-----Original Message-----
From: Connie [SMTP:cspr@shaw.ca]
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 9:33 AM
To: gearly1@earthlink.net; pita@whale.wheelock.edu
Subject: Whale's ability to swallow a human
Would you be able to confirm whether it would have been possible or a human
(Johan) to be swallowed by a whale and survive and then be releashed?
Thank you for answering this question.
Connie
cspr@shaw.ca
<< File: ATT00000.htm >>
Connie,
Possible leaves a lot of room in this question but here are a few things
that scientists (and historians) think. Most of the large whales (the ones
with Baleen) have a throat that would make it pretty much impossible for
them to swallow something as large as a man. After all, these whales
basically eat small fish and schooling bits of prey. The only large whale
that has a throat that would be large enough to make it possible (and one
that has been known to swallow things about as large as a man) would be a
sperm whale.
If you think about what goes on inside a whales stomach (mostly giant squid
get digested), it would tend to make you doubt that anyone that was
swallowed would last too long in there. But, one way to look at it would
be to see if there were any other stories of humans that had been swallowed
by a whale and survived. In fact there was a man, James Bartley, from
Britain in the late 1800s, who claimed that he was working on a whale ship,
fell overboard and was swallowed by a whale. The following day, he said,
he was cut from the whales stomach, after it had been killed by another
whaleboat. Bartley even went of a tour (sort of like the 1800s talk show
circuit) and told his story to people. The trouble is that although
Bartley looked rather strange (he was said to have been bleached white and
lost all of his hair from being inside the whale), there was no proof that
his story ever really happened. Even the Captain of the ship he was
supposed to be on, did not remember the event, or make a note of it in the
ships log. And you would think something like that ... you would remember,
and write down. So historians sort of doubt that this really happened at
all.
So is it possible that a whale could swallow a man? One type of whale,
maybe. Would that person survive? There is no proof that anyone would (or
has) other than Jonah. You would think that it would take a miracle ...and
maybe that is what the story of Jonah is about.
ge
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