Exploding whale Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
being used to explode a rotting beached whale]]There have been two real-life documented incidents of exploding whales. The better known explosion occurred in Florence, Oregon in 1970 when a dead Gray Whale was blown up by the Oregon Highway Division in an attempt to dispose of its rotting carcass and became famous when American humorist Dave Barry wrote about it in his newspaper column. Footage of the incident later appeared on the Internet and it became an instant hit due to the improbability and absurdity of the event. The other reported case of an exploding whale was in Taiwan in 2004 when a build up of gas inside a decomposing Sperm Whale caused it to explode while it was being transported to have a post-mortem performed.
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2 Taiwan 3 Exploding whales in books of fiction 4 See also 5 References 6 External links |
Oregon
failed to successfully dispose of this whale carcass when they blew it up with one-half ton of dynamite.]]
In November, 1970 a 14 m (45 ft), eight ton Gray Whale died as a result of beaching itself near Florence, Oregon. The Oregon Highway Division (now known as the Oregon Department of Transportation) 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 detonate the whale. This decision was made because they thought that burying the whale would be ineffective, as it would soon be uncovered, and they believed that the use of dynamite would cause an explosion that would disintegrate the whale into pieces that were small enough for scavengers to clear up. Interestingly, 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.
[1] [1]
The resulting explosion was caught on tape by television news reporter Paul Linnman, who described himself as a "land-blubber" and reported that "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, and also scared away scavenging birds. The scavengers would have been unable to quickly dispose of the whale in any case, as the scattered chunks of whale meat were mostly far too large for them to handle in one piece. The explosion also didn't 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 is reported that 41 Sperm Whales beached nearby in 1979; State Parks officials burned and buried them. Nowadays beach managers do not tend to blow up dead beached whales but instead tow them out to sea. This is done mainly for safety reasons, as the rotting corpses have been known to attract sharks and so become a danger to beach-users.
Urban legend status
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 Dave Barry in his Miami Herald column of May 20, 1990 when he reported that he had footage of the event. Sometime later the Oregon State Highway division started getting calls from the media after a bastardized version of the article was distributed on bulletin boards under the title "The Farside Comes To Life In Oregon". The footage that was referred to in the article, taken by KATU Channel 2 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 class="external">[1. These websites have been criticised by animal rights activists who complain that they are making fun out 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 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) [1]. 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 [1] [1].
Taiwan
happened due to a natural build-up of internal gases during its transportation to a research centre near the southwestern city of Tainan.]]
A similar incident occurred on January 29, 2004 in Tainan, Taiwan. In this incident a build-up 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 south-western coast of Taiwan and it had taken more than 13 hours, 3 large cranes, and 50 workers to shift the beached sperm whale on to the back of a truck. While the whale was being moved, 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" [1]. 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 lorry/truck through the center of Tainan from the university laboratory to the preserve when the explosion occurred, yet 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." [1] After the explosion, the Taipei Times noted that many men were interested in the size of the whale's penis, which was recorded as being 1.6 m (5 ft.) long. They wrote that "more than 100 Tainan city residents, mostly men, have reportedly gone to see the corpse to 'experience' the size of its penis." (cited MSNBC, [1]; also Taipei Times, [1])
This is an Article on Exploding whale. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Exploding whale Exploding whales in books of fiction
Exploding whales are a theme written about by several authors, their unusual, absurd and highly improbable nature making them an interesting topic to write about. The most well known exploding whales in literature have beenSee also
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