Endless Thread - Adrián and the Whale

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

There are moments that define each of our lives. Some we can predict: graduations, marriages, births, death.  Others? Not so much. And in the year 2025, sometimes, if the stars align just so, you may find that moment explode online. That's what happened to 23-year-old Adrián Simancas. Last month, he was paddling the Straight of Magellan, with his father Dell, when the unimaginable happened: a humpback whale emerged from the water and engulfed him in its open mouth — and his father captured it all on video. Almost immediately, the video went viral. Simancas sat down with Endless Thread to discuss his whale tale, the deluge of attention that followed, and what he's learned from his intimate moment with nature. Show notes:  Video of Adrián's whale encounter. We originally saw it on the Reddit thread: r/ThatsInsane Adrián Simanca's Youtube channel Dell Simanca's Youtube channel Did a whale swallow a kayaker? The truth behind the viral video (NPR)

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Could you tell what was going to happen before it happened? Did you know that there was an animal underneath you? It was a complete surprise when something struck me from behind and there was something coming at me. like blue, dark and white shadow, very fast in form of an animal. Then I was, like, laying down, spinning, and I realized that I was inside of the mouth of an animal. And I guessed that I would die. There are moments that define each of our lives.

Some we can predict. graduations, marriages, births, death. Others, not so much. We were going on to an island called Nassau here at the south of Chile. And yeah, we were going to camp on the island. It would be my dad's birthday. I assume being swallowed by a whale was not part of the plant. for the trip.

No, not at all. This may be the wildest story of the morning, a whale swallowing a kayaker, then immediately spitting him out. 23-year-old Adrian Simankas swallowed and then spit out by a humpback whale while kayaking last weekend. Truly terrifying experience, you can only imagine.

Today, we're taking you to the Strait of Magellan in Patagonia. It's very cold. It's very rocky. There are mountains, it's very peaceful, you know. You just kind of get to hear the wind. Where 23-year-old Adrienne Simankas. Hello, nice to meet you. And his father, Del.

Tranquido, yeah I'm going. Got the shock of their lives last month and got blowhold blasted into internet. Who among us? Who among us has not been blowhole? straight into internet virality as a result. There are tales about whales, and then there's this. Hey, I'm Ben Blowhole Johnson.

I'm Amory blasted above the sea, Vertsen. And from the dry sea creature-free confines of WBURR, Boston's NPR, this is endless thread. And this, this is the story of Adrienne and the whale. So yes, we talked to the guy from the video that traveled the world last month on the internet, the one where the guy gets swallowed by a whale. Engulfed by a whale, we should say. Whales can't swallow humans.

They just can't. Their throats are too tiny. But this unsuspecting paddler in Patagonia did get accidentally taste tested by a whale. whale, who is probably just after some fish. But a normal day in the life of this guy is much more, well, normal. I am Adriang Simankas. And I work at a school here in Punta Arenas, where I live. I'm the technology manager.

Do you get to hang out with kids and help them use the Internet, or are you mostly just fixing things when things go wrong? A little bit of both. And sometimes I help with the setup for events and all the multimedia, you know. Yes, the tech guy. You're the tech guy. Yeah. It seems like you're kind of an outdoors person. Is that true? You and your dad spend a lot of time in the outdoors together?

Yeah. Since I was a kid, we hung out and were to climb mountains, you know, or going to rivers. And my mom also loves nature, you know. It's something that a lot of people have that love in common, you know, to plant flowers, to go outside. I think it's something that I have in my blood. The Simonka's family is originally from Venezuela, and they now call the city of Punta Arenas home. It's a place at the very southern tip of Chile, known as a gateway. to some of Patagonia's most spectacular natural wonders. Kind of a ground zero for outdoor adventuring. And they don't just hike and summit mountains.

They rock climb, they bike, and they record a lot of these adventures and post them for the 700-plus followers of Dell's YouTube channel. They also packraft. Which, as everyone knows, is what is pack-rafting? We did not know. We do now. A packraft is this type of lightweight inflatable boat specifically designed for people who are backpacking and hiking

into the places they want to paddle. When they're unfolded and filled with air, packrafts look a lot like the inflatable kayaks you might be more familiar with. And Adrienne and his dad love to packraft. It's like the bicycle for me. It's like part of my body. I really enjoy traveling

in different ways. It's a sports that can help you to have adventures and places you wouldn't imagine. So it's February, and it's Adriane's dad's birthday. Like any good father-son, outdoorsy duo, they decide to celebrate with a multi-day hiking and pack-rafting trip. They spend Friday camping, and then for the weekend, they plan to pack raft out to an island called Nassau. So they pick up their rafts, set out. It's around noon, and they hope to get to the island by sunset. But to get there, you have to paddle through one of the world's most famous or infamous sea routes, a stretch that separates the two largest oceans in the world, the Strait of Magellan. Del has paddled this area before, but it's Adrienne's first time, and he's pumped. At first, the water's calm,

but as they paddle towards the island, the weather begins to shift. in a sinister direction. Suddenly it started to rain and it started to form a little waves. I was thinking that we should hurry up and maybe curve our route a little bit. Adrian and his dad aren't too worried. They know what they're doing. But Adrienne also notices something off in the distance,

something very whale-like. I had seen a stream of water coming out to the surface, but far away, you know, so I didn't thought that we would meet another whale so close. Adrian's never come across a whale before, but it's a bit far away, so he's not too worried about it. Meanwhile, Adrian's dad, Del, is a few yards ahead of him, and he's starting to set up shop. Remember, Dell likes to post YouTube videos. And like any good YouTuber rain or shine, you got to get that content. So Dell sets up his fancy 360-degree camera, as he's done many times before. And just as he turns it on, something unimaginable happens.

That's precisely when the whale came out. More in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about Science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics. Country music. Hockey.

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Okay. We're in Chilean, Patagonia, in the Strait of Magellan, with Adrian and Del Cimancas. Dell has just set up a 360-degree camera to capture footage for his YouTube channel when something extraordinary happens. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a humpback whale emerges from the water and engulfs Adrian and his packraft in its open mouth. I've watched this video at least a dozen. times at this point and every single time, it's just absolutely insane. It is because the mouth is so big. You're not expecting a whale's mouth or you can't fathom how big a whale's mouth is. And so the mouth, you know what I mean? Good use of the word fathom because

part of the reason is that the entire thing is underwater. It's like a giant creature that's underwater. And then all of a sudden its mouth comes out of the water and you're like, Oh my God, that thing's huge. Yeah. And Adrienne says in that moment, pulled into this giant mouth of a whale, he thought he was about to die. I just felt like when you're swimming and you get to a wave and the wave is too big and it spins you down in the water. That was kind of what I felt. I was holding my breath.

At first, I thought that, well, I guess I. it was the only thing that I could do right now, no? But then, just seconds later, Adrienne and his boat reappear. I was outside and the boat came out of the water too. I was calling for my dad to warn him because I thought that something was swimming below us. And of course there was a whale swimming, like looking at me, trying to understand what happened.

And it was a group of whales. So I was very scared and paranoid. The whale dives again, and then it disappears. On the video, you can hear Del calling to Adrienne. He's saying basically, don't worry, don't worry, stay calm, grab onto my rope. And his tone, at least to us as viewers and to many, many people on the internet, is surprisingly chill, at least for the circumstances. The experience I had in watching the video was I was like,

why is his dad so relaxed? I don't understand. Well, he didn't really see the moment when the whale came out. He was starting the camera. I was behind him. And when he heard the splash of water, he turned back and I was not there, neither was the boat. And he was kind of confused, you know. That would be confusing. Yeah.

And then when I got up, he was relaxed about me being fine, you know, being awake and floating. because that's better than any other possible situation when I had just disappeared in the water. I think that's why he was very positive about it. It is the protocol when you need to rescue someone because I... I would have lost a lot of energy just trying to fight to get out of the water. And the only thing to do was to wait. In the video, you can see Adrienne holding on to his packraft as he swims over to his dad, grabs onto his boat.

And Dell paddles them both to safety. End scene. Yes, believe it or not, Adrian told me he actually wanted to continue on to the island, but he lost his paddle when he went under. I hate it when that happens. The seamancas make it safely back to land, and despite literally being in the mouth of a whale, Adrian says he's totally fine. My dad is a doctor, so he just makes sure that I was okay.

is also like a sport trainer. So I was like with the most capable person to be around when I got eaten by a way. Dell posted the video online and it's since ended up everywhere. We first saw it on Reddit, but it's been featured by CNN, the New York Times, the BBC, you name it. They've posted it. what has it felt like to go so viral and to be so immediately popular? It's funny. I didn't really thought that you would have so much reach. I think it is nice that because of this, I get to promote the music I make, maybe in the near future.

and I also like to write not only songs but poetry and short stories. I share a bit of the things I do with YouTube. There is music like Trova Rock, like folk punk. My dad also has a YouTube channel and that's where we've been posting videos of excursions since like 12 years ago. And yeah, this has kind of been an inspiration and motivation to keep on doing all this and get to do something good with all the repercussions of this being so public, you know. Since his whale encounter last month, Adriana has done countless interviews.

Many appear to be quick hits, but he told us about one of his more in-depth interviews. He did it the day before he talked to us. I think they wanted to know about the spiritual implications about something like this happening. Are you religious? Not especially. My family is mostly Catholic, like most of the people in Venezuela. But I always wanted to get a little further in what the teachings of the life could be in different cultures.

And yeah, I believe there is a god that lives inside all that is nature. That's the same love from God that we have to learn to make a good impact on this world. I think that's what the meaning of the message that I can perceive from this. And since his meeting with the whale, Adrian is only more grateful for that message. I think, well, life is a gift. when we go through this kind of experience, it's like you have more reasons now to be grateful for the life you have. Have your brother and your sister and your mother and your father

all hugged you a little bit tighter since this happened? Yeah, yeah, a little bit. I mean, it was very shocking at first. But I think besides the shocking and the fear, yeah, it has a lot of art to it. You know, my mom is working on an illustrated children book right now. About the whale experience? Is she making it about your experience? Yes.

And it will be very emotional, I guess. and very beautiful because she's a great painter. And my brother is also a musician. My daughter also likes to draw and write. It is very, very inspiring to them, I guess, because it's something special, like you will see in some Garcia-Marquez novel. Temperatures have dropped in Patagonia. But despite his experience, Adrian vows to get back on the water, back in his

pack raft when the weather turns. And this time, he's set on making it to the island. It feels kind of scary, but I will do it next year. We've not been able to reach the whale to ask it for an interview. If you could give a message to the whale, what would the message? Thank you for saying hi that day because you made it a lot more meaningful and even though you ruined our birthday plans, they turned up being a double birthday. And I hope we maybe can get to see us again from a bigger distance. And just in case the whale only understands Spanish, I mean, in addition to whale, obviously. Well, it would be more or less, Vallena.

you know to do not yet the plan of a new year but it's a birthday and it's that the

previous was even more interesting and if we'll see we'll be to see from the

from the from I'm that you think you have a

long life you can find footage from this trip and other trips Del and Adrian have taken on Dell's YouTube channel. He's Del Simancas. And you can find out

more of what Adrienne is up to, including his previously mentioned music on his channel, Adrian Simancas. We've put links to both in our show notes. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was written and produced by Caitlin Harrop. It was co-hosted by me, Amory Severson, and... Me, Ben Barack Johnson. Sound design by Emily Jenkowski. The rest of our team is Frannie Monaghan, Dean Russell, Grace Tatter, and Meg Kramer. Our managing producer is Summa Tjoshi, and our production manager is Paul Vikis. Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between online communities and the inside of a whale's mouth.

Which is very watery, it turns out. Yes, and by the way, this has nothing to do with a whale's mouth, but it does have to do with our show and future episodes. We're working on an upcoming episode about how people are using. AI in their relationships. So not just like, I made myself an AI girlfriend, because we already made that episode and you should listen to it. But we're thinking more like, you know, your work, your friends, your parents, other people in your life.

What role is AI playing in those relationships? We want to hear it. Send us a voice memo or a written message to endless thread at WBUR.org. If you have an untold history and unsolved mystery or other wild story from the internet that you want us to tell, hit us up. Endless thread. at wb ur.org.