Environment Min. rejects videos of blue whales sounds in Egypt as fake

CAIRO – 22 December 2019: The Ministry of Environment has denied rumors of hearing blue whales sounds off its coasts.

Videos circulated by social media users featured loud sounds off the coasts of Egypt’s Marsa Matrouh and Damietta.

Some attributed the cause of those sounds to the blue whales, a matter which caused a state of fear among citizens.

A statement by the ministry said the ministry staff immediately contacted residents of these cities, who denied hearing any of the sounds featured in the footage.


Long and slender, the blue whale's body can be various shades of bluish-gray dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath. At up to 29.9 meters in length and with a maximum recorded weight of 173 tonnes, it is the largest animal known to have ever existed.


The ministry further affirmed that the footage is completely fake and that it is not that easy for human beings to be able to hear the high frequencies sounded by blue whales.

It is known that blue whales always make different sounds during their migration, thus their sounds represent an alert for the rest of the whales to follow them, according to the ministry.

The statement also confirmed the existence of many types of whales in the Mediterranean Sea, noting that spotting them in the Egyptian coast is a positive indication of the safety of the environmental situation in the northern coast and the success of recent international efforts, which Egypt actively participated in, to protect the whales from extinction.

The Ministry of Environment calls upon citizens not to take any actions that might disturb or cause harm to any of the whales, if spotted, bearing in mind that all the whales that are in the Egyptian seas are not harmful to humans.