Whale
Some are skeptical. One said it was impossible to have come out of the experience with only minimal injuries. (Photo: Reuters / File Photo)

A Massachusetts lobster diver lived to tell a whale of a tale after being swallowed by a humpback.

The lobsterman said he thinks Matt Damon should play him in a movie about his ordeal - maybe call it "Good Whale Hunting."

Michael Packard claims he was lucky to survive. The 56-year-old said he was swallowed and spat out by the whale while diving off Cape Cod.

"I could feel it clamping down on my legs...I could've suffocated, or drowned if I didn't retrieve my (diving air) regulator in time. It was full of water and I could feel the muscles of (the whale's) mouth convulsing around me. It was a really strange feeling, to be sure," Packard said.

Packard doesn't think the whale intended to swallow him and gulped him by accident. Packard said he was diving at 45 feet (14 meters) off the coast of Provincetown. He said he felt a "huge bump" and then everything went dark.

"Then I realized I'm in a whale's mouth...and he's trying to swallow me. And I thought to myself this is it, I'm going to die," Packard said.

Packard thinks he may have been inside the whale for about 30 seconds. He said the whale surfaced and spat him out. He was rescued by a crewmate.

"I saw light, and he started throwing his head side to side and the next thing I knew I was (in the water,)" Packard said.

Packard's story has attracted a lot of attention. Nurses and doctors at the hospital came to see him and asked about his experience. He received hundreds of messages on social media with some users calling him a modern-day "Jonah."

However, some are skeptical. One said it was impossible for him to have come out of the experience with only minimal injuries. He user said Packard should have suffered hearing loss from the sudden change in water pressure after he was brought to the surface.