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This site claims that a man was swallowed by a whale for three days and survived.

His name is Luihi Marquez and is Spanish. Upon searching, it seems that multiple news sites have covered this incident.

Is it possible to verify this claim? Did the man claim to be swallowed by a whale? And if he did, was his claim verified?

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    I recall reading, probably around 1960, a story of a man being swallowed by a whale for a brief period of time and being rescued by his shipmates, suffering only minor injuries. But the story was old then, probably going back to 1910 or so. (Likely would have been in one of those "weird events" sidebars in Mechanics Illustrated or Popular Science.)
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Commented Oct 8, 2017 at 20:48
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    For any kind of claim like this, the kind of whale is extremely important. For baleen whales, their throat opening is too small to allow a man to be swallowed... Don't know about toothed whales though. Do they mean "swallowed" or just swished around in the general mouth cavity?
    – JasonR
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 14:48
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    Everything is suspicious: Luigi is not a Spanish name to begin with.
    – Miguel
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 15:44
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    @JasonR - My (very vague) recollection of the old story is that it was some "odd" sort of whale, and the guy basically got stuck in his mouth.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 23:16
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    It might be worthwhile for someone to scan the old "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" archives (if they're somehow accessible) for something like this. Those were at least modestly documented.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Commented Oct 11, 2017 at 20:35

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Snopes rates this claim as false.

"Did the man claim to be swallowed by a whale?" No.

The article features the image of shirtless man that is claimed to be the fisherman, Luigi Marquez — but it isn’t. The man pictured is actually named “Mike” and the picture was taken from a 2015 YouTube video in which Mike demonstrates turning his swim trunks into a flotation device.

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  • That's a very useful website.
    – Mohammad
    Commented Oct 8, 2017 at 16:35

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