The Infamous Exploding Whale

In November 1970, the Oregon State Highway Division got a whale of a problem: a dead 45-foot 8-ton whale was found washed up in a beach near Florence, Oregon.

So, what did they decide to do to get rid of it:

.. [The carcass] couldn’t be cut up and then buried because no one wanted to cut it up. And it couldn’t be burned. So dynamite it was, some 20 cases or a half ton of it. The hope was that the long dead Pacific gray whale would be almost disintegrated by the blast and that small pieces still around after the explosion would be taken cared of by seagulls and other scavengers …

Here’s the infamous exploding whale video clip – see what happened: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Arturo Fernández!