A man who was once fully swallowed by a humpback whale miraculously lived to tell the tale.
Lobster diver Michael Packard was spat back out by the colossal sea creature, despite him thinking he was about to be eaten alive.
The incident happened just off the coast of US state Massachusetts in 2021.
Packard dived deep and was just a few metres from the sea floor as he started looking for lobsters, shortly before a humpback whale emerged and swallowed Michael whole.
Advert
He recalled: "All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black," he explained, as he initially thought that he was eaten by a shark before deducing that it was instead a whale.
The diver continued: "I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth."
It was at this point where he realised that there were no teeth present to shred him to pieces, but this didn't help the fact that he couldn't see anything at all.
The lobster diver thought there was 'no way I'm getting out of here' and was convinced he was 'dead'.
Advert
Wearing his scuba gear, Michael struggled inside the mouth of the whale for about half a minute before he was ejected back out into the light, as the whale had swum to the sea's surface and spat him out.
A nearby fishing boat spotted Michael 'flying out of the water' before they picked him up.
Despite surviving being swallowed whole by a whale he was in a lot of pain and rushed to Cape Cod hospital, though thankfully nothing was broken and he was able to head home the same day.
Despite a few bruises on his legs he was largely alright, and told his fishing partner Josiah Mayo he was afraid that it could have eaten him, saying: "I was inside it. I was inside its mouth. It tried to eat me."
Advert
Mayo told the Washington Post he liked to think that the whale didn't really know what it was doing when it swallowed Michael whole.
He said: "This was a humpback whale. It was a relief because it wasn’t a shark, which meant Michael would be all done at that point.
"It took [Michael] from behind and it seemed like it fully enveloped him immediately.
"That’s kind of remarkable and so we can only imagine the whale was probably feeding."
Joshua Nair