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There have been two documented, notable incidents of exploding whales, as well as several lesser-known ones. The most famous Explosion occurred in the United States at Florence , Oregon , in 1970, when a dead Sperm Whale (originally reported as a Gray Whale ) was blown up by the Oregon Highway Division in an attempt to dispose of its rotting Carcass . This incident became famous when American Humorist Dave Barry wrote about it in his newspaper column after viewing television footage of the explosion, and later when the same footage of the incident appeared on the Internet. The other well-reported case of an exploding whale was in Taiwan in 2004, when a buildup of Gas inside a Decomposing sperm whale caused it to explode while it was being Transport ed for Post-mortem examination. OREGON failed to dispose of this whale carcass properly when they blew it up with half a ton of dynamite.]] In November 1970, a 14 M (45 Ft. ), eight Ton Sperm Whale died as a result of Beaching Itself near Florence, Oregon . At the time, the Oregon Highway Division (now known as the Oregon Department Of Transportation or ODOT) had jurisdiction over beaches and was given the task of removing the whale carcass. After consulting with officials at the United States Navy , they decided that it would be best to remove the whale in the same way they would remove a Boulder and, on November 12 , they used half a ton of Dynamite to remove it. This decision was made because they thought Burying the whale would be ineffective, as it would soon be uncovered, and they believed the use of dynamite would cause an explosion that would disintegrate the whale into pieces small enough for Scavenger s to clear up. The engineer in charge of the operation, George Thornton, was recorded as stating that one set of charges might not be enough and more might be needed. Thornton later explained that he was chosen to remove the whale because the district engineer, Dale Allen, had gone Hunting . The resulting explosion was caught on film by television photographer Doug Brazil for a story reported by News Reporter Paul Linnman for KATU -TV in Portland, OR . In his Voiceover , 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 quite some distance away from the beach, resulting in a smashed car. The explosion did not disintegrate most of the whale, which remained on the beach for the Oregon Highway Division workers to clear away. At the end of his news story, Paul 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." It was reported in the ODOT's employee newspaper, ''TranScript'', that 41 sperm whales beached nearby in 1979; state parks officials burned and buried them . Today, beach managers tow dead beached whales to the open sea. This is done mainly for safety reasons, as the rotting corpses have been known to attract Shark s and so become a danger to beach users. On September 30 , 2004 , an adult Humpback Whale beached itself and died at Bonza Bay beach in East London , South Africa . In order to sink the whale, authorities towed it out to sea and set off explosives affixed to it from a distance. For several years, the story of the exploding whale was held to be an Urban Legend . However, it was brought to widespread public attention by popular writer Dave Barry in his '' Miami Herald '' column of May 20 , 1990 , when he reported that he had footage of the event. 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 Farside Comes To Life In Oregon". However, the piece did not explain that the event had happened approximately twenty five years previously and whoever had copied Barry's article neglected to include the authorship of the piece; Dave Barry says that on a fairly regular basis someone forwards him the "authorless" column and suggests he write something about the described incident. Due to these oversights, an article in the ODOT's ''Transcript'' notes that :'We started getting calls from curious reporters across the country right after the electronic bulletin board story appeared,' said Ed Schoaps, public affairs coordinator for the Oregon Department of Transportation. 'They thought the whale had washed ashore recently, and were hot on the trail of a governmental blubber flub-up. They were disappointed that the story has twenty five years of dust on it.' :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 footage that was referred to in the article, from KATU for the news story reported by Paul Linnman, resurfaced later as a Video File on several websites and became a reasonably well-known and popular Internet Meme . These websites attracted criticism from Animal Rights activists, who complained that they are making fun of acts of Animal Cruelty , even though the whale was already dead. Their critical emails were subsequently published by the bemused site webmasters. The story of Oregon's exploding whale was widely known on Usenet for quite some time and was in particular discussed on Alt.folklore.urban , a Newsgroup devoted to urban legends. The incident, including a complete copy of Barry's article, was recorded in the newsgroup's 1991 FAQ , then maintained by Peter van der Linden, where it was marked as "Tb" (believed true, but not conclusively proven) . In 1992, after newsgroup poster " Snopes " tried to verify whether this was true or not, the newsgroup received confirmation that it was a true story and marked it as true. TAINAN, TAIWAN happened due to a natural buildup of internal Gas es during its transportation to a research establishment near the southwestern city of Tainan .]] Another whale explosion occurred on January 29 , 2004 , in Tainan City , Taiwan . In this incident, a buildup of gas inside a decomposing Sperm Whale , measuring 17 meters (56 ft.) long and weighing 50 tons, caused it to burst. The older bull whale had died after becoming beached on the southwestern coast of Taiwan, and it had taken more than 13 hours, three large Cranes , and 50 workers to shift the beached sperm whale onto the back of a truck. While the whale was being moved, the website of the newspaper '' Taiwan News '', ''eTaiwanNews.com'', reported that "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 ". Professor Wang Chien-ping had ordered the whale be moved to the Sutsao Wild Life Reservation Area after he had been refused permission to perform a post-mortem at the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan. The whale was being transported on the back of a truck through the center of Tainan from the university laboratory to the preserve when the explosion occurred. Although the explosion was spectacular, it did not stop researchers from performing a post-mortem on the animal. The explosion was reported to have splattered blood and whale entrails over surrounding shop-fronts, bystanders, and cars. BBC News Online interviewed an unnamed Taiwanese local who said, "What a stinking mess. This blood and other stuff that blew out on the road is disgusting, and the smell is really awful." Over the course of about one year, Professor Wang completed a bone display from the remains of the whale's rotting dead body. The assembled specimen and some preserved organ and tissues have been on display in the Tai Jiang Cetacean Museum since April 8 , 2005 . OTHER INCIDENTS
IN FICTION Exploding whales are a theme written about by several authors; their unusual, absurd, and highly improbable nature makes them an interesting topic to write about. The most well known exploding whales in literature have been:
IN FILM In the upcoming movie '''' the deputies must deal with a beached whale on a busy Miami beach. They ultimately decide to explode it. The Miami authorities were very strict on the materials that could be used in making the exploding whale, and the direction in which the debris should fly. NOTES & REFERENCES |
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