what if the earth was flat !

Something's hiding beneath the surface—can you spot it? Close encounters like this are surprisingly common with whales, more than you'd think. While the people in these videos came out mostly unscathed, there's no ignoring the fact that they were mere meters away from becoming a whale's next meal. But what if they hadn’t been so lucky? Could a human actually survive being swallowed by a whale? Has it ever happened? Let’s explore this hypothetical scenario.

Whales are enormous creatures, and if you’ve never encountered one up close, it’s hard to fully grasp just how massive they are. The blue whale, for example, holds the title as the largest animal on Earth. Its tongue alone weighs as much as an elephant, and it could fit between 400 and 500 people inside its mouth. But don’t worry too much about these giants swallowing you; their anatomy makes it almost impossible. Instead, the real concern lies with their smaller relatives, like sperm whales.

Back in 1891, a story emerged of a man being swallowed by one of these whales. Although he survived to tell the tale, his life would never be the same. James Bartley, the man in question, was allegedly swallowed after a sperm whale attacked his ship. He wasn’t found until the next day when the crew killed the whale, then sliced it open to reveal an unconscious but alive James. His skin was pale, and he had lost his sight—thanks to the whale's stomach acids. However, as time passed, people began to doubt the accuracy of this story. After all, would stomach acids really leave just his skin bleached? Wouldn't they cause more severe damage?

Let’s turn to modern science to answer this. We’ve learned that surviving the process of being swallowed by a whale is far more unlikely than James’ story suggests. First, there’s the threat of being shredded by the sperm whale’s powerful teeth. Each tooth is about 20 cm long, roughly the size of a large chef’s knife, and they have between 40 and 50 of these. If you manage to avoid these teeth, the next obstacle is being forced down the throat, where it’s dark, slimy, and hard to breathe due to the lack of oxygen and the methane gas. As the whale's throat muscles push you downward, you'd also start to feel the effects of hydrochloric acid starting to dissolve your skin.

James Bartley’s tale might sound more dubious now, right? But bear with me. Once you've passed through the throat, you’d be dropped into the whale's first and largest stomach. You might hang around for a while, and you could even have a fleeting encounter with a bioluminescent squid or a glowing tube worm that the whale has swallowed. Sperm whales love neon flying squid, so there might be a brief light show to enjoy. But after that, you’d be tossed around from one stomach to another, with acids continuing to break down almost everything in your body, reducing you to little more than bones. In the end, you'd be expelled from the whale through its anus.

So, as much as we might romanticize the idea of being swallowed by a whale and surviving, the reality is far harsher. Sorry, James—your 1890s story may have fooled people back then, but modern science has unraveled it. Despite their size and power, whales have no interest in eating humans. If they could talk, they'd likely set the record straight, but that's a "What If" for another time.