Something incredibly rare happened 2,000 feet down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana: a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) called Hercules encountered a sperm whale, capturing the meeting on video for a group of oceanographers.

In the video below, you can see the sperm whale circle Hercules as if it’s trying to figure out what the ROV is. As you’ll see, the whale
never bumps the 11-foot-long ROV.

Hercules is being used by the Nautilus Live expedition to explore the depths of the sea. It’s one of a pair of robots live-streaming the depths of the ocean back to the researchers.

“It was such an amazing moment,” Susan Poulton, an expedition spokeswoman onboard the Nautilus ship, tells Live Science. “There was a lot of cheering on the ship.”