Exploding whale

United States

Florence whale

On November 9, 1970, a 45 ft sperm whale washed ashore at Florence on the central Oregon Coast. The weight of the carcass was estimated at 8 ST. At the time, Oregon beaches were under the jurisdiction of the state's Highway Division, which, after consulting with the United States Navy, decided to remove the whale using dynamiteassuming that the resulting pieces would be small enough for scavenger animals to consume.

George Thornton, the engineer in charge of the operation, told an interviewer that he was not sure how much dynamite would be needed, saying that he had been chosen to remove the whale because his supervisor had gone hunting. A charge of 1/2 ST of dynamite was selected.{{cite news |access-date=July 17, 2013 |archive-date=February 17, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060217172655/http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/resources/transcript/ |url-status=live | access-date=July 17, 2013 | archive-date=March 29, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200329075007/http://www.snopes.com/critters/disposal/whale.htm | url-status=live

The dynamite was detonated on November 12 at 3:45p.m. A cameraman, Doug Brazil, filmed it for a story by news reporter Paul Linnman of KATU-TV in Portland, Oregon. In his voice-over, Linnman joked that "land-lubber newsmen" became "land-blubber newsmen[...] for the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds". The explosion caused large pieces of blubber to land near buildings and in parking lots some distance away from the beach. Only some of the whale was disintegrated; most of it remained on the beach for the Oregon Highway Division workers to clear away. In his report, Linnman also noted that scavenger birds, who it had been hoped would eat the remains of the carcass after the explosion, did not appear as they were possibly scared away by the noise.

Days before the blast, a local explosive expert had purchased a new automobile in a "Get a Whale of a Deal" promotion. It was damaged by a chunk of falling blubber.

Ending his story, Linnman noted that "It might be concluded that, should a whale ever be washed ashore in Lane County again, those in charge will not only remember what to do, they'll certainly remember what not to do". When 41 sperm whales beached nearby in 1979, state parks officials burned and buried them. | access-date = January 8, 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110717092953/http://tafkac.org/animals/exploding.whale/son_of_blubber.html | archive-date= July 17, 2011

Later that day, Thornton told the Eugene Register-Guard, "It went just exactly right.[...] Except the blast funneled a hole in the sand under the whale" and that some of the whale chunks were subsequently blown back toward the onlookers and their cars.

Thornton was promoted to the Medford office several months after the incident, and served in that post until his retirement. When Linnman contacted him in the mid-1990s, the newsman said Thornton felt the operation had been an overall success and had been converted into a public-relations disaster by hostile media reports.

The Siuslaw Pioneer Museum has bone fragments of the Florence exploding whale, called "Florence's most infamous moment" by local press. Currently, Oregon State Parks Department policy is to bury whale carcasses where they land. If the sand is not deep enough, they are relocated to another beach. | access-date=March 9, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090615155544/http://www.kptv.com/news/18886423/detail.html | archive-date = June 15, 2009

Renewed interest

The story was brought to widespread public attention by writer Dave Barry in his Miami Herald column of May 20, 1990, when he reported that he possessed footage of the event. Barry wrote, "… we watch it often, especially at parties." Some time later, the Oregon State Highway division started to receive calls from the media after a shortened version of the article was distributed on bulletin boards under the title "The Far Side Comes to Life in Oregon". The unattributed copy of Barry's article did not explain that the event had happened approximately 25 years earlier. Barry later said that, on a fairly regular basis, someone would forward him his own column and suggest he write something about the described incident. As a result of these omissions, an article in the ODOT's TranScript notes that:

Schoaps has fielded calls from reporters and the just plain curious in Oregon, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts. The Wall Street Journal called, and Washington, D.C.–based Governing magazine covered the immortal legend of the beached whale in its June issue. And the phone keeps ringing. "I get regular calls about this story," Schoaps said. His phone has become the blubber hotline for ODOT, he added. "It amazes me that people are still calling about this story after nearly twenty-five years."

The KATU footage resurfaced later as a video file on several websites, becoming a viral video. | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109035349/http://theexplodingwhale.com/ | archive-date = November 9, 2013 | access-date=November 17, 2013 | access-date=July 17, 2013 | archive-date=March 9, 2011 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110309065824/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6187554.stm | url-status=live

Florence celebrates Exploding Whale Day annually at Exploding Whale Memorial Park. In 2024, the public was invited to build an altar for the exploded whale.

Taiwan

Another whale explosion occurred on January 29, 2004, in Tainan City, Taiwan.{{cite book

Taiwan News reported that, while the whale was being moved, "a large crowd of more than 600 local Yunlin residents and curiosity seekers, along with vendors selling snack food and hot drinks, braved the cold temperature and chilly wind to watch workmen try to haul away the dead marine leviathan". | access-date=December 10, 2016 | archive-date=August 22, 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140822125341/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3437455.stm | url-status=live | access-date=March 10, 2017 | archive-date=March 12, 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312044553/http://www.weirdasianews.com/2009/05/22/whale-explodes-taiwan-street/ | url-status=live

Over the course of about a year, Wang completed a bone display from the remains of the whale. The assembled specimen and some preserved organs and tissues have been on display in the Taijiang Cetacean Museum since April 8, 2005.{{cite news | access-date=March 10, 2017 | archive-date=March 12, 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312052306/http://xpatmatt.com/the-tale-of-the-exploding-whale/ | url-status=live

References

References

1. colliek2. (February 2022). "The Case of the Exploding Whale « Extension's Sustainable Tourism Blog".
2. "Emeralds Announce "Exploding Whale" Alternate Identity".
3. (October 31, 2013). "The man behind Oregon's exploding whale dies at 84". [[The Oregonian]].
4. John. (2016-08-14). "Oregon’s world-famous exploding whale". Offbeat Oregon.
5. Linnman, Paul and Doug Brazil, Chapter 7. Linnman contacted Dr. Bruce Mate, a [[marine biologist]] at the [[Hatfield Marine Science Center]] in [[Newport, Oregon. Newport]] who was there that day. Dr. Mate says that it was not a [[gray whale]], but was in fact a [[sperm whale]].
6. (November 12, 1970). "Road Crews to Blow Up Whale Near Florence". [[Statesman Journal]].
7. "Austin Powder Guide, Dynamite series page 2".
8. Duvernay, Adam. "Fifty years later, Florence embraces the tale of the exploding whale".
9. Pietsch, Bryan. (June 20, 2020). "'Exploding Whale' Park Memorializes Blubber Blast 50 Years Later". The New York Times.
10. (12 November 2020). "The Exploding Whale remastered: 50th anniversary of legendary Oregon event". KATU.
11. (7 November 2024). "Exploding Whale Day now a full-fledged holiday on the Oregon coast. Here's how to celebrate". Oregon Live.