The Legend:
In february 1891, a British seaman aboard the whaling vessel The Star of the East survived a most singular experience.
At that time, The Star of the East was sailing a few hundred miles east of the Falkland Islands off South America, when the lookout sighted a large sperm whale. Longboats were dropped and the hunt was on. The harpooner of the first longboat in range sunk a deadly spear into the whale's side, and the oarsmen pulled the vessel a safe distance away from the animal's thrashing tail. The whale dived, pulling eight-hundred feet of line after it before slack showed that it was climbing for the surface again. Unable to guess where it would appear, the oarsmen on the longboats waited... until, suddenly, the huge mammal resurfaced right under the first longboat, throwing the broken boat and its men into the air. As the whale dived again, the remaining longboats rescued the survivors and counted their luck... only two men were missing.
The wind that had brought The Star of the East fell into a lull, and the ship was temporarily stranded at the scene of the disaster; of little compensation to the men who were lost, the whale's corpse floated to the surface relatively near the ship around nightfall. The crew set to work, pulling the body alongside the vessel and rendering it into more transportable pieces.
Shortly before eleven that night, something disturbing was noticed. Working by lantern, the whale's great stomach and liver were hoisted onto the deck of the ship and it was seen that the stomach was very slightly, but very definitely, moving. The ship's doctor was called to find an explanation; having none, he cut the stomach open.
Inside was found James Bartley, one of the two missing men, curled up and unconcious, but alive! He had been in the whale's stomach for fifteen hours, and it showed; all the hair on his body was gone, his skin was bleached white, and he was nearly blind. Although he was quickly revived, it was a month before he was both healthy and rational enough to make sense of his experience. He remembered being flung in the air, and seeing the whale's huge mouth come towards him when he hit the water; he felt stabbing pains as he dragged across the mammal's tiny teeth, and then he slid down a slimy tube to where warmth and a lack of air knocked him unconcious... then nothing, until he came to his senses a month later.
It had been Bartley's first day as a sailor, and, understandibly, his last. He spent the remaining eighteen years of his life working as a cobbler in his native Gloucester; when he was buried, his tombstone featured a brief account of his adventure and a footnote: "James Bartley -- 1870-1909 ... A modern Jonah."
The Evidence
According to Stranger Than Science (a book notorious for being factually challenged) the unnamed doctor aboard The Star of the East wrote a record of the event at the time it happened, which was signed by all members of the ship's crew. This would certainly be worth finding, if it exists.
According to Charles Berlitz in Charles Berlitz's World of Strange Phenomena, Bartley was discovered when, during the flensing of the whale, one of his legs protruded from a hole in the stomach. He also mentions the document written by the ship's doctor, and gives as a source the British Admiralty records. I will inquire furthur on this matter.
