolphins
and I'll remember it for the rest of my life.
lam very happy about It,
they are very intelligent animals.
At this time, the main direction of dolphin training
was to detect objects important to the
Soviet Navy on the seabed.
The first task was searching for
practical torpedoes and missile engines.
Near Balaklava there was a launch
position where experimental
engines for Soviet cruise and
ballistic missiles were tested.
There was a need to retrieve them
because they were made from costly metals.
A device was attached to the dolphin,
which nudged the object with its nose
and a buoy would surface, marking the position.
The torpedo or engine would then be retrieved.
A dolphin can detect this underwater object
thanks to its natural sonar.
At a depth of 120 metres.
Humans do not have that ability.
There he is. He's coming fast.
Hi baby!
There is information
that many different experiments
were conducted with marine mammals.
In the mid-seventies there was
an experiment near Sevastopol
where a dolphin was dropped by parachute.
This was done to extend the dolphin's
range to detect hostile objects
or to get the dolphin to conduct
sabotage activities against enemy ships.
Dolphins have indeed been trained to lay mines under ships,
or underwater objects that are heading towards,
let's say, the border of a particular country.
The dolphin swims under the ship,
places the mine, it's magnetic,
it detaches and that's it, the dolphin goes away.
Interviewer: Have you personally
seen them put real mines on ships?
No, just training mines and that's It.
What difference does it make if it's a real one, or a training one?
The Soviet people celebrated USSR Navy Day.
I went to serve on a nuclear submarine
in the Northern Fleet as an officer.
We mainly patrolled the boundaries of the Arctic Ocean,
the Faroe Islands, Canada, England
and the Bear Island near Norway.
There were many submarines.
It was necessary to defend them against
potential sabotage operations.
It was precisely for this that they decided
to use marine mammals.
I got to serve at the 'Yokanga base,
the most remote base in the Murmansk region.
When they set up the centre here, they brought the dolphins.
They thought they would start training them.
They are not adapted to that temperature,
to those conditions.
Unfortunately, they all died.
And then they started to train mammals
that are adapted to living in the north.
Orcas, walruses, seals, beluga whales are adapted to It.
The beluga has very good sonar.
It's practically the same as a dolphin's.
And thanks to this sonar, it can detect both
saboteurs and objects underwater.
At that time the propaganda was that
America or NATO might attack us.
We were in a constant state of tension.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union,
funding for the marine mammal program
was significantly reduced.
Everything went commercial and was sold off.
A few of them just disappeared.
We have shown that our people
are able to distinguish
between the desire for change and renewal
and political provocations.
Glory to Russia!
Yes. What should be his name?
We have let people send us suggestions
and vote for the best one.
The winning suggestion with 31% of the votes was...
Hvaldimir.
A good twist on a good traditional Russian name
and its also a nod to a certain Viadimir Putin.
When I saw the harness,
I recognised it immediately.
Equipment St. Petersburg."
It's just a well-Known outdoor equipment brand.
It was started in 1991, right after the Soviet Union collapsed.
We started connecting dots.
When you do investigative journalism
you just try to pursue all things
secretive and interesting.
The Soviet Union generally used to have
huge number of very strange institutes.
They were called post boxes
because they didn't have official
addresses, only post box number.
Our investigative journalists group
found one organisation nearby St. Petersburg...
called "GOSNIIPP".
"The Scientific Research Institute
for Applied Problems."
Which means basically... nothing.
On their website, they say that they do
research in electronics and robotics.
But if you want to understand what this organisation does,
you go to the state procurement site
and you read what they buy.
We found out that this organisation Is buying...
fish.
We noticed that many papers
Why would they do such research
and why do they not mention it on their website?
We wanted to see what branches GOSNIIPP has.
We found that the northmost branch
was located in a small village
not far from Murmansk
in the Arctic Circle, pretty close to Norway.
If you look at the satellite images
there's just a few abandoned buildings
and half-drowned ships tn the harbour.
It looked like it was dead from Soviet times,
but later we found out that it was not completely dead.
Some research was still going on there
and it was research with belugas.
Are we going to touch it?
I'm 99% sure that he escaped.
I was one of the leading beluga scientists in Russia.
Every summer I went to the Okhotsk Sea
to conduct fieldwork on beluga whales.
Our goal there was population assessment.
We conducted different kinds of studies
and satellite tagging to track
the seasonal movements of belugas.
Every season when we tagged,
we would stay in the same camp with the capture teams.
The Sea of Okhotsk became the
prime site for commercial captures.
Belugas were captured there to be to be later used in...
in Russian oceanaria...
or they would be sold to different countries.
It was roughly 2013 when at the capture site
we heard that some belugas would be captured
for the military research, or military project.
I was a little bit surprised.
I thought military training had been
long, long, long forgotten.
It was difficult to understand
why people in the military would like to, to have belugas
and for what exactly those would be used.
This ts it!
I remember when I heard about this beluga whale
Hvaldimir for the first time,
it was an email from my Norwegian colleagues.
The specialists in beluga whales.
As soon as this information leaked,
everyone started to talk to everyone
amongst the marine mammal community in Russia.
I started to ask around,
I understood that this beluga,
more than likely, I mean, more than likely
was one of those belugas sold or
given to the facilities near Murmansk...
The Research Institute of Applied Problems.
I can't fully disclose the contact
where I got this information from,
but I heard what his nickname was.
His nickname was Andruha.
This animal was kind of easy to train...
in terms that it was Inquisitive and active
but at the same time
it... it had the character that it often did what he wanted to do.
So it seemed, it seemed like no one
was surprised that it actually just escaped.
Of course he escaped.
It's just, it's just a common knowledge now
amongst the marine mammal community tn Russia.
Whether, whether they say it aloud or not.
Helping Hvaldimir out of his harness
felt like ending his military career, setting him free.
It is clearly humans that have tried
to take advantage of this animal,
and use it for a purpose
that nature never tntended for it.
If it was the Russians, or the Norwegians, or the US
I don't think it matters at all in my mind.
Because we are all the same, basically.
I think we just as a species we need to take responsibility
for what we did tn the first place.
I had a lot of feelings about his future.
It would be easy to say just let nature run its course...
but it's not nature running its course because we messed it up.
This whale ts entitled to... to a better ending than his start.
So it is time for him to go back to being a whale.
it shapes you as a person.
It makes you tougher in some ways
because you have to fight the cold
and the snow and the wind.
I thought this was the safest place on Earth.
It's so far away from civilisation.
But after what happened here in 2019...
that has changed.
Ingay is one of the northernmost
islands in the world that is inhabited.
Around twenty people live here.
I have been fishing all my life.
Between that and my family,
that is what keeps me going.
When you spend a lot of time at sea,
you build up your own understanding
of how nature works.
The days are never the same.
Me, my brother and my father
were out fishing.
Spring was Starting to break through.
The seagulls are preparing to nest,
and it's a very nice part of the year.
Late in the season the fishing
starts to get very hard,
SO we were Changing location for our nets.
Suddenly...
we saw a white shadow in the water.
Normally, in these waters,
you don't see anything white.
Sometimes we come across
a big piece of plastic,
sometimes halibut can be, we call it sunbathing.
This white shadow was big
and moving towards us.
It turned out to be a beluga whale.
It was really strange.
I've been fishing here twenty years plus.
This region ts not natural habitat for beluga whales.
I've never seen one in these waters.
As it came closer, we saw that
it was entangled with something.
First, we thought it was a rope or some fishing gear.
It's a strap.
But when it came really close
we realised it looks like there's some
arranged harness or something
and we started wondering what's going on here?
Maybe some scientists have tried
to capture a beluga whale
for some experiment or something
and then he had broken free.
He's looking for fish.
Yeah it looks like it.
The whale starts rubbing against the boat.
I heard about animals in distress
that instinctively knew that
they need help from humans.
I was thinking that this is one smart whale.
Sometimes when you're out fishing,
we get a fish that has been caught before
and you can actually see how fishing lines
or net are growing into the skin.
The tissue could grow over the harness
to make big sores and cuts In him.
If nobody did anything, the whale would die
and I was looking at...
not a good death.
On our fishing boat we can't reach down to the water.
So I decided to call for help.
They're almost here. It's better with the people
who know what they're doing.
The Fisheries called me
they asked us to keep the whale there.
Come, come.
Yes, you will get help. They're coming soon.
We were just trying to connect.
Yes, they are coming.
I remember thinking, just try to be gentle
and not scare him away.
In ways I could actually feel we were trying to connect.
We came from different worlds but there was a bond.
It's incredible.
How the hell are we getting it off?
Be careful.
Now. He's coming up.
Jeargen told me that they had a rifle on board
and they were trained to to put the whale down.
I was very determined to actually help this whale.
It was clear to me that somebody
needed to go into the water.
I realised that this is the only opportunity we have
and that we need to do it right now.
People had put him in this situation tn the first place.
So I thought it was really important for us to make it right.
I offered to put on a survival suit
and make an attempt from the water.
My father wasn't too keen on that idea.
So he was,
my son you're not going Into the water with this whale.
I just said that it is my boat, I will go into the water.
On your boat you're the captain, on this boat I am the captain.
Now we can get him.
Are you going in?
Yes, I'm going in.
The water, it is freezing.
If you don't have a suit on
you will start hypothermia in minutes.
The beluga whale came straight towards me.
Now he comes.
And it was, it was a very special moment.
It was scary.
I was not certain how this would go.
The whale was bigger than I had imagined.
And I was like, drifting away from all the other boats
and I was alone in the water.
And this beluga just came
all the way close to my body
and you could just feel him touching me.
If he grabs hold of me and drags me under
he could probably hold his breath longer than me
so I will have a problem.
At one point he came really close to me, really slow
and I managed to slide my fingers
over the harness until I reached a buckle
and I then I just pressed it
and you could just feel it popped.
And I just shouted to the fisheries that "I got one."
The second buckle was further down on his stomach.
I gave it a couple of tries but it was out of reach.
There it ts.
Yes. Now it's stuck to the boat.
Take the wheel.
The whale came really close.
I could see that he was just looking
at me and I was looking at him.
When he was ready to dive, I hooked it on the harness.
This ts it.
We just burst out in this primal scream.
It is one of the best moments tn my life.
Fantastic.
That was amazing.
That was amazing.
That was amazing.
I said to myself, okay, whale just go north -
and you will find your own
and never look back and see you once again.
He just made this little slap with his tail
and you could just see the white shadow
disappearing in the deep waters.
And I was just thinking, this ts the last time I see him.
Just wish him good luck on his journey.
Beautiful.
Come and get a cuddle.
My God.
Come, come.
Oh my God.
Go around?
So talented.
This is for a GoPro?
"Equipment St. Petersburg" it says here.
A beluga whale in a harness spotted along the
Finnmark coast Is attracting attention.
A beluga whale in a harness spotted along the
Finnmark coast is attracting attention.
An unusual whale has been /urking around boats
off the coast of Northern Norway.
An unusual whale has been Iurking around boats
An unusual whale has been /urking around boats
off the coast of Northern Norway.
It wore a harness that was very tight.
Did you get a fish?
Are you going home with us to Hammerfest?
Yes you are!
People from all over the world have flocked
to the harbour in Hammerfest
to catch the white whale, which has become
the summer's major tourist attraction.
is this for real? Oh my God, it's for real.
Take it, take it, take it.
lt wasn't us who brought the
nuclear nightmare to the world,
but in the name of the revolution
we built our own bomb.
My father served in Sevastopol from 1961.
Sevastopol was very significant for the Soviet Union
because It was the main base
of the Black Sea Fleet.
My father told me that at Balaklava, in Sevastopol,
there was a research laboratory.
It conducted a number of studies
related to the sea.
I found out that dolphins were being trained there.
There was very strict and limited
access to these people.
When I joined the army
I was in the Marine Corp Regiment.
At that time it had a centre
for training combat swimmers.
At that time it had a centre
for training combat swimmers.
I was approached by the head of the
combat dolphin training centre, Kalganov
and he selected several people, including me
because I was a master of sports rowing,
and I was a good diver and swimmer.
The first thing he asked me was
Are you afraid of dolphins?
I said 'No. Why should I be?
He said, Will you jump? I said, I'll jump
and when I jumped into the water,
three dolphins came up to me
I stroked them and we found contact.
Everyone went to dances with girls,
and every weekend I was at the centre,
spending the whole time with dolphins.
That's how I became friends with dolphins
and I'll remember it for the rest of my life.
lam very happy about It,
they are very intelligent animals.
At this time, the main direction of dolphin training
was to detect objects important to the
Soviet Navy on the seabed.
The first task was searching for
practical torpedoes and missile engines.
Near Balaklava there was a launch
position where experimental
engines for Soviet cruise and
ballistic missiles were tested.
There was a need to retrieve them
because they were made from costly metals.
A device was attached to the dolphin,
which nudged the object with its nose
and a buoy would surface, marking the position.
The torpedo or engine would then be retrieved.
A dolphin can detect this underwater object
thanks to its natural sonar.
At a depth of 120 metres.
Humans do not have that ability.
There he is. He's coming fast.
Hi baby!
There is information
that many different experiments
were conducted with marine mammals.
In the mid-seventies there was
an experiment near Sevastopol
where a dolphin was dropped by parachute.
This was done to extend the dolphin's
range to detect hostile objects
or to get the dolphin to conduct
sabotage activities against enemy ships.
Dolphins have indeed been trained to lay mines under ships,
or underwater objects that are heading towards,
let's say, the border of a particular country.
The dolphin swims under the ship,
places the mine, it's magnetic,
it detaches and that's it, the dolphin goes away.
Interviewer: Have you personally
seen them put real mines on ships?
No, just training mines and that's It.
What difference does it make if it's a real one, or a training one?
The Soviet people celebrated USSR Navy Day.
I went to serve on a nuclear submarine
in the Northern Fleet as an officer.
We mainly patrolled the boundaries of the Arctic Ocean,
the Faroe Islands, Canada, England
and the Bear Island near Norway.
There were many submarines.
It was necessary to defend them against
potential sabotage operations.
It was precisely for this that they decided
to use marine mammals.
I got to serve at the 'Yokanga base,
the most remote base in the Murmansk region.
When they set up the centre here, they brought the dolphins.
They thought they would start training them.
They are not adapted to that temperature,
to those conditions.
Unfortunately, they all died.
And then they started to train mammals
that are adapted to living in the north.
Orcas, walruses, seals, beluga whales are adapted to It.
The beluga has very good sonar.
It's practically the same as a dolphin's.
And thanks to this sonar, it can detect both
saboteurs and objects underwater.
At that time the propaganda was that
America or NATO might attack us.
We were in a constant state of tension.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union,
funding for the marine mammal program
was significantly reduced.
Everything went commercial and was sold off.
A few of them just disappeared.
We have shown that our people
are able to distinguish
between the desire for change and renewal
and political provocations.
Glory to Russia!
Yes. What should be his name?
We have let people send us suggestions
and vote for the best one.
The winning suggestion with 31% of the votes was...
Hvaldimir.
A good twist on a good traditional Russian name
and its also a nod to a certain Viadimir Putin.
When I saw the harness,
I recognised it immediately.
Equipment St. Petersburg."
It's just a well-Known outdoor equipment brand.
It was started in 1991, right after the Soviet Union collapsed.
We started connecting dots.
When you do investigative journalism
you just try to pursue all things
secretive and interesting.
The Soviet Union generally used to have
huge number of very strange institutes.
They were called post boxes
because they didn't have official
addresses, only post box number.
Our investigative journalists group
found one organisation nearby St. Petersburg...
called "GOSNIIPP".
"The Scientific Research Institute
for Applied Problems."
Which means basically... nothing.
On their website, they say that they do
research in electronics and robotics.
But if you want to understand what this organisation does,
you go to the state procurement site
and you read what they buy.
We found out that this organisation Is buying...
fish.
We noticed that many papers
Why would they do such research
and why do they not mention it on their website?
We wanted to see what branches GOSNIIPP has.
We found that the northmost branch
was located in a small village
not far from Murmansk
in the Arctic Circle, pretty close to Norway.
If you look at the satellite images
there's just a few abandoned buildings
and half-drowned ships tn the harbour.
It looked like it was dead from Soviet times,
but later we found out that it was not completely dead.
Some research was still going on there
and it was research with belugas.
Are we going to touch it?
I'm 99% sure that he escaped.
I was one of the leading beluga scientists in Russia.
Every summer I went to the Okhotsk Sea
to conduct fieldwork on beluga whales.
Our goal there was population assessment.
We conducted different kinds of studies
and satellite tagging to track
the seasonal movements of belugas.
Every season when we tagged,
we would stay in the same camp with the capture teams.
The Sea of Okhotsk became the
prime site for commercial captures.
Belugas were captured there to be to be later used in...
in Russian oceanaria...
or they would be sold to different countries.
It was roughly 2013 when at the capture site
we heard that some belugas would be captured
for the military research, or military project.
I was a little bit surprised.
I thought military training had been
long, long, long forgotten.
It was difficult to understand
why people in the military would like to, to have belugas
and for what exactly those would be used.
This ts it!
I remember when I heard about this beluga whale
Hvaldimir for the first time,
it was an email from my Norwegian colleagues.
The specialists in beluga whales.
As soon as this information leaked,
everyone started to talk to everyone
amongst the marine mammal community in Russia.
I started to ask around,
I understood that this beluga,
more than likely, I mean, more than likely
was one of those belugas sold or
given to the facilities near Murmansk...
The Research Institute of Applied Problems.
I can't fully disclose the contact
where I got this information from,
but I heard what his nickname was.
His nickname was Andruha.
This animal was kind of easy to train...
in terms that it was Inquisitive and active
but at the same time
it... it had the character that it often did what he wanted to do.
So it seemed, it seemed like no one
was surprised that it actually just escaped.
Of course he escaped.
It's just, it's just a common knowledge now
amongst the marine mammal community tn Russia.
Whether, whether they say it aloud or not.
Helping Hvaldimir out of his harness
felt like ending his military career, setting him free.
It is clearly humans that have tried
to take advantage of this animal,
and use it for a purpose
that nature never tntended for it.
If it was the Russians, or the Norwegians, or the US
I don't think it matters at all in my mind.
Because we are all the same, basically.
I think we just as a species we need to take responsibility
for what we did tn the first place.
I had a lot of feelings about his future.
It would be easy to say just let nature run its course...
but it's not nature running its course because we messed it up.
This whale ts entitled to... to a better ending than his start.
So it is time for him to go back to being a whale.