Surreal footage of a beluga whale saving an iPhone from the sea in Norway has gone viral after being posted to Instagram and Reddit.

Interestingly, the beluga was found off Norway’s coast wearing a special Russian harness and was ‘probably trained by the Russian Navy‘.

While surprising to some, it is known that Russia and the United States have a fleet of trained dolphins for ‘military and naval purposes’. In the past dolphins have been used to locate mines and other dangerous objects on the ocean floor as well as for surveillance of protected waters. [source]

The beluga whale was originally spotted in the Arctic region near Ingøy island in Norway’s far north Finnmark region on Apr. 24, 2019.