By Greg May - In his newest book, Secret History: Conspiracies from Ancient Aliens to the New World Order
Nick Redfern suggests the Old Testament prophet Jonah was not swallowed by a whale but abducted by the extraterrestrial crew of a UFO. Redfern writes: “The idea that a person could survive, for around seventy-two hours, in the belly of a whale, deep within the waters of a churning ocean, is, however, ridiculous. We are, therefore, required to look in other directions for potential answers to what really lay at the heart of the story.”
At least the author seems to acknowledge the existence of Jonah but Michael M. Deschamps, of Northern Ontario UFO Research & Study (NOUFORS) states:
“I did some research and found that it was impossible for a man to be inside of a whale for three days because there is no species of whale that can actually swallow a man whole, and then spit him out.”
Mr. Deschamps, your ‘research’ overlooked the account of one James Bartley who - in February 1891 - was actually swallowed by a whale and lived to tell about it!
In the 19th century the United States had a great whaling industry with fleets sailing out of Boston, Nantucket, New Bedford and other New England ports to hunt and kill sperm whales. The sperm whale (Physeter macrocephelas) is the largest member of the toothed whale family – and the world’s largest carnivore – and was hunted extensively for its oil and ivory teeth.
When a whale was sighted by the look-out high atop the crow’s nest in the mast (Thar she blows!) the crew would jump into action and row small boats after the whale which was rolling and blowing at the surface. The harpooner would thrust an iron harpoon into the whale and then – hang on tight! – the injured whale would take off pulling the whalers across the surface in a ‘Nantucket sleigh ride’. Eventually the wounded whale would tire and the whalers would finish it off.
A harpooned sperm whale overturned a boat during a capture in February 1891 some 200 miles east of the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic Ocean. One of the men wasn’t found and James Bartley was believed to have drowned but, three days later while they were cutting the whale up on the deck of the ship they found him – alive but unconscious - in the whale’s stomach! Bartley was a raving lunatic for two weeks afterward but he survived. The digestive juices from the whale’s stomach bleached his skin and clothes white. This account can be found at: “True Tales of Terror on the High Seas: Swallowed by a Whale”
But what makes Redfern’s story in his book so interesting is when he writes:
“There, was however, something very strange about the newly-returned Jonah: the three days in the belly of the whale had bleached his skin and clothes white, giving him a decidedly unsettling, eerie appearance”.
Although this is exactly what happened to our modern-day Jonah – James Bartley – there is no mention in the Bible of Jonah’s skin or clothes being bleached white.
Source:
Nick Redfern. Secret History: Conspiracies from Ancient Aliens to the New World Order
Visible Ink Press. 2015.
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