WHAT IF YOU WERE SWALLOWED BY A WHALE?


If you've never seen a whale up close, it's hard to grasp just how monstrous they can really be.


To put it in perspective, the sulfur bottom 

is the largest animal on the planet!

Its tongue alone weighs as

much as an elephant, and

it can fit anywhere between
400 and 500 people in its mouth. 



But we wouldn't need to 
worry about one among these guys

swallowing us anytime soon,

because their anatomy
makes it nearly impossible.

Instead, we should always be more concerned

with their smaller cousins, sperm whales.

In 1891,

reports emerged that a person had
been swallowed by one among these whales,

and although he lived to inform the story,

he would never be an equivalent again...

According to the story,

James Bartley was swallowed
when a whale attacked his ship,

and he wasn't retrieved until the subsequent day.

When the crew found and killed the whale,

they quickly brought it on
board their ship and cut it open,

revealing an unconscious
but very alive James Bartley.

His face and arms were bleached white,

and he was blind,

all because of the stomach acids of the whale.

However, because the years glided by,

people started poking holes during this story

and questioned whether James had 
really been swallowed by a whale.

I mean, wouldn't the stomach acids do
more damage than simply bleaching his skin?



Well, with the facility of science,
we took a better look,

and we quickly discovered that if
you get swallowed by a whale,

coming back out with shiny white skin
would be the smallest amount of your worries.

Okay, therefore the very first thing 
you'd need to worry about

once you were swallowed would
be getting shredded to pieces

by the sperm whale's impressive set of teeth.

Each tooth is approximately
20 centimeters long,

that's about the length
of a mean chef knife,

and whales have anywhere
from 40 to 50 of those.

Let's say you're lucky enough
to make it past all of them,

next you'd begin your descent down the throat.

Not only wouldn't it be dark and slimy down here,

but you'd also find it hard to breathe

due to the shortage of oxygen
and a rise in methane gas.

As the whale's throat muscles constricted
in and bent help force you down,

you'd also start to feel hydrochloric
acid starting to eat away at your skin.

I know what you're thinking,

we just got into this whale, and

James Bartley's story
already seems pretty fishy.

Well, you are not wrong, but what
would be the fun in stopping now???

So, next you would be dropped into the primary,

and largest, of the whale's four stomachs.

You'd probably be in there for a short time, but

the bright side is you would possibly have some light

in the sort of a bioluminescent squid
or two being noshed on after your arrival,

sperm whales love the neon flying squid.

You'd better enjoy this
brief display, because

after this you'd just be tossed 
from one stomach to subsequent,

with the acids breaking
down most of your body

until you're just a bunch of bones

being unceremoniously
ejected from the whale's anus.

So yeah, it's pretty safe to mention that

there's no way you'll 
be swallowed whole by a whale

and live to inform the story.

Sorry, James. you are 
able to fool people within the 1890s,

but we're on to you now.


As vast as they're and as
monstrous as they could seem to us, whales even have 
no interest in eating humans.