Dog spotted atop ancient Egyptian pyramid delights paragliders
An Egyptian dog found viral fame after it was filmed frolicking atop one of the pyramids at Giza, spotted by a group of paragliders.
Marshall Mosher, one of the paragliders, said he had flown over the pyramids several times, but it was his first sighting of a dog at the summit, hundreds of feet from the ground. “We really didn’t know what it was at first – this thing running back and forth along the top,” he said. “So, that was hilarious and unexpected.”
He had frequently seen stray canines sunning themselves closer to the base of the structure, the Pyramid of Khafre. “If I was a Cairo street dog, I’d want to climb the pyramids, too, and have the best view of Egypt that a dog can have,” he added.
Social media users fell in love with the adventurous animal, as videos taken by the event participants accumulated more than 1 million views.
“Dog: ‘Well, that’s off the bucket list,’ ” one YouTube commenter joked. Instagram users speculated that it could have been the ancient god Anubis, a guide to the underworld with a canine head.
Another person wrote on X that they were “getting unreasonably emotional” at the thought of the dog climbing “a landmark full of history and prestige, completely unaware of any of it … just to bark at birds. … Animals are such simple but profound creatures.”
The dog was barking, Mosher, said, though he thought the object of its interest may have been the paragliding group.
“It’s always been amazing to fly over the pyramids and see something like that from the sky, but we’ve definitely never seen what we saw on Monday,” he said, adding that the dog appeared to be “living its best life.”
Afterward, another tour company filmed a dog who looked similar to the first descending from the pyramid. When Mosher and the team completed a second flight over the pyramids on Tuesday, the dog was no longer visible, he said.
The moment was captured on GoPro footage by participants in an event run by air sports tour company Sky One Egypt, in which powered paragliding pilots fly over the country’s landmarks.