Cryptid whale

Cryptic whales are special kinds of whales that some people believe exist, but scientists have not proven. These ideas come from stories told by sailors and whalers over many years. They talked about seeing whales that looked strange and did not match any known type.

The most famous of these are Giglioli's Whale, a kind that looks like a dolphin with a nose, Trunko, a whale with very tall fins, and the Alula whale. Even though many people have shared stories about these, scientists still need more proof to say for sure that they are real. This makes cryptid whales a fascinating mystery that keeps people wondering and exploring.

High-finned sperm whale

The high-finned sperm whale is a whale that people have talked about but is not proven to exist. It is said to be a type of sperm whale with a very tall fin on its back, found in the North Atlantic Ocean. A doctor named Robert Sibbald wrote about one that washed ashore in Orkney in 1687, saying its fin looked like a tall ship mast. Later scientists studied these reports and found that there was really just one kind of sperm whale, and the tall-finned ones might have actually been other types of whales, like killer whales or beluga whales. There was another story from 1946 in Canada where people thought they saw such a whale trapped for a couple of days.

Alula whale

The Alula whale, also called the Alula killer, was first talked about and drawn by W. F. J. Mörzer Bruyns in his book Field Guide of Whales and Dolphins. He said he saw these whales several times. They look like a dark brown killer whale with a rounded forehead and white spots that look like stars on their bodies. These whales live in deep coastal waters from the eastern Gulf of Aden to Socotra, mostly seen in April, May, June, and September. Bruyns thought they are about 6–7 metres (20–23 ft) long, weigh around 1.8 metric tons (2.0 short tons), and have a dorsal fin about 2 metres (6.6 ft) high. He said they usually swim at a speed of 4 knots and travel in groups of 4 to 8 whales, most often 6 together.

Unidentified beaked whales

In 1925, a mysterious dead whale was found on Moore's Beach in Monterey Bay. Scientists from the California Academy of Sciences later identified it as a Baird's beaked whale.

Some people say they have seen very large beaked whales in the Sea of Okhotsk. These whales might look similar to Longman's beaked whales. There have been stories about these whales washing up on beaches near the Tatar Strait in the 2010s. Scientists also think new kinds of beaked whales might live near the coast and in the open water around Abashiri and the Shiretoko Peninsula in northeastern Hokkaido.