You're reading: NPR: A lobster diver in Cape Cod says a humpback whale scooped him up and spat him out

NPR: A lobster diver in Cape Cod says a humpback whale scooped him up and spat him out

By NPR.

Published June 13, 2021. Updated June 13 at 6:57 am

The tail of a South Pacific humpback whale is spotted on the Pacific Oceans surface as it migrates southbound, off the coast of Cabo Blanco, in northern Peru on October 1, 2015. Hundreds of these specimens complete a yearly migration that brings them close to the shores of the continent from Peru to Panama, in order to breed and give birth to their offspring in warmer waters.

Photo by AFP

A commercial lobster diver says he escaped relatively unscathed after nearly being swallowed by a humpback whale, in a biblical-sounding encounter that whale experts describe as rare but plausible. Michael Packard, 56, said in local interviews and on social media that he was diving off the coast of Provincetown, Mass., on Friday morning when the whale suddenly scooped him up.