This chapter covers key stories and little-known habits of sperm whales that are vital to understanding this entire book.
What I’ve shared so far matters a great deal. But to make everything crystal clear, and to stop anyone from doubting the truth of these whale tales out of pure ignorance, I need to expand on these points in simple, plain terms.
I won’t lay this out in stiff, formal order. Instead, I’ll share real, proven facts I’ve picked up from years of working as a whaler. Piece by piece, these true stories will build up the exact point I want to make—all on their own.
First, I know of three confirmed cases where a whale was harpooned, escaped completely, and was later killed by the same whaler years later.
In one extreme case, three full years passed between the two strikes. Both harpoons, marked with the sailor’s unique private symbol, were pulled from the whale’s body after its death.
Here’s the full story of that three-year encounter. After the man first harpooned the whale, he left the whaling trade. He signed on to a trading ship sailing for Africa, went ashore, and joined an exploration party. For nearly two years, he trekked deep into the unexplored African interior.
He faced constant danger: venomous snakes, hostile native tribes, wild tigers, toxic swamp air, and every other terror that comes with wandering uncharted lands.
All while he was traveling the world, that wounded whale was traveling too. It almost certainly circled the globe three times, gliding past every African coastline—and still, it could never escape the fate waiting for it.
Eventually, man and whale met again. This time, the man won.
I personally witnessed two of these three encounters. I saw the whales get struck the first time, and then saw the marked harpoons pulled from their bodies when they were finally killed later on.
For the three-year case, I was in the whaling boat both times. I even recognized a huge, unique mole right under the whale’s eye that I’d noticed three years prior. I say three years, but I’m certain it was even longer.
These are three absolute truths I saw with my own eyes. Beyond that, I’ve heard countless identical stories from honest, reliable men with no reason to lie.
Second, anyone in the whaling industry knows a fact that land dwellers never guess: certain individual sperm whales become famous across the entire ocean.
They’re recognizable to whalers across distant seas and years. These whales aren’t famous just for looking different. Any oddly shaped whale would quickly be killed and boiled down for its valuable oil, erasing its uniqueness forever.
Their real fame comes from their terrifying reputation. Much like a notorious outlaw, these whales have injured and killed so many whalers that sailors learn to leave them alone.
When these legendary whales drift lazily past their ships, whalers simply tap their hats in quiet recognition and steer clear. They refuse to take any chances, knowing a close encounter could mean sudden death.
These aren’t just local celebrities. These sperm whales have ocean-wide fame. Their stories live on forever in sailor folklore, just like the tales of great kings and conquerors.
There was Timor Tom, a massive scarred whale that haunted the Eastern Timor Straits for years, its spout visible from the palm-fringed beaches of Ombay.
There was New Zealand Jack, the terror of every whaling ship sailing near the tattooed coasts of New Zealand.
There was Morquan, the so-called King of Japan, whose towering water spout often looked like a brilliant white cross against the sky.
And there was Don Miguel, a Chilean whale whose back was covered in strange, ancient-looking markings, like a tortoise carved with secret symbols.
To anyone who studies whale history, these four names are as well-known as ancient Roman generals are to history scholars.
Two of these legends—New Zealand Jack and Don Miguel—wreaked havoc on countless whaling boats for years. Eventually, brave captains set out specifically to hunt them down. They sailed with one single goal: kill these infamous whales, just as old colonial captains hunted down notorious native warriors.
I want to add a few more critical truths here. These facts prove that the story of Moby Dick—even its most tragic, unbelievable moments—is completely realistic.
Truth often needs more proof than lies to be believed. Most land people have no idea how strange and terrifying the ocean and its creatures truly are. Without these real historical examples, they’d write off Moby Dick as a total myth, or worse, a silly moral fable.
First, land people have a vague sense that whaling is dangerous—but they have no clue how constant and brutal those dangers truly are.
Hardly any whaling deaths or disasters ever make it into newspapers back home. A sailor dragged to the bottom of the ocean by a whale off New Guinea will never show up in a morning obituary. Mail to remote ocean regions is far too slow and unreliable.
Most people never hear real news from these far-off seas. But during one of my Pacific voyages, we spoke to thirty different whaling ships. Every single one had lost at least one man to a whale. Several lost multiple men, and three lost entire boat crews.
Every drop of whale oil burned in lamps and candles comes at the cost of human blood. No gallon burns without a man’s life being risked for it.
Second, land people know whales are huge and powerful—but they never believe just how deadly and intelligent they are.
When I tell them true stories of a whale’s strength and cunning, they think I’m joking or exaggerating. I swear I’m not. I’m no more joking than the man who wrote of the plagues of Egypt.
Luckily, I don’t need only my own word to prove this. There is solid, documented proof that sperm whales are powerful, smart, and intentionally malicious enough to hunt, smash, and sink full-sized ships. And they have done exactly that, many times.
In 1820, the Essex, a whaling ship from Nantucket led by Captain Pollard, was cruising the Pacific.
The crew spotted whale spouts, lowered their boats, and chased a pod of sperm whales. They wounded several of the whales.
Suddenly, an enormous whale broke away from the pod and charged straight for the main ship. It slammed its massive forehead into the hull, punching a huge hole in the vessel.
In less than ten minutes, the entire ship sank completely. Not a single plank of it was ever found again.
The surviving crew endured horrific exposure at sea before finally reaching land. Captain Pollard returned home, then set sail again for the Pacific with a new ship—only to be shipwrecked a second time on uncharted rocks.
After losing two ships to ocean disasters, he quit whaling forever. To this day, he still lives in Nantucket.
I’ve met Owen Chase, the first mate of the Essex during that fatal attack. I’ve read his honest, unexaggerated account of the disaster. I’ve spoken with his son. All of this happened only a few miles from where I stand.
Owen Chase wrote clearly that the whale’s attack was no accident. It struck the ship twice in quick, calculated bursts.
It positioned itself perfectly ahead of the ship to maximize the force of the collision, showing clear, deliberate planning. The whale looked enraged and vengeful.
It charged straight from the pod the crew had just attacked, as if avenging its wounded pod mates.
Chase added that every detail of the attack proved the whale acted with cold, intentional malice—not blind, random rage.
Later, adrift in an open boat on a pitch-black night, Chase wrote that storms, rocks, and starvation barely scared him.
All he could think about was the wreckage of his ship and the terrifying, vengeful look of that massive whale. He called it a mysterious, deadly, premeditated attack.
Another confirmed case: in 1807, the Nantucket whaling ship Union was completely sunk by a sperm whale near the Azores. Whalers have spoken of this disaster for generations, though no full official record survives.
A third story comes from a high-ranking American naval officer.
Some twenty years ago, a Navy commodore dined with a group of whaling captains on a Nantucket ship anchored in Hawaii’s Oahu harbor.
As they talked, the commodore mocked the sailors’ stories of whales’ incredible strength. He insisted no whale could ever damage his tough warship, not even enough to make it leak a single drop of water.
A few weeks later, the commodore set sail for Valparaiso on his supposedly unbreakable warship.
Mid-voyage, a huge sperm whale stopped his ship. It delivered one massive, crushing blow to the hull.
The crew ran all pumps nonstop, but the ship leaked so badly they had to rush to the nearest port for emergency repairs.
I’m not superstitious, but that encounter felt like deliberate payback. Just like the biblical Saul was shocked into faith, this skeptical officer learned never to underestimate a sperm whale. They tolerate no foolish arrogance.
There’s another credible account from the early 1800s, recorded in the travel logs of Langsdorff, a member of Russia’s famous Krusenstern exploration expedition.
On May 13, the ship was ready to sail for Okhotsk. The next day, they entered open ocean under clear, frigid weather, forced to wear fur coats at all times.
For days, the winds were calm. Then on May 19, a strong northwest gale picked up.
Suddenly, the crew encountered an enormous whale—bigger than their entire ship. It lay nearly flat on the water’s surface, unseen until their full-speed vessel was practically on top of it, making a collision unavoidable.
The giant whale arched its back and lifted the entire ship at least three feet out of the water.
Masts swayed violently, sails collapsed completely, and every sailor below deck rushed above, certain they’d hit a hidden rock.
Instead, they watched the massive whale swim slowly and calmly away. The captain immediately checked for damage, and miraculously, the ship escaped unharmed.
The captain of that ship was a New England man named D’Wolf. He now lives in Dorchester, near Boston, and is my uncle. I’ve asked him personally about this incident, and he confirmed every single detail is true.
I found a nearly identical story in the old adventure journals of Lionel Wafer, a 17th-century explorer and friend of the famous sailor Dampier.
Wafer wrote of his voyage to the Juan Fernández Islands. Early one morning, 150 leagues off the South American coast, his ship was hit by a terrifying, violent shock.
The terrified crew thought they’d crashed into rocks. The jolt was so powerful that ship’s cannons jumped in their mounts, and several men fell out of their hanging hammocks. The captain was even thrown out of his cabin.
They sounded the depths but found no rocks or seabed anywhere nearby. Wafer blamed an earthquake—but I strongly suspect a hidden sperm whale slammed into the hull from below in the dark.
I could share dozens more true stories proving sperm whales are immensely powerful and often intentionally cruel.
They frequently chase whaling boats all the way back to their ships, then attack the main vessel itself, fighting off every spear thrown from the deck.
The English ship Pusie Hall lived through exactly this kind of relentless attack.
There are also cases where sailors tied their harpoon lines to the main ship after striking a calm whale. The single whale then towed the entire heavy vessel across the ocean, just like a horse pulling a cart.
Once wounded and given time to recover, sperm whales don’t just fly into blind rages. They plan deliberate, calculated revenge on their hunters.
A clear sign of their malice: when attacked, they often hold their mouths wide open for minutes at a time, as if silently threatening destruction.
One final, ancient example proves these whale behaviors are not new—they’ve existed for thousands of years.
In the 6th century AD, Procopius, a trusted, respected historian under Emperor Justinian, wrote accurate, well-documented records of his time.
In his writings, he records a massive sea monster terrorizing the Sea of Marmora for more than fifty years. For five decades, this creature repeatedly attacked and sank local ships.
This is solid historical fact, impossible to dismiss as a myth.
Procopius never names the exact species of the monster, but its behavior proves it was almost certainly a sperm whale.
For a long time, I thought sperm whales never entered the Mediterranean Sea. But modern discoveries prove they do occasionally wander into these waters.
British naval Commodore Davis even found a sperm whale skeleton on the Barbary Coast. Sperm whales can easily pass through the Dardanelles Strait into the Sea of Marmora, just as warships do.
The Sea of Marmora has no food for baleen whales, but it teems with squid—the primary prey of sperm whales. Large squid are regularly spotted on its surface.
Put all these facts together, and the conclusion is undeniable: the fifty-year ship-killing sea monster of ancient Roman history was undoubtedly a sperm whale.
The wonders we see today in whales are not new. As the old saying goes, there is truly nothing new under the sun.