The amazing story of James Bartley. Can a whale swallow a person? What happens if you are swallowed by a whale
In the Bible, in the Old Testament, the sea creature that swallowed Jonah is called the word "lag", which means in translation " big fish"or "monster of the deep sea."
Interestingly, of the 75 species and 39 genera of cetaceans, only a few genera can stand up for those who argue that a whale cannot swallow a person. These whales reach 18-20 meters in length. But, despite their size, they have a very small throat.
There is also another type of whale - the "bottle-nosed" or "beaked" whale. These are small whales, up to 9 meters. They have a fairly large throat and could easily swallow a person.
But these whales chew their food, so this excludes Jonah being in the womb in its entirety.
Now consider the types of whales that could swallow the prophet. They have no teeth, but are equipped with whalebone.
Fin whales attract special attention. They reach a length of 26 meters, their stomach has 4-6 chambers, and a small group of people could easily fit in any of them. These whales breathe air, so they have a small air chamber in their heads, which is an extension of the nasal cavities. Before swallowing an object, the whale pushes it into this chamber. If the object turns out to be too large, the whale swims to shallow water, closer to the shore, and throws away the burden.
Dr. Ranson Harvey said that his friend weighed 80 kg. crawled through the mouth of a dead whale into the air chamber, and a dog that fell overboard a whaling ship was found alive six days later in the air chamber of a dead whale. From what has been said, it is clear that Jonah could have stayed “in the belly,” that is, in the air chamber of such a whale, for three days and three nights, remaining alive.
An interesting discovery was made by Frank Bullen, the famous author of The Swimming of the Sperm Whale, who established that sperm whales often vomit the contents of their stomachs before death. Thus, Jonah could not only be swallowed, but also thrown out by the whale.
There is also a version that the prophet could well end up in the stomach of others sea creatures, such as a whale shark or bone shark. The fish got this name because it has no teeth. The whale shark reaches 21 meters.
It filters food through large plates (whiskers) in its mouth and has a stomach quite large, where a person can fit.
Literary Digest once wrote that a sailor was swallowed by a whale shark. After 48 hours, this fish was killed. When it was opened, what was the surprise of all those present when the swallowed sailor was found alive, only in an unconscious state. Moreover, he did not have any serious injuries, except for hair loss and several blisters on the skin.
There is another known case that occurred on Hawaiian Islands. Japanese fishermen caught a big one white shark. A complete human skeleton was found in her stomach. It turned out that it was a soldier listed as a deserter wearing North American Army clothing.
“And the Lord commanded the great whale to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights.” But the matter ended happily, the swallowed man begged for mercy, the whale spat him out, and the prophet still managed to save the inhabitants of Nineveh from death, warning them that if they did not repent of their sins, the city would be destroyed.
Could something like this really happen? In 1896 Falkland Islands The American whaling ship "Star of the East" was attacked by a huge sperm whale. Swinging his tail, he knocked one of the sailors, James Bartley, off the deck into the water. Teammates thought James had drowned. However, when, after two days of chasing this whale, they finally caught it, lifted it onto the deck and began to cut it up, in its stomach they found, as the New York Times wrote on November 26, 1896, “something twisted, from time to time showing signs of life.” . It turned out to be the missing sailor, unconscious but alive. He spent 36 hours inside the sea monster.
The English zoologist Ambrose Wilson, who pondered this problem in the 1920s, believed that the survival of a person swallowed by a whale was in principle possible. It all depends on which whale swallows it and how long the victim remains in the stomach. The baleen whale feeds on plankton and cannot swallow anything larger than a grapefruit. However, a large sperm whale weighs up to 50 tons and is up to 20 meters long. It consumes one and a half tons of food per day and swallows it mostly without chewing. Professor Wilson dug up in the archives a case from 1771, when a sperm whale bit a whaling boat in half, swallowed one sailor and went deeper into the depths. Resurfacing again, he spat out the sailor, “severely scratched, but without serious injuries.”
Modern scientists confirm the Englishman’s conclusions. The sperm whale feeds on cephalopods and, to a lesser extent, on fish. A person could easily fit in the mouth of a sperm whale or in its esophagus. The sperm whale has teeth on the lower jaw, but only one or two pairs on the upper jaw, so it often swallows its victims whole. So, in the 50s of the last century, in the stomach of a sperm whale caught from Azores, found a ten-meter squid, not chewed or digested. Squids, apparently, remain alive in the stomach for some time, since traces of the suckers with which the squid’s tentacles are equipped are visible on the walls of the stomach. This means that a person can survive for some time. True, the sailor, swallowed in November 1896, showed the results of whale digestion: as the newspaper wrote at the time, “Bartley’s skin was digested in places. His hands and face were so pale that he looked like a dead man, and his skin was all covered with wrinkles, as if he had been boiled in a cauldron.”
But in general, the sailor clearly did not end up in the main section of the stomach, where digestive enzymes and hydrochloric acid are secreted, but lingered in its first section, lined with keratinized cells and occupied only with the mechanical processing of what was swallowed. The channel leading to the next sections of the whale's stomach, where there is gastric juice, is too narrow for a person to pass through.
As for the ability to breathe in the stomach of a whale, experts suggest that the sperm whale, together with James Bartley, could have swallowed a volume of air sufficient for a person to breathe for some time. But a three-day stay in the stomach of a whale, as happened to Jonah, is actually impossible. This story must be understood as a moralizing allegory.
There has only been one recorded case in history where a person was swallowed by a whale and ended up in its belly. We will tell you about the fate of this poor fellow at the end of our article. Now, let's take a look? purely theoretically, the possibility of this situation.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were swallowed by a whale? Maybe this hasn’t even crossed your mind, but there are people who are quite seriously puzzled by this issue. These situations happen extremely rarely, but if this does happen, you will not be envied.
Once inside the whale, you will suffocate, surrounded by thick water. Small fish and plankton swim inside. The whale may be a massive animal, but its throat is small, only the size of a grapefruit.
But there is still a long way to go before digestion. You just got inside. But gradually the water becomes less and it completely disappears. You were happy, but that was not the case. The worst awaits you ahead. It’s dark and gloomy all around, you can barely see it. Of course, you are very scared, but don’t lose your head!
But, closer to the point. The water has receded and you are plunging into an incomprehensible, nasty muck. This is very bad because you are in acid. There are two ways for further events to develop.
First: You lost consciousness and plunged headlong into acid. The pigment of your skin is completely destroyed. Even if you can get out of there, you will be bald and pale from loss of pigment. But, unfortunately, you still won’t get out on your own. You are unconscious due to lack of air.
In the second option, you remain conscious, but you will be dizzy and the whale will still not swallow you, since its throat is only a few centimeters. You simply won’t get there, no matter how hard you try. You can only hope for the best.
Even if you free yourself from the shackles of this huge animal, you find yourself in the middle of the ocean and there is no chance that someone will pick you up.
Based on logical considerations, one must frankly admit that in such a situation certain death awaits you.
Watch the video on the second page
Now let's return to the case when the whale swallowed the whaler and check how real our theoretical thoughts about whether it is possible to survive are.
The only whale that can swallow you is the sperm whale. Only he has a throat with the right size.
So here it is. A man who was swallowed by a whale managed to escape. But this is only due to the fact that during the incident there were people nearby who did not abandon him in trouble. This man's colleagues were able to track down and kill the whale, and then went after their friend.
He was found in the whale's esophagus, unconscious and pale as a toadstool. This man survived, but he was completely bald and, due to the loss of skin pigment, remained pale for the rest of his life. He had to leave his job, but he continued to earn a living by demonstrating himself as an exhibit that had been in the esophagus of a living whale.
It is quite possible that there were others like this one, sad stories, but people found themselves face to face with a huge sea animal and did not have the slightest chance of salvation. But this is just our guess.
This video was viewed by more than one and a half million people. Apparently, the question of the possibility of being swallowed by a whale worries many!
Even if you don’t face such a problem, we advise you to still watch this interesting video, it’s worth your attention!
The materials in the section used reports from the following magazines: “New Scientist” (UK), “Mare” and “Psychologie Heute” (Germany), “Science News”, “Scientific American” and “Skeptic Magazine” (USA), “Ça m' interesse", "Science et Vie Junior" and "Sciences et Avenir" (France).
The Book of Jonah (part of the Old Testament) says:
“And the Lord commanded the great whale to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights.” But the matter ended happily, the swallowed man begged for mercy, the whale spat him out, and the prophet still managed to save the inhabitants of Nineveh from death, warning them that if they did not repent of their sins, the city would be destroyed.
Could something like this really happen? In 1896, off the Falkland Islands, the American whaling ship Eastern Star was attacked by a huge sperm whale. Swinging his tail, he knocked one of the sailors, James Bartley, off the deck into the water. Teammates thought James had drowned. However, when, after two days of chasing this whale, they finally caught it, lifted it onto the deck and began to cut it up, in its stomach they found, as the New York Times wrote on November 26, 1896, “something twisted, from time to time showing signs of life.” . It turned out to be the missing sailor, unconscious but alive. He spent 36 hours inside the sea monster.
The English zoologist Ambrose Wilson, who pondered this problem in the 1920s, believed that the survival of a person swallowed by a whale was in principle possible. It all depends on which whale swallows it and how long the victim remains in the stomach. The baleen whale feeds on plankton and cannot swallow anything larger than a grapefruit. However, a large sperm whale weighs up to 50 tons and is up to 20 meters long. It consumes one and a half tons of food per day and swallows it mostly without chewing. Professor Wilson dug up in the archives a case from 1771, when a sperm whale bit a whaling boat in half, swallowed one sailor and went deeper into the depths. Resurfacing again, he spat out the sailor, “severely scratched, but without serious injuries.”
Modern scientists confirm the Englishman’s conclusions. The sperm whale feeds on cephalopods and, to a lesser extent, on fish. A person could easily fit in the mouth of a sperm whale or in its esophagus. The sperm whale has teeth on the lower jaw, but only one or two pairs on the upper jaw, so it often swallows its victims whole. So, in the 50s of the last century, a ten-meter squid, not chewed or digested, was found in the stomach of a sperm whale caught off the Azores. Squids, apparently, remain alive in the stomach for some time, since traces of the suckers with which the squid’s tentacles are equipped are visible on the walls of the stomach. This means that a person can survive for some time. True, the sailor, swallowed in November 1896, showed the results of whale digestion: as the newspaper wrote at the time, “Bartley’s skin was digested in places. His hands and face were so pale that he looked like a dead man, and his skin was all covered with wrinkles, as if he had been boiled in a cauldron.”
But in general, the sailor clearly did not end up in the main section of the stomach, where digestive enzymes and hydrochloric acid are secreted, but lingered in its first section, lined with keratinized cells and occupied only with the mechanical processing of what was swallowed. The channel leading to the next sections of the whale's stomach, where there is gastric juice, is too narrow for a person to pass through.
As for the ability to breathe in the stomach of a whale, experts suggest that the sperm whale, together with James Bartley, could have swallowed a volume of air sufficient for a person to breathe for some time. But a three-day stay in the stomach of a whale, as happened to Jonah, is actually impossible. This story must be understood as a moralizing allegory.
Almost four years have passed since our trip to Mauritius, where we supposedly dived with sperm whales. And all these four years I lied shamelessly! All this time I was fantasizing, droolingly describing what wonderful meetings these were, how smart and kind sperm whales are. (). And many people naively believed, were happy for us and even began to dream of experiencing such a meeting in their lives.
But there were always people who were very skeptical about my stories and who said something like this: “sperm whales, they are predators, how could you swim with them, they immediately ate you!” or “what an inventor you are! You should have told me that you can swim with sharks!” And hearing the story about how my eleven-year-old son scratched a sperm whale’s belly, many people didn’t say anything, but it was clear that they could hardly restrain the desire to twirl their index finger at their temple, and they probably thought to themselves, “well, I completely lied, Munchausen is fucking !".
So, I scoured the Internet and realized why people are so skeptical about my stories about sperm whales. And everything that I wrote about them is a shameless lie, and my photographs where freedivers swim next to them are naked photoshop!
It's time to reveal the whole truth about these huge predatory creatures and their danger to people. To do this, I will publish information found on the Internet, and to add acuity of perception, I will dilute this chilling truth with my B&W photographs.
Danger!!!
“In exceptional cases, sperm whales attack people, although they are capable of swallowing an adult person whole. A case is described when sperm whale hunters managed to catch one very large specimen, in the belly of which three almost digested corpses were found.
Sperm whale swallowing people
“The sperm whale is the only whale whose throat theoretically allows it to swallow a person whole without chewing (and, generally speaking, the only animal capable of doing this). However, despite a large number of fatal cases when hunting sperm whales, these whales, apparently, extremely rarely swallowed people who fell into the water. The only relatively reliable case (it was even documented by the British Admiralty) occurred in 1891 near the Falkland Islands. A sperm whale crashed a boat from the British whaling schooner "Star of the East", one sailor died, and the other, harpooner James Bartley, went missing and was also presumed dead. The sperm whale that sank the boat was killed a few hours later; the cutting of his carcass continued all night. By morning, the whalers, having reached the insides of the whale, found James Bartley, who was unconscious, in his stomach. Bartley survived, although not without health consequences. The hair on his head fell out and his skin lost its pigment and remained papery white. Bartley had to leave whaling, but he was able to make a good living by showing himself at fairs as a man who had been in the belly of a whale, like the biblical Jonah.
“The sperm whale does not chew food, it can only tear very large prey into pieces in order to swallow it. It swallows all small things (up to an eighteen-meter mollusk) whole. Now do you understand what a person is for a sperm whale? More than nine times smaller than that same mollusk !
By the way, it’s worth remembering here the story when the schooner “Star of the East” caught a sperm whale, and when it ripped open its “abdomen” they found three human skeletons there, whole and unharmed. It’s scary to think about what these three unfortunates experienced and what kind of death they had...
But sperm whales never attack people, you can safely object. And you will be one hundred percent right. So what is the danger? And the danger lies in the nervous system of this gentle giant. The nervous system of the sperm whale is extremely unstable; it is very easy to frighten it with the usual clapping of oars in the water. And now the sperm whale, already scared to death, is dangerous in its fear. It is because of fear that a sperm whale can swallow a man, his boat, or sink a five-ton ship..."