Could a whale swallow a human, 'Whalefall' style?

Introducing the film Whale Fall

0:00Hey, it's Flora, and you're listening to Science Friday. If you've been scrolling or been to the movies lately, you may have seen the absolutely nutso trailer, and I mean that in the most loving way, for the movie Whale Fall, which is about a guy who gets swallowed by a sperm whale. It may sound far-fetched, but the film and the book it's based on really

0:33takes on the ins and outs, but especially the ins of sperm whale biology. We're here today with Whale Fall director Brian Duffield. Hey, Brian. Hello. And Shane Garrow, sperm whale expert. Hey, Shane. Hello. And a heads up, we reserve the right to give some minor spoilers, but we will not ruin the movie for you. Okay. Brian, what do you think a whale would think of this movie? We talk about that a lot because, you know, they're getting closer and closer to decoding the sperm whale language, and I'm really nervous about what that review will

1:12do to, like, our tomato score. Because there's a lot of clicks and sounds. Well, I have to say, like, I was exceptionally happy how the whales looked and how they sounded in particular. Yeah. Like, that the sound wasn't using elephants or other animals. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. You know, they look great. Yeah. Except we don't know what they're saying, and so it's like, hopefully they're saying, like, somewhat appropriate stuff in the movie. But yeah, hopefully they would dig it because, I mean, we're very fond of our whale,

1:46and we definitely made the movie out of a love for these animals. So if anything, I think they would probably just be annoyed that this guy got in the way of lunch.

1:56I mean, Brian, do you have a relationship with whales that preceded this movie? Are you like someone who's been on 50 whale-watching trips? I've been on a bunch, yeah. Yeah, I always loved them. Like, I grew up as a big dinosaur kid, and I think, you know, that's kind of the closest thing you can really get to it. And then also, you know, I grew up in a very conservative Christian household, and so Jonah was always, like, my go-to Bible story. And I remember getting, like, a very Christian, I guess just a comic book, about Jonah, where it talked about a guy who had been swallowed,

2:32you know, in quotes, in reality, like, in the 1800s, and they had gotten him out, and he was all burned up by his stomach acid and everything. And, like, a lot of the content I was growing up with, there was a lot of, it was, like, proving the Bible is true kind of stuff. And I just remember just being, like, there's acid in there, and this guy's, like, walking around burned all up. And so that was always just in my DNA. And then, yeah, and then as I got older, getting the chance to go on whale-watching trips, and then I swam with whale sharks, like, probably a decade ago, which aren't technically

3:06whales, but that was, like, a real moment of, like, they're so immense, and they're so beautiful, and I kind of had a reborn fascination of them through that.

Sperm whale anatomy and esophagi

3:17Shane, so the main storyline here is that a guy gets swallowed by a whale. Is that possible? Could a sperm whale swallow a human being? I mean, you're talking about the world's largest tooth predator, right? And this is something that eats giant squid. That's sort of this amazing battle between a giant squid and a school bus-sized whale that happens every day somewhere. It's happening right now somewhere out in the oceans. And it turns out that actually, yeah, sperm whales have probably the largest esophagus.

3:49So if you get a really, really big sperm whale, you know, it's technically possible to be swallowed, yeah. And a smaller person, yeah. Yeah. Like, Jacob Elordi's not fitting down the throat, yeah.

4:03But, like, is it like a tube? Like, you know, would I feel like I was going through a tube at the McDonald's Playland, or...? Yeah, I mean, it's not going to happen without you noticing. I mean, yeah, I mean, their esophagus can be sort of 30 to 40 centimeters in diameter, so that's, you know, more like, I guess, fitting through a tennis racket or something, maybe a little bit bigger than that. And that's really different than a lot of the whales, because a lot of whales that we know, like humpback whales, they have huge mouths, but actually tiny little esophaguses, because they're basically swallowing

4:37fish or krill slurry by the time it goes down. But giant squid are huge, you know, they can be 30 to 60 feet long, and if anyone's had calamari recently, like, this is tough. This is a tough body that they're swallowing. Muscly. Yes. I mean, Brian, you have an interesting challenge in this movie, because much of it takes place inside of a whale. Did you consider filming inside an actual sperm whale? Well, hilariously, that's not the first time I've been asked that.

5:10That makes me feel bad, actually. No, no. No, it's funny, you know, because they are typically such deep sea dwellers. There's not a ton of endoscopy footage of sperm whales while they're alive. And so it was really, and let alone sperm whales, there's almost no footage of giant squid alive, and definitely no footage of them really engaged in a hunt. I know while we were shooting, there was, like, that one video that popped up of a dead squid in a sperm whale's mouth, but that's, like, the extent

5:45of the footage we have on them. No, yeah, it's like a wildlife filmmaking holy grail, like, to film a sperm whale. I wish, like, knowing my luck, it'll come out, like, next, like, week. Well, that'll help. But, yeah, no, like, like Shane said, it's like, you know, we got to, it's like this weird challenge of, like, we were filming for the first time in a movie, something that happens probably, like, hundreds or thousands of times a day on Earth, between, like, two of the biggest animals on Earth. And so it's a really unique challenge to try to do something, like,

6:18scientifically accurate, um, that we've never seen before, but that happens all the time. Did you build a set? Oh, yeah, we built all kinds of sets. Yeah, we built, um, our character goes through the esophagus, the first stomach, and the second stomach, um, and then is definitely too big to go to the further stomachs, um, so we didn't build those, um, and then we built different versions of each one of those, and then we also built a giant whale.

6:48Um, one-to-one size, uh, animatronic head and had that in a tank that was spinning around and moving and swallowing poor Austin. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, sperm whales are mammals like us, but they have really weird stomachs because they eat squid and eat so far down where the pressure is sort of unimaginable. So they actually have four separate chambers. And, uh, and the movie does really well, I think, to show how that kind of might look, uh, despite it not being a place that anything would really

7:18want to try to survive in. Yeah, we don't make it seem ideal. Yeah.

7:24Shane, I saw your eyes lighting up when Brian said that they built an animatronic one-to-one sperm whale head. Yeah. Did it look pretty realistic to you? I think that was the thing I was most nervous about is how well the sort of whales look and, and how they're portrayed and the sounds they make because they live in a world of sound, right? Yeah. Their world is darkness. So, uh, yeah, I mean, they look fantastic, especially right down to the scarring around the face, you know, which is one of the few cues that we actually

7:55get to see of them eating these squids and getting scars around their jaw. Um, and so they're mostly like a dark gray color, but often their jaw is quite white from it being scraped up so much, you know, um, these squid tentacles have barbs and suction cups that, that leave marks behind. Um, and in fact, in many parts of the world's oceans, we know more about what squid are there because we, we've been studying the stomach contents or, or the feces of the sperm whale and not actually being able to get down to 3000 feet or 6,000 feet to,

8:29to take a look at the squid that are there. Brian, did you consult with experts when you were, you know, trying to figure out the anatomy and what this whale looked like? Oh yeah, absolutely. And it was great because, you know, it's adapted from Daniel Krause's novel and he both covered the screenplay with me and then was just like an in general partner kind of throughout the whole project. And so he had talked to a lot of experts kind of over the years for the novel. And so we were able to piggyback on, on those. Um, and then yeah,

9:01because there wasn't like a lot of footage of the, the living insides of a, of a sperm whale, you know, it was a lot of, you know, my, my poor family would just see me like watching like autopsies of, of sperm whales that had been beached. Um, or like, uh, we had like an endoscopy of a beluga whale, um, that we watched a lot. And then we're kind of trying to transpose like, you know, there's probably some similarities with the beluga as opposed to the sperm whale and some differences. Um, and so just watching some pretty gnarly, gnarly

9:35stuff in terms of the anatomy of it. We had Dr. Joy Reidenberg, who is a biologist who it was funny and all around legend. Like if anyone has cut open more sperm whales, it's probably her. Or anything like she had a show like a decade ago where it was just like her doing autopsies of like a giraffe and, and, and they flew her out to Ireland. Maybe it's New Zealand. I can't remember which now. Um, where she does like on the beach, she does like a, as fast as she can autopsy of, um, a sperm whale. And then she also had an autopsy

10:08of, I don't think it was a giant squid, but a very large squid. Um, and Ramsey Avery, our production designer who just had like the most insane task a production designer ever has where they're usually, you know, have to build buildings and he had to build a living creature. Um, but, um, we watched those a lot, just trying to, to figure it out. And then, and then he, Ramsey would kind of run sketches or drawings or, or stuff by Dr. Joy and she

10:38would, she would comment. And I think what was so fun about this movie was kind of like the more scientifically accurate we went, but also just made everything worse for, uh, Austin Abrams character. Like the science, the whale, the whale is designed to digest food in a fascinating way. And poor Austin is a food source. Um, and so it was great that every time like a note would come back, we'd kind of go like, Oh, that's so much worse for him and implement it. Yeah.

11:09We have to take a break, but, um, when we come back, I want to dive even deeper. I'm sorry. Into the science of whale guts and whether someone could escape them. Don't go away.

Surviving inside a whale

11:26Shane, no spoilers, but if a person were swallowed by a whale, could they get out?

11:41I mean, I think that's the, that's the $24,000 question here. Uh, I think once you're inside, uh, there's a lot of things that are not working in your favor. You know, this is not a place that has evolved for anything to live. In fact, quite the opposite. It expects everything to be dead once you're there. Give me some examples, some colorful details. Uh, well, first of all, you know, you're surrounded, uh, it's not a very big place. You know, these are animals that are diving 3000 or more feet down and the ocean is crushing them.

12:12Like their lungs collapse and their ribs get compressed. So this is not a place where you're going to have lots of space and it's going to be full of things that even the sperm whale can't digest like squid beaks. You know, I've, I've laid beside an actual giant squid corpse that we found off the Azores and that squid beak is, you know, bigger than the size of my fist. So imagine a parrot beak, the size of your fist and hundreds or thousands of them surrounding you. I mean, these are like teeth being pushed against you in every direction while it's trying to digest you.

12:45Like a hideous ball pit. Yes. Like the worst Ikea ball pit you can ever think of. Um, and so you, I don't, I don't think you would have very much time to consider how you're going to get out. Um, you know, millions of years of evolution of the digestive tract have decided that this is a, this is a place that kills things and absorbs them. You know, the main character had a, um, a scuba tank, but could you breathe inside a whale's belly? You know, I don't know that anyone's really tried or that

13:17has, that isn't really a question that's come up in the annals of the science. Everyone we asked said that it was the first time someone had seriously asked them that question. Yeah. But I think that's, that's the fun of this movie, right? Is like, okay, well, if we suspend our disbelief about how this might happen, what would that look like? And how exciting could it be? And how do we match the science with, uh, you know, the thrilling action that, that is this movie? So, you know, I think it's hard to

13:48talk about it without talking about it, but I, I think there are lots of resources that, that you might find in, in the belly of a whale, both that should be there. And unfortunately that shouldn't, uh, that you could use to sort of MacGyver your way out. Uh, should you ever find yourself in this impossible predicament? That's, that's news you can use everybody. Just tips. Yeah. Yeah. The movie is a great how-to guide. Yeah. Yes. I mean. Ways, ways to live by. Shane, do sperm whales know what they're eating? Like. Yeah. I mean, so we put small suction cup computers on the backs of the whales

14:23that allow us to record their movements and, and, uh, the sounds they make and increasingly also to collect video, um, and, and heart rate. Um, so we know from some of the work that they can see hundreds of different potential prey targets and they're choosing one of those out of this giant biomass that's down there long before the squid can see it. You know, the squid and the sperm whale is, it's like this arms race between the most powerful natural sonar system, how the

14:54sperm whale gets to see in the dark and these giant eyeballs that the squid have evolved to sort of get out of the way at the last minute. And it's pretty clear that the sperm whales are winning that arms race. Um, but unfortunately, yeah, I think other things do get sucked in. Um, and you know, anytime you cut open a whale, you find a lot of things that shouldn't be there like plastics and, and other human things that are down there. Um, and I think those are probably eaten accidentally because unfortunately they're, they're pervasive. Have there been any sperm whale attacks on humans? Like,

15:27is there any documentation of a person being eaten by a sperm whale? Well, I think sperm whales have been sort of the villain of the ocean, that sort of biblical Leviathan or, or the, the monster from the deep for a long time, especially when we were hunting them extensively, you know, before we had fossil fuel, we had whale oil in our machines and in our lamps, uh, and it powered our economy. So it's hard to know because I think a lot of those stories are fairly warning to other potential sailors in that when you're trying to kill a family of whales, they will defend themselves. Um, but there hasn't

16:01been any stories of humans being eaten by whales. Although there's been recently a few stories about people ending up in the mouth of humpback whales, um, because they, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, you know? Hmm. Yeah. This book came out of one of those videos of the kayaker kind of getting gummed by, um, a humpback and how, like, when you see the footage, it does give you this weird caveman urge of like, Oh no, something bigger is eating us. Um, and of course they can't fit, you know, anywhere kind of past their, their mouth on a humpback. Brian, what's your dream, um,

16:37theater going experience for this? Like, do you want the audience screaming, laughing, crying, throwing up? Yeah. And as, and as many of them as possible. Um, so yeah, I think it was, you know, I remember when we were going around pitching this movie to people and you know, the pitch was always, you know, it's about a whale that swallows two people, Jay and the audience and really wanting the audience to feel like they were going on this really insane journey, um, with him and learning more about whales than they

17:10probably ever thought they would before. Um, and I think that for me, that's why I like to go to the movies is to go to places that I've never been before, even if it means like inside of another animal. Whalefall comes out today in theaters and if you have the stomach for it or for, um, go check it out. It will make, I promise, a fun thing to talk about, uh, at your next party. Brian Chain, thank you for being here. Thank you, Flora. Absolutely. Brian Duffield, director of Whalefall and Shane Garrow, whale biologist and biology lead for Project SETI.

Credits and wrap up

17:53This podcast was produced by Kathleen Davis. And if you had a whale of a good time listening to it, let us know. 877-4CY-FRI is our number, or you can leave us a review wherever you listen to the podcast. It really genuinely does help. We'll catch you next time. I'm Flora Lichtman. We'll catch you next time. Bye.