In history, only one case was recorded when a person was swallowed by a whale and visited his womb. We will tell about the fate of this poor fellow at the end of our article. Now, let's take a look, shall we? purely theoretically, the possibility of this situation.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were swallowed by a whale. Maybe it didn’t even cross your mind, but there are people who are quite seriously puzzled by this issue. These situations are extremely rare, but if this does happen, then you will not envy.

Once inside the whale, you will suffocate, surrounded by water. Small fish and plankton swim inside. Let the whale be a massive animal, but its throat is small, only the size of a grapefruit.

But digestion is still a long way off. You just got inside. But, gradually, the water becomes less and it completely disappears. You were delighted, but it wasn’t there. The worst is ahead of you. Around the darkness and darkness, barely visible. Of course, you are very scared, but do not lose your head!

But, closer to the point. The water has receded and you are immersed in an incomprehensible nasty slurry. This is very bad because you are caught in acid. There are two ways to develop further events.

First: You passed out and plunged headlong into the 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 feel dizzy and the whale will not swallow you anyway, since its throat is only a few centimeters. You just won't get there, no matter how hard you try. All you have left is 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, we must frankly admit that in such a situation certain death awaits you.

Watch the video on the second page

And 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.

The only whale that can swallow you is the sperm whale. Only he has a throat with the right size.

So. The man who was swallowed by the whale was able to escape. But, this is only due to the fact that during the incident there were people nearby who did not leave him in trouble. Colleagues of this man were able to track down and killed the whale, and then climbed for a friend.

It was found in the whale's esophagus, unconscious and pale as a toadstool. This man survived, but he became completely bald and, due to the loss of skin pigment, remained pale for the rest of his life. The work had to be abandoned, but he continued to earn a living by demonstrating himself as an exhibit that had been in the esophagus of a live whale.

It is quite possible that there were other sad stories like this, 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 has been viewed by over one and a half million people. Apparently, the question of the possibility of being swallowed by a whale worries many!

Even if you do not have such a problem, we advise you to watch it anyway interesting video, it is worth your attention!

/ What happens if a whale swallows a human?

What happens if a whale swallows a human?

In fact, such a situation is not very real, and the point here is in the peculiarities of whale nutrition. All whales are divided into 2 large categories - toothed whales and baleen whales. The first - sperm whales, dolphins and a couple of other small families - feed on fish and marine mammals (however, they will not refuse a gaping waterfowl).
Even a flock of bottlenose dolphins can cope with a person, but cases of their attack on a person are extremely rare. Killer whales and sperm whales are more famous for this - their body and esophagus sizes will completely allow them to eat a person, but alas - they catch with their teeth, and you will enter the esophagus in the form of a puzzle that even an experienced traumatologist is unlikely to assemble ... and just digest like a normal one fur seal. However, scientists believe that whales (and sharks, by the way, too) attack a person because they confuse his figure (especially a surfer on the board) with a seal. Well, baleen whales ... They amaze with their gigantic sizes, in particular, the blue whale - up to 33 meters and up to 160 tons in weight - but the throat of these animals that feed on small fish and krill (small crustaceans) is only 10 cm in diameter, and you just can't get through. So the exciting stories about people swallowed by a whale and ripped open their belly to get out into the wild are nothing more than a colorful fiction. This is much more likely to happen with the usual river catfish- some specimens reached 5 meters, and they prefer to swallow prey without chewing.

“And the Lord commanded a great whale to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of this whale for three days and three nights.” But the matter ended happily, the swallowed 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 actually happen? In 1896, off the Falkland Islands, the American whaling ship Star of the East was attacked by a huge sperm whale. Waving his tail, he knocked one of the sailors, James Bartley, off the deck into the water. Teammates thought James had drowned. However, when, two days later, the chase of this whale was nevertheless obtained, raised to the deck and began to butcher, they found in its stomach, 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 a missing sailor, unconscious, but alive. He spent inside sea ​​monster 36 hours.

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 will swallow it and how long the victim will remain in the stomach. The baleen whale feeds on plankton and cannot swallow anything larger than a grapefruit. However great sperm whale weighs up to 50 tons, has a length of up to 20 meters. It consumes one and a half tons of food per day and swallows it mostly without chewing. Professor Wilson unearthed in the archives a case in 1771, when a sperm whale bit a whaler's boat in two, swallowed one sailor and went deep into the depths. Resurfacing again, he spat out the sailor "heavily scratched, but without serious injury."

Modern scientists confirm the conclusions of the Englishman. The sperm whale feeds on cephalopods and, to a lesser extent, fish. A man could fit in the mouth of a sperm whale or in its esophagus. The sperm whale has teeth on the lower jaw, and there are 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 was found in the stomach of a sperm whale caught off the Azores, not chewed and not overcooked. Squid, apparently, remain alive in the stomach for some time, since traces of suckers, which are equipped with squid tentacles, can be seen on the walls of the stomach. This means that a person can survive for some time. True, on a sailor swallowed in November 1896, the results of whale digestion were visible: 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 get into 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 by the mechanical processing of the 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, along with James Bartley, could also swallow a volume of air sufficient for a person to breathe for a while. But a three-day stay in the stomach of a whale, as happened with Jonah, is actually impossible. This story should be understood as a moralizing allegory.

Can a whale swallow a person, and what will happen to him then? Video

It is better not to swim in a school of fish - you may be swallowed by a whale!

The fact that a whale swallowed a man described in a newspaper

1896, November 26 issue of The New York Times. The article mentioned an incident off the coast of the Malvinas Islands, where a whaler ship, the Star of the East, attacked a huge sperm whale. The animal, with a wave of its tail, sent one of the crew members, James Bartley, overboard. The sailors were sure that the poor fellow drowned. After two hours of chasing and hunting, the whalers managed to catch this sperm whale. After gutting the whale, James Bartley was found in his peritoneum, unconscious, but showing signs of life. The sailor was in the stomach of the sperm whale for 16 hours.

Can a whale swallow a person, what does science think about this?

The Englishman Ambrose Wilson, a professor of zoology, spoke about this and noted that a person can be swallowed by a whale and even survive after that. It all depends on the type of animal and the time spent in the digestive tract.

The baleen whale is not able to swallow a person, because it only eats plankton, and cannot swallow something larger than the size of a large orange. But the sperm whale is a completely different matter. The zoologist cited the example of an incident that occurred in 1771, when a whaler's boat was broken in two by a huge sperm whale. Having thrown the sailors into the water, the animal swallowed one of them, and after a few minutes spat it back out. The sailor survived and did not even receive serious injuries, but only minor scratches all over his body.

Could a whale actually swallow a Man? Doesn't this contradict the truth of life?

The book of the prophet Jonah is part of the Bible and contains prophecies about the fate of the Israeli people, the suffering of the Savior, the desolation of Jerusalem, the end of the world. In addition to prophecies, the book of Jonah tells how he was sent by the Lord to the Ninevites with a sermon about repentance (Jonah 3, 3-10).

Sacred History Testifies

Our Lord Jesus Christ, in a conversation with the scribes and Pharisees, who demanded a sign from Him, said that no other sign would be given to them, except for the sign of the prophet Jonah: “As Jonah was in the whale’s belly for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart earth for three days and three nights” (Matthew 12:40). From these words of the Lord, the transforming meaning of the Book of the prophet Jonah in relation to the death on the Cross, the descent into hell and the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ becomes clear. Rebuking the impenitence and stubbornness of the Jews, the Lord said: “The Ninevites will rise up for judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented from the preaching of Jonah; and behold, there is more Jonah here” (Mt. 12:41).

A conversation about the stay of the prophet Jonah in the belly of a whale

“Superficial and unbelieving critics,” says scholar Arthur Hooke, “find that there are many obstacles to admitting that Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, and that the prophet was in his belly for three days and three nights, and then was cast ashore.

First, no one who believes in Christ can doubt what happened to the prophet Jonah, for Christ Himself put a seal on this disputed subject when He said: “For as Jonah was in the belly of a whale three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (Mat. 12:40). Here Christ eliminates - at least as far as his disciples were concerned - the idea that the book of the prophet Jonah is an allegory (allegory), as critics like to assume.

Is it just an allegory?

For if it is said only in an allegorical sense that Jonah was in the belly of a whale, then the conclusion follows that the sojourn of Christ in the heart of the earth, for three days and three nights, also has the meaning of only allegory. Here we have again an example of how negation Old Testament paves the way for the denial of Christ Himself and His words.” To deny the story of the prophet Jonah is tantamount to a denial of the entire Holy Scripture, which means to renounce faith. Is it really still not enough for a person those numerous defeats, the so-called "scientific objections" against St. bible? How many times have the refutations and mockery of the "wise men of this world" over St. The Bible was turned against them. After all, a simple acquaintance with the text of the original and some scientific knowledge already gives us a lot of answers.
Everyone knows that the original St. The Bible is written in Hebrew. But in Hebrew, the whale is called the word "tannin." In the Bible, the sea creature that swallowed Jonah is not called the word "tannin", but the word "dag", and the word "dag" means " big fish” or “monster of the depths”.

"Beast of the Deep"

The Holy Church has testified to this for more than 1500 years, calling this creature that swallowed Jonah a “water beast”. So, for example, in the irmos of the 6th ode of the Friday canon at Matins, tone 8, it is said: “the water beast is in the womb, the hands of Jonah are outstretched crosswise, representing the saving passion in reality.” In the 6th song of the morning canon, on Tuesday, tone 5th, it is said: “Lord, Thou didst deliver the prophet from the beast, and raise me up from the depths of uncontrollable passions, I pray.”
Science tells us that there are various breeds of whales. So, for example, there is a genus of whales that have 44 teeth in the lower jaw and reach 60-65 feet in length. But they have a very small throat. This probably gave grounds to assert that Jonah could not have been swallowed by the whale.

There is another type of whale, the so-called "bottle-nose" or "beaked". This is a small whale, up to 30 feet long. Although he is small, he has a rather large throat and could well swallow a person, but the prophet could not be swallowed by him because he chews food and has teeth.
There are whales that do not have teeth, but are equipped with a "whalebone". Among this type of whales, there are whales called "Fin-Buck". These whales are up to 88 feet long. The stomach of such a whale has from 4 to 6 chambers or compartments, and in any of them a small group of people could easily fit. This kind of whales breathe air, have an air reserve chamber in their head, which is an expansion of the nasal cavities. Before swallowing an object that is too large, the Fin-Buck whale pushes it into this chamber. In the event that there is too large an object in the head of this whale, then it swims to the nearest land, lies down in shallow waters and throws out the burden.

Could a whale actually swallow a Man? Hypotheses of scientists

Scientist Dr. Ranson Harvey testifies that a friend of his, weighing 200 pounds, crawled from the mouth of a dead whale into this air chamber. The same scientist points out that a dog that fell overboard of a whaling ship was found alive in the head of a whale after 6 days. From what has been said, it is clear that Jonah could stay in the "womb", that is, in the air chamber of such a whale for 3 days and 3 nights and remain alive. The space in this cell is 686 cubic feet. So from the scientific data we can see that Jonah could have been swallowed up by the whale as well.
Frank Bullen, famous author of the work: “Swimming the Sperm Whale, has established that the sperm whale (a type of whale) often, when it dies, regurgitates the contents of its stomach.
But the biblical word 'dag' refers to 'big fish'. From this we can conclude that Jonah was indeed devoured by a sea creature - big fish. In this case, you should point to a fish called "whale shark" or "bone shark".
The whale shark got its name from the fact that it has no teeth. The whale shark reaches 70 feet in length, straining food through large plates (whiskers) in the mouth. This shark has an ample stomach to accommodate a human.
Regarding the fact that Jonah stayed in the belly of a large sea creature for three days and three nights and remained alive, one can first of all say: “with God everything is possible.” Then it is not uninteresting to recall the report in the Literary Digest that a sailor was devoured by a shark whale. After 48 hours (i.e., after two days), the shark was killed. When the shark whale was opened, what was the surprise of all those gathered when they found the sailor, swallowed by this beast, alive, but only in an unconscious state. Moreover, the sailor had no consequences of his stay in the belly of a whale shark, except for hair loss and several blisters on the skin. Then the sailor said that only fear did not give him rest, living in the belly of a whale. As soon as he regained consciousness and understood where he was, he immediately lost consciousness again.

Recently, writes Fr. I.S. - in the Hawaiian Islands, Japanese fishermen killed a great white shark. A complete human skeleton was found in her stomach. It turned out that it was a soldier on the list of deserters in clothes of the North-Am. Army.

In the event with the prophet Jonah, the power of God acted

So, we see that Jonah could be swallowed up by a large fish even without violating the natural laws of nature.

All "absurdities" and "contradictions" disappear. The Word of God is true and unchanging; it can never be in conflict with true science. This was established by the father of Russian science, Lomonosov.

But, nevertheless, it must be said that for us, believing people, it is quite obvious that in the event with the prophet Jonah, the power of God certainly acted. For the Lord, as the Creator of the very laws of nature, has a free will to control them, if He needs it, according to His almighty providential action.

The last step of the mind

The brilliant scientist Pascal said: “The last step of the mind is to recognize the existence of many such things that go beyond our knowledge, and if the mind does not come to this knowledge, then it is a very weak mind.” Robert Mayer says: “If superficial minds flaunt their denial of the existence of anything higher, supermaterial, and supersensible world, then such a pitiful admission of individual minds cannot be blamed on science.”

(Compiled according to the book "The Reliability of Biblical Miracles"
A. Guk and Art. "Prop. Jonah and the Lesser Throat of the Whale"
Protopr. Pavel Kalinovich).