What Happens When You Become A Real Life Pinocchio? This Man Found Out For Himself

Out of all the people in the history of our world, Michael Packard is most likely one of the few remaining people to have a Pinocchio experience. Not only that but also making it out and sharing his crazy tale with us mere mortals here on land. We’re about to dive deep into the story of a lobster diver who one day was totally swallowed whole by a sperm whale.

At about a balmy 60 degrees, the water posed excellent visibility, which should never go unattended. Michael decided to take advantage of it, since, after all, lobster divers are of the strong ilk. He could never have predicted that after that fateful day, his life wouldn’t be the same again.

Michael’s task as a licensed commercial diver was to search for lobsters and scoop them from the sea’s sandy floor. He was 56 at the time and recounted the sight of the schools of sand lances and stripers rushing by him. Surely, Michael was right in the middle of the essential circle of oceanic life.

Michael still had no idea what had happened to him. The only thing, according to Michael was that he could feel that he was moving, and the “whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth.” It was as if he had been sucked inside a vacuum, and couldn’t even comprehend what creature’s mouth he was inside of, or what even happened at all.

However, Michael was wrong. It didn’t take him long (not that he even had much time) to realize that a whale had fully consumed him. This insane realization was beyond anything Michael could have imagined.

Michael grew hopeless with his chances of survival. While he lay inside the giant sperm whale, this was running in his mind: “I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way I am getting out of here. I’m done. I’m dead.’” He could only think of his sons (one was 12, and the other 15) who may never see him again.

Michael began to feel movement as the whale started shaking its head, clearly in grave discomfort. In Michael’s recollection of that moment, he said that he was approximately in its mouth for about 30-4o seconds until he was finally pushed out.

Even though the prospect of surviving was uncertain before, Michael lived to tell the tale. There was light at the end of the humpback whale’s mouth after all. His scuba gear saved his life, because, without it, he would have lost oxygen. Also, he came out in one piece after being ejected from its mouth.

“There was all this action at the top of the water,” Cynthia Packard had disclosed. Then, the whale flung Michael back into the sea. “Thank God it wasn’t a white shark,” Cynthia said, after she saw a large creature burst through the surface of the sea.

To eat, the animal opens its mouth so that it billows out like a parachute opening at a jump. This makes it so the creature can’t see in its forward vision, which in Michael’s case, meant he was swallowed whole. In some whale’s cases, it is why they get caught in fishing gear.

So, even if the whale had wanted to eat Michael, it physically wasn’t in the cards for it. The young whale would have had a very hard time trying. The whale was quite alarmed on its own end about what happened.

After his release from the Cape Cod Hospital, he said that as soon as he was healed he planned to get himself back into the water and back diving.

Michael had gone to Costa Rica, where he boarded a small plane with a few other passengers, unwise to the horrible events that would soon unfold.

When rescuers found the remaining five other passengers (including Michael) they had already been in the jungle for two nights and would not have survived another.

“It’s a strenuous job” according to charter boat fisherman David “Spider” Gibson. “He’s the best lobster diver I’ve ever seen. He knows what he’s doing.”