The British Royal Navy spent several days searching for a suspected Russian submarine, only to discover that the mysterious sonar signals were actually from a pupping whale, according to a Royal Navy source speaking to The Sun.
The Navy had detected “two mysterious sounds” off the northwestern coast of Scotland, between Applecross and the Isle of Raasay. The initial concern was that one of Vladimir Putin’s drone submarines had dropped a listening device on the seabed between Raasay and Applecross in northwest Scotland.
However, a Navy source told The Sun that the sounds were analyzed and are now believed to be from a whale. The anonymous marine officer revealed that “the whale might have been making gas bubbles at the time” simply putting up a display of natural behavior.
The first suspicious signal was recorded on its way north into the open sea, followed by a return of the sounds days later, moving south towards the Skye Bridge before disappearing. The British Admiralty had initially suspected that the Russian military’s main directorate for deep-sea research (GUGI) was trying to detect the acoustic signatures of Royal Navy submarines, such as the Vanguard-class and Astute-class attack submarines.
The actual location of the British submarine fleet is a closely guarded secret. The incident even made it to the US media, with the New York Post reporting that the suspicious sounds were whale blows, about 100 miles from the location of the submarines.