Michael Packard thought he was heading into the water for another ordinary day of lobster diving.
Instead, the 56-year-old suddenly found himself inside a humpback whale’s mouth — and then trapped inside the enormous animal itself.
That there can be dangers lurking beneath the surface is something we’re all aware of. But being swallowed by a whale? Yeah… that’s probably not something any of us ever imagined could actually happen.
The unbelievable encounter happened in 2021 off the coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts, while Michael Packard was diving near Herring Cove Beach off the coast of the USA.
The commercial lobster diver had left his boat, the Ja’n J, expecting another routine morning beneath the waves, searching the ocean floor for lobster.
But within moments, everything changed.
Packard was suddenly hit by an enormous force.
”All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” he told Cape Cod Times in 2011.
”I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth.”
At first, Packard thought the creature might have been a great white shark — a terrifying possibility in those waters.
But something didn’t make sense.
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There were no teeth.
And he wasn’t covered in blood.
Then came the realization that seemed almost impossible:
He was inside a whale.
”I was completely inside; it was completely black,” he recalled.
”I thought to myself, ‘There’s no way I’m getting out of here. I’m done, I’m dead.’ All I could think of was my boys – they’re 12 and 15 years old.”
Packard was wearing his scuba gear, and with little else he could do, he began thrashing around inside the whale.The bizarre struggle lasted roughly 30 to 40 seconds, but to Packard, it must have felt like an eternity.
Then something incredible happened.
The whale surfaced.
Suddenly, Packard saw light.
”I saw light, and he started throwing his head side to side, and the next thing I knew I was outside (in the water).”
The whale had spit him back out.
His crewmates initially thought Packard had been attacked by a shark, but they soon realized what had actually happened. He was pulled from the water, rushed back to shore and taken to Cape Cod Hospital.
His sister, Cynthia, later spoke with sailor Josiah Mayo, who had witnessed the aftermath.
Cynthia recalled:
”Thank God, it wasn’t a white shark. He sees them all the time out there,
”He must have thought he was done.”
But Packard wasn’t done.
Against all odds, he survived.
Could this really happen?
Humpback whales aren’t known for eating humans. They feed primarily on small fish and other prey, making Packard’s encounter an extraordinarily rare accident.
Jooke Robbins, director of Humpback Whale Studies at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, said the incident was virtually unheard of.
”It is not something I have heard happening before,
”So many things would have had to happen to end up in the path of a feeding whale.”
Packard was incredibly lucky.
Despite the terrifying encounter, he escaped without broken bones and was released from the hospital days later with what was described as significant soft-tissue damage.
And perhaps most astonishing of all?
He said he intended to return to diving once he recovered.
“I am very bruised up but have no broken bones,” Packard wrote on the Provincetown Community Space Facebook page. “I want to thank the Provincetown rescue squad for their caring and help.”
The lobster diver went from doing an ordinary day’s work to an unexpected celebrity almost overnight, after his unbelievable encounter with the humpback whale captured headlines around the globe.
And before long, the man who had been inside a whale’s mouth was sitting inside a giant whale prop on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, retelling the incredible story to a stunned and laughing audience alongside his crewmate Josiah Mayo.
He and his crewmate Josiah Mayo were invited onto “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, where Packard sat inside a giant whale prop and told the story all over again — this time with plenty of laughter mixed in with the terrifying details.
Even Kimmel couldn’t resist having a little fun with the story.
”And then last week, you were swallowed by a whale,” Kimmel began.
”I wasn’t swallowed, Jimmy,” Packard replied, with a smile. ”I was in his mouth. Get that straight.”
”I got a show to do, and I’m going with swallowed,” Kimmel joked.
Packard also explained just how frightening those 30 or 40 seconds inside the whale really were, describing the sensation as being like riding in a submarine, car or motorcycle while water rushed around him.
For Mayo, who watched the bizarre scene unfold from the boat, the experience was almost as terrifying. He initially feared a shark attack before realizing he was watching something far more unusual — a whale surfacing and Packard suddenly flying out of the water.
Kimmel couldn’t let Packard leave without a few memorable gifts, including a Free Willy DVD, whale repellent, a T-shirt celebrating his bizarre survival story and even a Fudgie the Whale cake with a little man inside it.
But Packard took the moment in stride.
”I want to apologize to the whale for getting in his way,” Packard said. ”And I won’t ever do it again.”
Packard’s most recent interview appears to have been in 2022, when The Patriot Ledger asked him whether his brush with death had changed the way he looked at life.
Interestingly, this wasn’t the first time Packard had come frighteningly close to death. More than 20 years earlier, he had also survived a plane crash in Costa Rica.
But despite those experiences, Packard said he didn’t feel as though they had given him some profound new perspective on life.
“I’ve heard people that have had life/death experiences and how it’s changed their lives and I don’t know, given them a new outlook on life, and like it’s a gift and all that, and I didn’t get any of that. I’m still the same old guy doing my same old s—t.”
At the time, Packard also revealed that he was working on a film about his extraordinary encounter with the humpback whale, together with Boston Globe staffer and filmmaker David Abel.
So while the experience may have made Packard famous around the world, it seems it didn’t fundamentally change who he was. He was still the same lobster diver — just with one of the most unbelievable survival stories imaginable.
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