The kayaker completely disappeared for a brief time. Image Credit: Dell Simancas
The incredible incident occurred recently in the Strait of Magellan off the coast of Chile.
For kayaker Adrian Simancas, it had been an adventure of a lifetime - but little did he know that within seconds, he would find himself inside the mouth of a gargantuan ocean-borne mammal.
The incident, which was captured on camera by Adrian's own father who was filming nearby, saw a huge humpback whale suddenly emerge from the water directly beneath him, engulfing both he and his kayak in one fluid motion.
"I thought I was dead," Adrian told the Associated Press.
"I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me."
For a brief second his father looked on in horror, until - as quickly as it had begun - the incident ended with Adrian being released back into the water by the creature.
Fortunately, he hadn't suffered any injuries, but the freezing water was still a major concern.
"When I came up and started floating, I was scared that something might happen to my father too, that we wouldn't reach the shore in time, or that I would get hypothermia," he recalled.
As luck would have it, however, they were both able to make it back to shore in one piece.
You can check out the video of the incident below.
I go my whole life, 40 yrs, and have never heard of someone getting swallowed by a humpback (well except for a myth about a guy and a fish). Now within a year I head of it happening twice........... Maybe they are trying to tell us something.
I just wondered whether the dark base of the kayak looked like a small shoal of small fish to the whale. They do coral fish into tight packs before devouring them en masse. Just a thought.
Interesting article where scientists give their two-cents on the incident. Did a whale swallow a kayaker? The truth behind the viral video https://www.npr.org/2025/02/14/nx-s1-5297762/whale-swallows-kayaker-video-explained One new thing I learned was this: Experts say it's just not possible for a whale to swallow something as large as a person. While their mouths are massive — as wide as 10 feet — their throats are much smaller, roughly the size of a human fist.
Please Login or Register to post a comment.