Humpback whale breaches and lands on boat off New Hampshire coast in terrifying video

A humpback whale was caught on camera leaping out of the water and landing on a boat in a shocking moment off the coast of New Hampshire.

The video shows the massive whale surging from the depths before crashing down onto the small craft . In an instant, two fishermen were flung into the cold waters of the Atlantic, with onlookers describing the event as another case of a "------ off whale".

The dramatic scene was filmed by someone aboard a nearby vessel , who then quickly manoeuvred to help.

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Ex-NHL star Ryan Whitney tweeted about the incident: "There is a ------ off whale patrolling the waters of Portsmouth NH today. Head on swivel if you're out there," said Ryan Whitney. Miraculously, no one was hurt during the encounter, and the fishermen were aided by one of the many other boats in the area, the US Coast Guard reported.

This year has already seen orcas implicated in a spate of unsettling assaults on vessels across European waters. Since 2020, there have been 673 reports of orcas striking boats near the Iberian Peninsula.

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The situation became so severe that Spanish and Portuguese authorities engaged specialists to determine why the orcas were fixated on hitting ship rudders and how to deter them.

Experts now think they've cracked part of the mystery - many of the collisions appear to be juvenile whales engaging in play, a kind of behavioural "fad".

Marine biologist and killer whale aficionado Alex Zerbini, serving as the chair of the scientific committee at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and part of the task group set up by Spanish and Portuguese authorities, co-authored a report alongside his colleagues in the working group that dives into the motives for killer whale assaults on vessel rudders.

Their investigative paper, named "Workshop Report - Interactions between Iberian Killer Whales and Vessels: Management Recommendations", proposes that killer whales' behavioural patterns are predominantly learnt socially, leading to what researchers dub "cultural traditions".

The team indicated, "Different populations often have distinct dietary specialisations that are maintained by cultural transmission, and these 'ecotypes' typically have a variety of persistent behavioural traditions that are related to their divergent foraging."

The researchers went on to say, "Some populations may also develop unusual and temporary behavioural 'fads' and other idiosyncrasies that do not appear to serve any obvious adaptive purpose. Understanding the recent boat interactions by Iberian killer whales may benefit from an examination of such ephemeral traditions in other well-studied killer whale populations."