There is lots of helpful information available on the web regarding how to survive an animal
attack.
Such as how to keep alive if a lion attacks you.
Firstly, don’t try and outrun it, lions can reach speeds of 50mph (80kph).
Experts say face it head on and try to look big.
Regardless, you’ll likely suffer.
If you come up against a bear, again, look big, but also scream and shout like a madman.
If that fails, hit the ground and act dead.
If it’s a shark certainly don’t play dead, ‘cos it might just see that as an invite.
We are told keep eye contact with the shark, don’t splash around and you might want to
curl up into a ball.
Easier said than done, eh.
But today we’ll look at the craziest of dangers, in this episode of the Infographics
Show, What if a whale accidentally swallowed you?
Before we get to the heart of the matter, or should we say stomach, stories of humans
being swallowed by whales have been around for a while.
You might know the tale of Jonah from the Old Testament, who was apparently swallowed
by a giant fish.
Maybe they meant a giant mammal, a whale.
In the Quran it’s written, “Then the big fish did swallow him, and he had done acts
worthy of blame.
Had it not been that he repented and glorified Allah.
He would certainly have remained inside the fish.”
We doubt these days that repenting would encourage the big fish to spit you back out.
Now let’s have a look at the size of a whale and its mouth before we talk about more recent
stories of people claiming to have been swallowed by them.
The Blue Whale, the largest of them all, can measure about 100 feet (30 meters) in length.
They can weight 400,000 pounds (around 180,000 kgs).
Its tongue alone is said to weigh as much as an average size Asian Elephant.
As for the important matter of its gaping kisser, one website tells us, “You and 400
of your friends could fit in its mouth.”
Then we have sperm whales, which will feature in today’s show.
They are smaller, but a bit scarier as they are the biggest of the toothed whales.
They might be smaller, but they are no pushovers, which you will know if you’ve ever read
a book that began, “Call me Ishmael.”
That’s “Moby Dick” for our viewers not fond of reading.
Large sperm whales can reach a length of 67 feet (20.5 meters) and weigh 112,435 pounds
(51,000 kgs).
They are big eaters, too, consuming about 3 percent of their body weight every day.
So, what we are saying is that getting a human, or even a bunch of humans, inside a whale’s
mouth wouldn’t be a problem at all.
But has it actually happened?
Well, you might have read the most recent tale of this supposedly happening that has
been circulating around the web.
But we all know by now, or at least we hope you know, that you must be very careful about
what you believe concerning stories on the internet.
This particular story told us that in 2015 a Spanish fisherman named Luigi Marquez was
swallowed by a whale and lived in its belly for three days before emerging in one piece
with the best ever story to tell his mates.
Lo and behold, the tale was first reported by a dubious spiritual website.
Hmm, three days, that’s the same time Jonah had a sabbatical inside the giant fish.
It was totally fake, but this didn’t stop numerous websites passing the story on.
Yes, we all should lament the fall of journalism.
But let’s look further into men disappearing in whales.
The most famous story that hasn’t absolutely, completely, been debunked is the tale of a
man called James Bartley, aka, the “Modern Jonah.”
It’s said in 1891 he was indeed swallowed by a whale, but the whale died, and the man
was found alive inside its stomach.
This was widely reported in the British and American press at the time.
One British media outlet ran the headline, “Rescue of a Modern Jonah” while many
America newspapers also ran the story.
38-year old Mr. Bartley had been a sailor on the British ship, Star of the East.
During their long trip the crew saw a large whale swimming off the coast of the Falkland
Islands in South America.
They dropped a couple of boats and armed with harpoons went to hunt the beast.
The little boats were no match for the massive whale and it tipped them, although it had
been hit with two harpoons and was mortally injured.
Most crew were rescued, but one drowned and another went missing, presumed drowned.
That was our dear Mr. Bartley.
The ship managed to finish the whale off and pull it on board.
About a day and half later after the crew had been cutting the whale open they noticed
something moving, a man curled in a ball, covered in whale stomach.
It was the missing sailor.
And that’s the story.
He’d apparently survived 36 hours inside the whale.
This is how the newspapers reported it, “The workmen were startled while laboring to clear
it and to fasten the chain about it to discover something doubled up in it that gave spasmodic
signs of life.
“ He made a full recovery, and this is what
he supposedly told the crew of his internal adventure, according to one source at least:
“He was engulfed by darkness and felt himself slipping along a smooth passage that seemed
to move and carry him forward.
He came to an area with more room in it, and was able to reach around.
Upon feeling a yielding, slimy substance as the walls, he realized he had been swallowed.”
But was fake news around in the late 19th century?
Of course it was, humans have been telling lies from when they first learned how to speak,
and passing them on as truth.
Some investigations into this story ensued, with the investigators indeed saying there
was a ship by that name sailing in that part of the world at that time, but it was not
a vessel equipped for whaling and there was no British geezer on board with the name John
Bartley.
The captain’s wife also said this, “There is not one word of truth in the whale story.
I was with my husband all the years he was in the Star of the East.
There was never a man lost overboard while my husband was in her.
The sailor has told a great sea yarn.”
You can’t beat a good sea yarn, but now let’s look more at the science of the matter.
Well, no one would deny that a human could fit in a whale’s mouth.
But what would happen after the initial entrance?
One scientist says if it was a Blue Whale we wouldn’t even fit down the animal’s
esophagus- it’s just too small.
So, we might end-up in its mouth, but we would just get spat back out.
But toothy whales are a different matter altogether.
Both sperm whales and killer whales do swallow very large prey, bigger than us.
One scientist says if we managed to get past all those sharp teeth and we went down the
hole our next hurdle would be dealing with the whale’s digestive system.
Enzymes would burn your skin and you’d be in a bit of state, and if somehow you were
still alive you’d end up in one of four stomach chambers.
And if you’ve made it all the way you can give yourself a slap on the back, but you’ll
die very quickly anyway because there is no air down there, just methane gas, which is
not exactly good for you.
The Smithsonian magazine, which we can rely on in terms of scientific content, agreed
with the same scientist, who concluded when asked if we could survive, “Certainly, no
air inside a fish, so I think that’s really what’s going to get you in the end.
So I’m afraid no.”
We can find nothing out there from trustworthy news sources that say any different.
If fact, one journalist working for Salon spent days going over archives at the New
Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library, and he found zero cases of whales swallowing anyone,
never mind someone surviving.
Sure, mess with these creatures and you might lose an arm or a leg, but it seems they are
not keen consuming an entire human.
What we can find, and we’ve seen the videos, are people getting a little too close as giant
whales swim with open mouths trying to grab a load of fish.
In one video the man looks tiny, so indeed, he could have at least ended up in the whale’s
mouth.
A word of advice: Stay out of the way of a whale’s orifice.
We also found this on a diver’s website, “The diver recalls being hit hard by the
whale shark.
Then the diver was sucked into the mouth of the whale shark, head first, and half-swallowed
up to her thighs.
The diver struggled to escape the whale shark's mouth for a brief moment before the shark
spat the diver out.”
That was a shark, but you get the picture.
Others haven’t been so lucky, and the beasts chomped instead of spat.
Think anyone’s ever been swallowed by a whale?
Could you really survive in a whale’s stomach for 36 hours?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video What if USA Paid off Its Debt.
Thanks for watching, and as always, please don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time.