Can you see this?

Yes.

Okay, so I'm just going to play it and we'll watch it together and then maybe you can tell me what's happening here.

Oh!

There's a way out.

It appears to eat two kayakers.

It's a short but impactful flip.

Back in November of 2020, two kayakers were floating peacefully in a California Bay.

When they were scooped up into the mouth of a humpback whale, just absolutely gulped.

One moment they were there, the next they were inside of a whale's mouth.

The video went viral and it eventually found its way to Daniel Kraus, who saw it while he was hanging out with his friends near Lake Michigan.

And I think because we were close to the lake, one of the friends that have you seen that viral video of the kayakers being swallowed by a whale.

It's one of the videos. It might have been the one you just showed.

The kayakers in this particular video ended up okay. They were pretty quickly spit back out.

But it left Daniel with this deep and unresolved question.

It's the idea to suddenly hit me and I was like, is it possible to be actually swallowed, swallowed?

And if so, what would happen? Like, could you get out?

I'm Dylan Thoris and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, I'm talking to author Daniel Kraus. He's a writer who let this one question lead him into the place we're going today.

Deep underwater, through the mouth, and into the stomach of a whale.

To find out what might actually happen if you were swallowed.

If you were to stay inside the second stomach too long, yeah, you would be dissolved.

...