An American diver is completely stuck in the mouth of a humpback whale, a species whose characteristics prevent it from swallowing a human. It was the luck of Michael Packard, who had already recovered from his fear.
It wasn’t 8am on Friday, and 56-year-old diver Michael Packard was already in the water for his second dive of the day. The vessel he was following off the beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts (USA) was surrounded by a fleet of boats fishing for perch. The water temperature was 15 degrees Celsius and the visibility was about six meters at depth. A typical day for Michael, who, as an experienced diving licensed lobster, has been accustomed to hauling clams from the sandy bottom of the sea for years. But even that didn’t prepare him for what happened.
About ten feet from the bottom, Packard knew what it meant to be part of the ocean’s food chain: his entire body had been swallowed by a humpback whale (also known as a humpback whale, humpback whale, or black whale). “All of a sudden I felt a strong jolt and then everything went dark,” Packard said Friday afternoon after he was discharged from the hospital he was admitted to.
At first he was afraid that he was inside a white shark, but did not feel the teeth and did not notice any obvious wounds, so he quickly realized that he was swallowed by a whale. “I was all there, everything was black. I thought there was no way out, “I’m done, I’m dead.” I could only think about my boys, who are 12 and 15 years old. “
Equipped with diving equipment, the American soon began to struggle with the body of a whale inside the animal, which eventually crawled out after 30-40 seconds. “I saw a light and the whale started shaking its head from side to side. And then I realized that he was already on the surface, ”he said. After that, the whale eventually released the diver back into the sea, after which he was rescued by a crew member who was on Michael’s ship and headed towards the coast, calling for help. “Thank God it wasn’t a white shark. He continues to see them. He must have thought it was over, ”Michael’s sister Cynthia Packard told the local Cape Cod Times.
The whale’s “mistake”
“Based on what has been described, what happened was nothing more than an ‘accidental error’ on the part of the animal,” said Jook Robbins, a humpback whale expert at the Provincetown Coastal Research Center. Humpbacks, the researcher explained, are not aggressive animals, especially towards humans. Given the average size of the whale, Robbins suspects that it was a young mammal looking for sandilis (a long-bodied fish native to the Atlantic). It turns out that when the humpback whale opens its mouth to eat, it sticks out like a parachute, blocking the frontal view, so in many individuals mouths and jaws fall into fishing gear.
Nevertheless, the expert assured that such incidents are extremely rare. Although they can put a large object in their mouth, as it happened, the esophagus of toothless whales is too small to swallow a human, so they end up spitting it out. And unlike whales with teeth like killer whales, they don’t even hurt their mouths, but rather use their tail.
Putin has repeatedly consulted with Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu about the invasion, Europa Press told Ukraine’s chief intelligence director Vadim Skibitsky.
According to Skibitsky, it was the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is responsible for counterintelligence and espionage work, that put pressure on Gerasimov and other military agencies to agree to launch an offensive. .
However, according to the Ukrainian intelligence services, the FSB considered that by the end of February sufficient preparations had already been made to guarantee the success of the Russian Armed Forces in a lightning invasion.
However, according to Kyiv, the Russian General Staff provided the Russian troops with supplies and ammunition for only three days, hoping that the offensive would be swift and immediately successful.
The head of Ukrainian intelligence also emphasized the cooperation of local residents, who always provided the Ukrainian authorities with up-to-date information about the Russian army, such as the number of soldiers or the exact location of troops.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine caused at least 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million refugees to European countries, which is why the UN classifies this migration crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). gg.). ).
At the moment, 17.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 9.3 million are in need of food aid and housing.
The UN has presented as confirmed 6,755 civilian deaths and 10,607 wounded since the beginning of the war, stressing that these figures are much lower than the real ones.
A Stockholm court on Monday sentenced a former Swedish intelligence officer to life in prison for spying for Russia, and his brother to at least 12 years in prison. In what is considered one of the most serious cases in Swedish counterintelligence history, much of the trial took place behind closed doors in the name of national security.
According to the prosecution, it was Russian military intelligence, the GRU, who took advantage of the information provided by the two brothers between 2011 and their arrest at the end of 2021.
Peyman Kia, 42, has held many senior positions in the Swedish security apparatus, including the army and his country’s intelligence services (Säpo). His younger brother, Payam, 35, is accused of “participating in the planning” of the plot and of “managing contacts with Russia and the GRU, including passing on information and receiving financial rewards.”
Both men deny the charges, and their lawyers have demanded an acquittal on charges of “aggravated espionage,” according to the Swedish news agency TT.
The trial coincides with another case of alleged Russian espionage, with the arrest of the Russian-born couple in late November in a suburb of Stockholm by a police team arriving at dawn in a Blackhawk helicopter.
Research website Bellingcat identified them as Sergei Skvortsov and Elena Kulkova. The couple allegedly acted as sleeper agents for Moscow, having moved to Sweden in the late 1990s.
According to Swedish press reports, the couple ran companies specializing in the import and export of electronic components and industrial technology.
The man was again detained at the end of November for “illegal intelligence activities.” His partner, suspected of being an accomplice, has been released but remains under investigation.
According to Swedish authorities, the arrests are not related to the trial of the Kia brothers.
“They can strengthen their positions. We understand that this can happen. At the same time, we do not rule out that they will announce a general mobilization,” Danilov said in an interview with the Ukrainska Pravda online publication.
Danilov believed that this mobilization would also be convened “to exterminate as many as possible” of Russian citizens, so that “they would no longer have any problems on their territory.”
In this sense, Danilov also reminded that Russia has not given up on securing control over Kyiv or the idea of the complete “destruction” of Ukraine. “We have to be ready for anything,” he said.
“I want everyone to understand that [os russos] they have not given up on the idea of destroying our nation. If they don’t have Kyiv in their hands, they won’t have anything in their hands, we must understand this,” continued Danilov, who also did not rule out that a new Russian offensive would come from “Belarus and other territories.” .
As such, Danilov praised the decision of many of its residents who chose to stay in the Ukrainian capital when the war broke out in order to defend the city.
“They expected that there would be panic, that people would run, that there would be nothing to protect Kyiv,” he added, referring to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine caused at least 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million refugees to European countries, which is why the UN classifies this migration crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). gg.). ).
At the moment, 17.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 9.3 million are in need of food aid and housing.
The Russian invasion, justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security, was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing political and economic sanctions on Russia.
The UN has presented as confirmed 6,755 civilian deaths and 10,607 wounded since the beginning of the war, stressing that these figures are much lower than the real ones.
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