Case file · Folklore / legend
James Bartley, 'swallowed by a whale'
A story from 1891 tells that sailor James Bartley of the whaler Star of the East was swallowed by a sperm whale near the Falkland Islands and cut out alive a day and a half later, his skin bleached white.
1891 CE · -52.00, -57.50 · status: hoax
The account
The tale spread through newspapers in the 1890s and was used for decades in sermons as proof that Jonah's story was possible.
The sceptical view
Historian Edward Davis showed in 1991 that the Star of the East was a cargo ship, not a whaler, that it was not in the South Atlantic at the time, and that the captain's widow denied the story.