Moments of fright and certainly an experience to remember for Adrián Simancas, a 23 -year -old kayaker of Venezuelan origin. The man ended up for a few seconds in the oral cavity of a megattera (Megaptera novaeangliae), one of the biggest cetaceans on our planet. The event, which happened in Bahía el águila in the Strait of Magellan on Saturday 8 February 2025, were filmed by the father, who was a few meters away and the video made the tour around the world. But being swallowed in full from a whale, in reality, is physically impossible: these whales, in fact, have a large as well as a punch, a too tight passage To allow a person to end up in the stomach. In addition, we normally feed on Krill, we humans are not part of their diet at all. Also in 2021 another person had ended inadvertently for a few moments in the mouth of a whale and was rejected out shortly after. The only whale theoretically capable of swallowing an entire whole human being is the sperm whaleas happened in a documented case dating back to more than 150 years ago.
Because a megattera cannot swallow a person
Especially in a very popular area such as the Strait of Magellan, the encounters between megatte and human beings are far from rare, and these whales often show playful curiosity towards sub and sailing. No whale considers us a preyand it is possible that the megattera in question had not really noticed the presence of man, who found himself by chance in the wrong place during a meal of the animal. The megatte feeds on krillplankton and small fish swallowing all in one breath huge quantities of water Thanks to their mighty jaw muscles, able to expand their mouths considerably.
The prey are blocked by Fanoni, which act as a dense filtering network that holds them but allows excess water to return outside. The kayaker declared in an interview that he had heard a slimy feeling touched him face, and it is likely that he was referring to fans.
Like ruminants, many whales have More stomachs To digest their food in multiple passages: the megattera has three, with the ability of hundreds of liters. But in proportion their esophagus is very narrowjust a few centimeters wide even in adult whales, and no person could have passed through it. As soon as I realized that I had a very out of measure “prey” in the mouth, the whale has replied it immediately; Simancas said he had just had time to think about what to do, that he was already outside the surface.
Other cases of people who ended up in the mouth of the whales
A very similar dynamic of events happened in October 2021 when Michael Packard, a pragosa fisherman, ended up in his mouth (always a megattera) while he was immersed in Cape Cod, in Massachusset. Packard’s meeting was more traumatic and painful – he lost his respirator and his knee displaced due to the strong suck – but it was equally short. The whale soon made the error and ribotted the diver out. His immersion partner, to the request by 911 to explain how he had hurt himself, said “is a long story”. A documentary is dedicated to the affair, in The Whale, released in 2023.
To find another similar event, we must go back 150 years, at the time of the whales. There is a documented case, recorded in an on -board diary in 1864, of a sailor from the name of Peleg Nye. While attempting to harbor the whale, in this case a sperm whale (Physeter Macrocephalus), Nye would have been grabbed and dragged underwater. Unlike megattere, the sperm whales are predators with one mighty teeth And they also eat large prey. But it was not the fate of the sailor, and after a while the whale let him go. Nye caught her with bad cuts and a fractured leg, and lived up to 80 years.
Between literature and likelihood
Be swallowed in full by a whale, for now, remains a literary eventas in the parable of the biblical prophet Jonah or in the fable of Pinocchio di Collodi. Or as in the novel Whalefall by Daniel Kraus, released this year a month before the events of the Strait of Magellano.
The protagonist, in search of the remains of the died father suicidal at sea, fins by chance to be swallowed by a sperm whale on the hunt for a giant squid, one of his natural prey. In this case, the unfortunate diver is dragged through the esophagus, which in this kind of whale is in theory just widely wide for the passage of a person, to finish straight in one of his stomachs. Wrapped in the bioluminescence of the other digit prey of the animal, he will have to deal with wounds, air on exhaustion and gastric juices to find an escape route.
The story, however unusual, was written with the Expert adviceI of anatomy and behavior of the sperm whales, and the possibility of being swallowed in full by a whale (and surviving), although very unlikely, remains scientifically possible, but only if we speak, in fact, of sperm whale.
