Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the EXPLODING WHALE! : In celebration of this explosive 50th anniversary, Gary and Shannon had the honor of interviewing the legendary Oregon television and radio broadcaster,  Paul Linnman , about the event that blasted both blubber  and  Paul’s career skyward!

  We’ll be covering all the festivities of the 45th anniversary of Oregon’s Exploding Whale! Don’t miss out on the fun! ‘A whale of a problem’: 45th anniversary of a dynamite idea   –   KVAL Happy 45th Anniversary, Exploding Whale   –   EarthTouch ‘My car!’: Eugene man recalls ‘whale of a deal’ family got on car in 1970   –   KMTR 45th anniversary of the infamous exploding whale   –   KATU Happy Exploding Whale Day!   –   The Portland Mercury Exploding-whale day: the 45th anniversary   –   Improbable Research Long before the viral video or ‘breaking the internet’, there was the exploding whale   –   9News (Australia)

  Watch Charlize Theron Get Hit In The Face By An Exploding Whale On ‘Saturday Night Live’: “Saturday Night Live – Bikini Beach Party”  – NBC/Hulu

On November 26, 2013, the carcass of a dead sperm whale violently exploded in the Faroe Islands when a marine biologist began cutting it open. Four sperm whales became stranded between the islands of Streymoy and Eysturoy. Two of the whales eventually died. A few days later, one of the dead whales was towed to a nearby abandoned whaling station ( Við Áir ) so the bones could be harvested for a future museum display. However, as they started to cut into the carcass, a violent explosion erupted from the whale’s abdomen spraying blood and entrails for many yards and nearly injuring  Bjarni Mikkelsen , the biologist who was doing the cutting. The story has been memorialized on our website here:  Faroe Islands (11/26/2013)

George Thornton, the highway engineer who supervised the detonation of 20 cases of dynamite in an attempt to dispose of a dead sperm whale on the Oregon Coast, died on Sunday, October 27, 2013, in Medford, Oregon. He was 84 years old. Thornton worked for the Oregon Highway Division (later renamed the Oregon Department of Transportation) from 1947 to 1984. He retired several years before the Exploding Whale story became an internet sensation thanks to an  article written by Dave Barry .  Many years later,  Paul Linnman , the KATU TV news reporter who covered the Exploding Whale story, reached out to Thornton while writing his book on the subject ( The Exploding Whale and Other Remarkable Stories from the Evening News ). Thornton declined to be interviewed, saying only, “No, it seems like whenever I talk to the media, it blows up in my face.” We’ve archived several related articles: Man behind the exploding whale debacle dies at 84   – KATU Exploding-whale engineer Geo...

In the United Kingdom, whales are considered “ royal fish ,” and as such, they belong to the Crown upon being caught or landing upon the English shore. The rules evidently apply to dead and rotting beached whales, too.  In the BBC News article  What happens after a whale is beached? , reporter Caroline Lowbridge describes how beached whales are (supposed to be) handled in the UK. British law goes so far as to specify that the King gets the head and Queen gets the tail. Lest you think the Queen comes out behind on the deal, the queen “received the tail in order to be supplied with whalebone for her corsets and stays,” according to Wikipedia. (However, there is some confusion here;  Moby Dick  author Herman Melville claimed that “whalebone” was actually baleen, which comes from the  mouths  of certain whales.) Anyway, it’s not clear to what use the King may have put the whale’s head. The article covers a number of other whale incidents in the UK and then wrap...

A popular beach on the Washington coast became home to a dead gray whale, and the state moved quickly to bury the carcass before scores of clam diggers were to arrive just two days later. The 38-foot female was the third whale to wash up in the area in recent years. In the report linked below, the reporter makes explicit mention of Oregon’s Exploding Whale: “I think it’s the best thing they can do, unless they can take it out there and let the fish eat it or whatever,” she said. That’s wouldn’t work; it would just come back with the tide. And everyone knows that blowing it up is a lousy idea. They tried that, with disastrous results some years back in Florence, Oregon. Media links: Article:  ‘The most horrible smell you’ve smelled’: Dead whale washes ashore   – KOMO News Video:  ‘The most horrible smell you’ve smelled’: Dead whale washes ashore   – KOMO News Archived copy of the video from the Exploding Whale video portal on YouTube:

All 40th anniversary content has been archived on our new   40th anniversary   page. This includes several news articles, still images, and three videos. 40th anniversary articles & videos   – TheExplodingWhale.com

Friday, November 12, 2010, marks the 40th anniversary of Oregon’s Exploding Whale. Please take a moment to reflect.  Dynamite idea 40 years ago blew up into a whale of a story ( video )  – KVAL ‘We almost didn’t get it on air’  ( video )  – KATU 40th Anniversary of the Exploding Whale  (includes video) – KATU AM Northwest 40th Anniversary of Oregon Coast Exploding Whale Film Clip  – BeachConnection.net The 40th anniversary of the funniest thing to ever happen in Oregon, and the lessons learned  – Statesman Journal And be sure to join the  virtual celebration on Facebook ! The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds. – Paul Linnman, TV news reporter, Nov. 12, 1970

According to Oregon state officials, dynamite is not an option being considered for how to dispose of a   40-foot fin whale carcass   that washed up on an Oregon beach over the weekend.   The carcass came to rest on an easily-accessible beach just a few miles north of where a giant sperm whale corpse washed up in November, 1970. The Oregon Highway Division had responsibility for disposing of the whale at that time, and their thinking was evidently along the lines that a dead whale was probably a lot like a huge boulder blocking a road construction project. The decision to use dynamite to obliterate the rotting, stinking whale carcass is now stuff of legend. Regrettably, cooler heads prevail at the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, upon which the responsibility for disposing of the rare 40-foot fin whale falls today: “We normally bury animals like this on the coast,” said Chris Havel, a state parks spokesman. “But the sand there is so shallow that burying just isn’t ...

A British documentary titled “The Whale that Exploded in the Street,” will be airing in the United States on December 13 and 15 on the National Geographic channel (aka “NatGeo”) under the shortened title, “The Whale that Exploded.” The documentary explores the explosion of a 50-ton sperm whale carcass that was being transported through the Taiwan city of Tainan on a flatbed truck in January 2004. The explosion flooded a city street with gallons of blood and piles of intestines.  The documentary is of particular interest since the  producers asked for permission to use screenshots of this website’s page  documenting the event .  The show is schedule to air as part of NatGeo’s “ Wild ” series at the following times: December 13, 2008, at 8pm December 15, 2008, at 8am See the the  program’s page  on the  NatGeo TV  website for more information. Update:   Monsters and Critics  also a brief mention of the program.

This is just further proof that journalists can’t get enough of the Exploding Whale. When there’s nothing else to write about, they can always rely on the old “EW” to meet their deadline. Peter O’Neill, a writer for the  Timaru Herald  which is located in the  South Canterbury  region of New Zealand, recently wrote an article titled, “ I just don’t get the great fascination with whales .” The article basically contains a lot of aimless ramblings about whales. Here are a few excerpts so you know what I mean: We obviously like whales. And when I say “we”, I mean everyone except the Japanese and me. I don’t think [whales] are particularly pretty or even graceful. I mean, meerkats are cute, monkeys are clever, cheetahs are classy and albatross are graceful, but whales are … blobs. Maybe the [stranded] orca had sclerosis of the liver. Maybe it was a promiscuous whale with a sexually transmitted disease and had just been kicked out of its pod. With such inane commentary, O...

In a long-lost piece written from the perspective of happy homemaker Patricia Halsworthy, the venerable satirists at  The Onion  let loose on the “have fun or else” mentality of the modern family vacation in… “I Refuse To Let Some Beached Whale Ruin Our Family Outing” The story is relayed as Patricia’s side of a conversation between her and her family following their arrival at a popular beach destination. Husband, Eric, and kids, Joshua and Kylie, are less than thrilled when they realize that the otherwise gorgeous, pristine beach has been fouled by a huge, reeking dead (or possibly still dying?) whale. Patricia is determined to see that their guidebook getaway will carry on as planned. In fact, the whale is almost an afterthought in her nonstop ramblings about sunscreen, badminton, and “when I was your age” adages: Kids, I’m already worried about this sun. There’s not a cloud in the sky, and they say the sun is at its most damaging in the late morning. We should move into th...

CNN ‘s  News To Me  program, which covered the Exploding Whale  back in February , is now having a contest to determine which segments will appear in their self-proclaimed “blockbuster special” on May 17.  Obviously, I’d like to encourage you to  vote for the Exploding Whale ! So go do it. Now. What are you waiting for? I’ll still be here when you come back. Go on now. Vote for the Whale!

A: When you use explosives to get rid of a dead one! Last week’s story of how the U.S. military shot down a satellite carrying toxic rocket fuel brought at least a couple comparisons to Oregon’s Exploding Whale. The military had lost control of the crippled satellite in late 2006 shortly after it was launched. The bus-sized hulk was finally threatening to fall out of orbit, and people’s lives were at stake should the fuel tank, or any amount of the one thousand pounds of unused hydrazine rocket fuel it contains, return to Earth. In order to minimize the amount of material that might be left in space, the government waited until just before the satellite was ready to fall out of orbit before conducting its operation. The goal was to blast the satellite into as many small pieces as possible, and to have those smaller pieces burn up as they entered the Earth’s atmosphere.  Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? At least they weren’t expecting sea birds to eat up all the small pieces! Anyway, Bo...

Much to my surprise, one of the Exploding Whale limericks I submitted to  Bob Welch ‘s  Oregon limerick contest  was  chosen as the winner  from the 286 submissions! This clearly says more about the unending appeal of the Exploding Whale story than it does about my ability to rhyme, but I am honored nonetheless. As detailed in a  previous post , four other would-be poets were sufficiently inspired by the Exploding Whale to make similar submissions — again testimony to the enduring nature of the story! So, for the record, here is my winning limerick: Florence is home to a tale surreal In which a dead whale stunk a great deal Boom! went the dynamite One chunk took quite a flight And crushed Walter’s new Oldsmobile. Of course, “Walter” is Walter Umenhofer, whose brand new Oldsmobile 88 was crushed by a huge piece of flying whale meat following the explosion. Walter is mentioned in several of the newspaper articles covering the incident (e.g.,  1 ,  2...

Well, it certainly didn’t take long for the Exploding Whale to make an appearance on  Register-Guard  columnist  Bob Welch ‘s  blog ! I mean, seriously, what do you think he expected when, in honor of Oregon’s 149th birthday (which was on Valentine’s Day, February 14), Welch  asked his readers to submit limericks honoring the state’s places and geographic features?  Well, I for one felt  obligated  to submit  something  related to the Exploding Whale. And apparently, I was not alone. In addition to my three entries, four other readers were moved to poetry by our beloved cetacean detonation. Please, feel free to read through  all 286 submissions . Or, at the end of this entry, you can read just the limericks that referenced the Exploding Whale.  From the 286 submissions, Bob will pick the top three and award them gift certificates to a local book store. In addition, the best limericks will be published in his February 21st colum...

Just a quick heads up to let you know that  Register-Guard columnist and longtime admirer of Oregon’s Exploding Whale  Bob Welch  has officially entered the Blogosphere with his new RG blog titled  Close to Home with Bob Welch . Welch has written several columns ( 1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 ,  9 ,  10 ,  11 ) about or referencing the Exploding Whale, and hopefully we’ll see periodic mention of it in his blog as well. Welcome, Bob!

The  CNN  program  News to Me  recently aired  a segment on Oregon’s Exploding Whale . In addition to the original  KATU video , the piece features clips from interviews with Paul Linnman and Doug Brazil, the reporter and cameraman who in 1970 documented the momentous event. While the video contains a brief, unattributed screen shot of  our Dave Barry page , TheExplodingWhale.com is, unfortunately, not directly featured. (And why not?) But the  animation by Abdul Hameed Gamiet  and the  comic strip by Greg Williams  — both covered on TheExplodingWhale.com in recent months — were featured prominently in the story.

One of the Exploding Whale’s biggest proponents strikes again!  Bob Welch , a columnist for the  Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), profiles Walter Umenhofer, the gentleman whose brand new Oldsmobile 88 was crushed by a 300-pound piece of dead whale sent skyward when the Oregon Highway Division detonated 20 cases of dynamite underneath a rotting whale carcass (see  video ). Mr. Umenhofer, now 75, has long been one of the most intriguing, if reluctant, characters in the saga of the Exploding Whale. He has largely avoided interviews and little is known about his opinion of the incident. “It’s funny,” [Umenhofer] says. “That was one big piece of blubber. It hit so hard that it bent my roof down and pushed the back of the seats to the floor.” Unfortunately, Bob’s interview, which is part of his “Where Are They Now?” series, is pretty brief. Walter does share one humorous tidbit: when he purchased his brand new Olds, the car dealer was using the motto, “Come to us for a whale of a d...