What happens if a Whale swallows you....

What If You Were Swallowed by a Whale?

Something is lurking in the water—do you see it? [Music] Encounters with whales like this happen more often than you might think. While the people in these videos often escape unscathed, they come within meters of what could have been a catastrophic event. But what if things didn’t go so well? What if someone was actually swallowed by a whale? Could a human body survive the ordeal? And has such a thing ever happened before?

Welcome to What If, where we explore the possibilities of the seemingly impossible. Today, let’s dive into what would happen if you were swallowed by a whale.

Just How Big Are Whales?

To understand the magnitude of this scenario, it’s essential to grasp just how colossal whales can be. Take the blue whale, for example—the largest animal on the planet. Its tongue alone weighs as much as an elephant, and its mouth could theoretically fit 400 to 500 people. However, you’d be safe from being swallowed by a blue whale. Despite its size, its throat is far too small to accommodate a human.

The real concern lies with the sperm whale, a predator with a much larger throat. In fact, reports from 1891 claimed that a man named James Bartley was swallowed by a sperm whale and lived to tell the tale. According to the story, Bartley was attacked when the whale struck his ship. The crew killed the whale the next day, cut it open, and found Bartley unconscious but alive inside. His skin was bleached white, and he was blind, supposedly due to the whale’s stomach acids.

But as the years passed, skepticism arose about Bartley’s story. Could a human really survive being swallowed by a whale, even for a short time? To answer this question, let’s use science to explore the grisly journey through a whale’s digestive system.

The Journey Begins

If you were unlucky enough to be swallowed by a sperm whale, your troubles would begin immediately. The first obstacle is the whale’s teeth. Measuring about 20 centimeters—roughly the size of a chef’s knife—these teeth are perfectly designed to tear prey apart. Sperm whales have between 40 and 50 of these menacing teeth. If, by some miracle, you avoided being shredded, you’d face the next challenge: the descent down the throat.

Inside the whale’s throat, you’d encounter an environment that’s dark, slimy, and suffocating. The lack of oxygen, combined with the presence of methane gas, would make breathing nearly impossible. Additionally, the throat muscles would rhythmically constrict, pushing you downward while also compressing your body.

Welcome to the Stomach

Your arrival in the whale’s stomach would not be a relief. The first of its four stomachs is the largest, and it’s filled with hydrochloric acid strong enough to begin breaking down your skin almost immediately. If you were lucky, you might catch a fleeting glimpse of light provided by bioluminescent squid, a favorite snack of sperm whales. But this brief illumination would offer little comfort as the stomach acids continued to work on dissolving your body.

From the first stomach, you’d be passed to the next chambers of the digestive system. Here, the acids and enzymes would break down your body even further, reducing you to bones and unrecognizable remnants. Finally, your journey would end as you were ejected from the whale’s body—unintact and unceremoniously expelled.

Could It Really Happen?

Based on what we know about whale anatomy and the digestive process, surviving being swallowed by a whale is virtually impossible. The story of James Bartley, while fascinating, is most likely a fabrication. For one thing, the stomach acids would do much more than bleach skin—they would dissolve most soft tissue entirely. And the lack of oxygen and buildup of methane gas would suffocate a person long before they reached the stomach.

A Whale’s Perspective

Despite their massive size and predatory instincts, whales pose little danger to humans in terms of intentional harm. They feed primarily on sea creatures like squid and fish, and humans are not on their menu. In fact, if whales could talk, they’d likely emphasize their lack of interest in eating us.

As awe-inspiring and intimidating as whales may seem, they are gentle giants with no intention of swallowing humans. And while stories like Bartley’s make for entertaining legends, science tells us they’re nothing more than fiction. So the next time you encounter a whale, rest assured—it’s much more interested in squid than in making you its next meal.