The Day the Whale Exploded: How a Town Tried Dynamite and Blew Its Mind

It begins, as all good stories do, with a dead whale and dynamite.

On November 12, 1970, the quiet town of Florence, Oregon, met with a problem no one had prepared for, a dead, 45-foot-long whale.

The poor creature, an 8-ton sperm whale, had washed ashore and been rotting for days, baking under the autumn sun, expanding with gases, and gifting beachgoers the aromatic horror of warm marine decomposition. Yuck.

It was, quite literally, a ticking time bomb of blubber, and someone had to do something about it.

Enter someone (maybe a child?) who thought, what if we just blow it up?

The Town That Blew a Whale Sky-High

So what did Florence do?

Did they bury the whale or tow it out to sea, cut it into pieces and give it a proper send off to the next world?

No. They blew it up with half a ton of dynamite. As one does I guess?

And that is how one of the strangest (and most delightfully misguided) moments in American history came to be known as the Exploding Whale Incident.

Let’s give some credit where credit is due. At the time, Oregon’s Highway Division (now ODOT) was in charge of clearing roadkill and other obstructions. So, technically, the whale was in their jurisdiction.

And the logic, strange as it seems, went something like this, let’s use dynamite to disintegrate the whale, blow it into small enough chunks that seagulls and scavengers would dispose of it, and let nature finish the cleanup.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Setup: A Recipe for Disaster

Engineer George Thornton was put in charge of the plan. He consulted with a former military explosives expert, who told him 20 sticks of dynamite would do the job.

Thornton decided to use 20 cases instead. That’s 900 pounds for anyone who is out there wondering.

Why you might ask? Well, good question, and because George Thornton decided, “the whale might be bigger than it looks.”

And so, on that fateful Thursday, a crowd gathered a safe distance away. Reporters rolled camera and children laughed while seagulls circled, ready for their sky buffet.

The dynamite was set, the fuse lit, the countdown began, and then…boom.

Yeah, it didn’t go as planned.

Chunks of whale were launched hundreds of feet into the air, some as heavy as 100 pounds. One piece smashed the roof of a parked car, another splattered a nearby building.

People screamed, children cried, and reporters ducked for cover.

The seagulls decided the buffet was too violent and they fled. Turns out, even scavengers have standards.

The beach was now littered with enormous chunks of whale, more than before, and far more gruesome to collect. The whale had not been removed at all, it had been redistributed in the worst way possible.

The News Coverage That Made It Immortal

Local reporter Paul Linnman, there to cover the event for KATU-TV, described the aftermath with what can only be called journalistic restraint: "The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds."

His footage complete with explosion, chaos, and raining meat became absolutely legendary.

Years later, the video went viral again with the rise of YouTube. The incident was revived, re-shared, and meme-ified into the cultural consciousness. Here’s the video in case you wanted to watch it.

Today, it’s taught in PR classes, disaster response training, and even appears in children's books (no, really).

What Went Wrong (Scientifically Speaking)

Okay, so decomposition gas buildup made the whale unstable. Too much dynamite sent pieces outward instead of downward. Poor containment planning meant there was no control over the blast radius, and the expectation that birds would clean up was pure fantasy. Birds don’t eat whale shrapnel.

What Oregon learned that day is that nature is not solved with brute force.

It requires strategy, respect, and maybe a bit less hubris and dynamite.

**So What Do You Actually Do With a Dead Whale?**

In the decades since, we’ve gotten smarter (thankfully we finally learned our lesson).

A few now-standard approaches include towing the whale back out to sea using tugboats, burying it deeply in the sand (at least 6–10 feet), composting or rendering in facilities for scientific or agricultural purposes, or just letting marine scavengers eat it naturally if it’s in a remote, safe location.

And yes…sometimes, if absolutely necessary, small-scale detonation is still used, but never like Florence did. And never with 900 pounds of boom.

Want to Read More Weird Science?

Today, You Can Visit the Site

There’s a memorial plaque in Florence now. A little nod to the day dynamite met biology and lost.

It reads:

“Exploding Whale Memorial Park.”

You can stand there, listen to the waves, and imagine the sound…the slap, the boom, the bewildered silence after.

The exploding whale isn’t just about a bad decision, it’s about how humans respond to absurdity: with action, with optimism, with just enough madness to make history.

We need stories like this, we need to laugh at ourselves, to learn with humility, to remember that sometimes, the weirdest moments are the most enduring.

So the next time you’re facing something too big to bury, too smelly to ignore, pause.
Breathe.
And maybe...don’t reach for dynamite. That’s what I’ve learned from this whole thing.