--- title: A Woman Called the Cops on Whales in viral video description: After getting scared by nearby humpback whales, a woman on a boat in Puget Sound made a call to the police — just in case. canonical: https://time.com/5419526/woman-whales-cops/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-10-09T16:44:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:55:22.661Z og:title: A Woman on a Boat Called the Cops About Some Whales og:description: She just wanted to make sure police knew where they were if the boat flipped og:url: https://time.com/5419526/woman-whales-cops/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbacfc1aa56a2fefc/69893c28ab6d7763da6b3e0b/humpback-whale.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2121 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: COLOMBIA-WILDLIFE-WHALE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Woman on a Boat Called the Cops About Some Whales twitter:description: She just wanted to make sure police knew where they were if the boat flipped twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbacfc1aa56a2fefc/69893c28ab6d7763da6b3e0b/humpback-whale.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Woman on Family Boating Adventure Calls Cops About Whales > Sponsored content. 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MIGUEL MEDINA—AFP/Getty Images  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Oct 9, 2018 4:44 PM UTC An abundance of caution seemed to be the mantra on this woman’s mind when she called the cops to report the fact that [humpback whales](http://time.com/4701442/humpback-whales-super-groups/) were swimming under her boat. In a now-viral Facebook video post documenting a close encounter with the [gentle sea giants](http://time.com/4481393/humpback-whales-endangered-species-list/), we see a whale decide to check out the boat by slowly going beneath it. While the guy behind the camera — Darren Lucianna, [according to his Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/dluciann/videos/10217263814855769/) — endeavors to calm down the rest of the passengers on his family boating trip, plenty of them seem to be very worried. “I don’t want to die right now,” someone says in the background, while another person can be heard crying. “Relax. He’s going to check us out and then he’s going to go away. Relax. Seriously!” Lucianna responds; throughout, he seems awed by the experience. His family, however, is on a slightly different page. But the real kicker is when another voice can be heard on the phone, making that cop call. “I’m out in [Puget Sound](http://time.com/5368847/airline-security-risks/), and there’s three huge grey whales underneath our boat, and I’m afraid that we might get flipped over,” she says. (They were actually humpbacks, a fact that she corrects later on in the call.) Ultimately the whales pass beneath them, they fire up the engine and cruise away — with the humpbacks following from a safe distance for a few minutes. All’s well that ends well, even for Lucianna and his family. “Family boating trip turned out to be an amazing adventure,” he even captioned the dramatic video. > [](https://twitter.com/%5FSJPeace%5F/status/1049431085405360128) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5419526/woman-whales-cops/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5419526/woman-whales-cops/"},"headline":"Woman on Family Boating Adventure Calls Cops About Whales","datePublished":"2018-10-09T16:44:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:55:22.661Z","description":"Safety first, kids","url":"https://time.com/5419526/woman-whales-cops/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbacfc1aa56a2fefc/69893c28ab6d7763da6b3e0b/humpback-whale.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbacfc1aa56a2fefc/69893c28ab6d7763da6b3e0b/humpback-whale.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"COLOMBIA-WILDLIFE-WHALE","caption":"COLOMBIA-WILDLIFE-WHALE","creditText":"MIGUEL MEDINA—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5419526/woman-whales-cops/","name":"Woman on Family Boating Adventure Calls Cops About Whales"}}]}] ```