It sounds like a punchline. A joke your uncle tells at Thanksgiving after too many beers. But the 1970 attempt at blowing up a whale in Florence, Oregon, is a very real, very messy piece of American history. It wasn't a movie set. There was no CGI. It was just a group of highway engineers, twenty cases of dynamite, and a 45-foot, eight-ton rotting carcass that smelled like a garbage strike in a heatwave.
Honestly, the smells are what people forget. When a sperm whale dies and washes ashore, the decomposition process is aggressive. Gases build up. The skin stretches. It becomes a ticking biological time bomb. In November 1970, George Thornton, an engineer for the Oregon State Highway Division, decided he wasn't going to wait for nature to take its course. He had a problem. He needed a solution. He chose TNT.
Why blowing up a whale seemed like a good idea
You’ve gotta put yourself in their shoes for a second. It’s 1970. You don’t have specialized marine mammal stranding networks. You don’t have heavy-duty excavators that can easily crawl over soft sand without getting stuck. You have a dead whale on a popular public beach, and the stench is starting to drift toward town.
Thornton and his team figured they couldn't bury it because it might just wash back up. They couldn't burn it. So, they looked at the massive pile of blubber and thought: What if we just turn it into bird food?
The plan was surprisingly specific, if totally insane. They decided to place a half-ton of dynamite on the landward side of the whale. The theory was that the blast would vaporize the majority of the animal and send the remaining small chunks flying out into the Pacific Ocean. The seagulls and crabs would handle the rest. It was supposed to be a "clean" disposal.
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The physics of blubber and dynamite
Dynamite is great for moving rocks. It’s excellent for clearing stumps. It is, however, remarkably poor at disintegrating organic, gelatinous material like whale blubber. Paul Linnman, a reporter for KATU-TV who covered the event, later noted that even the "experts" weren't sure how much was too much. Thornton actually admitted later that he wasn't even sure how much dynamite was needed, but he was confident it would work.
The crowd gathered. People brought picnics. They stood about a quarter-mile back, which sounds like a lot. It wasn't.
The moment the sand turned red
When the plunger went down, the explosion was magnificent. For a split second, it looked like a success. A massive geyser of sand and red mist shot hundreds of feet into the air. Then, gravity happened.
Instead of the whale drifting out to sea, the blast sent "meat rain" down on the spectators. We’re talking about chunks of cold, rotting blubber ranging from the size of a grape to the size of a coffee table. People started screaming. They started running. The smell, which was already bad, became an immersive, 3D experience as atomized whale oil settled onto everyone’s clothes.
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The most famous casualty of the day wasn't a person, but an Oldsmobile Regency 88. A massive hunk of whale blubber flattened the roof of the car, which had been parked over a quarter-mile away. The kicker? The car had been purchased during a "Get a Whale of a Deal" promotion. You can't make this stuff up.
What the aftermath actually looked like
- The main body of the whale stayed exactly where it was.
- The beach was covered in a layer of grease that made walking almost impossible.
- The seagulls, which were supposed to eat the remains, were scared off by the explosion and didn't return for days.
- Highway workers ended up having to bury the remains anyway—which is what they should have done in the first place.
Why this story never actually dies
For decades, the story of blowing up a whale in Oregon felt like an urban legend. It was the kind of thing you’d hear on a BBS forum or a mailing list in the early 90s. But then the internet happened. Digital copies of Paul Linnman’s original news report started circulating on early video sites. Dave Barry wrote a column about it in 1990, swearing he wasn't making it up.
It resonates because it’s a perfect example of human hubris. We think we can control nature with enough high explosives. We usually can't.
There have been other cases, too. In 2013, a biologist in the Faroe Islands was filming a sperm whale carcass that had died of natural causes. As he began to cut into the stomach to release the built-up methane, the entire thing spontaneously erupted. It wasn't dynamite, but the result was the same: a localized explosion of guts. However, the Oregon incident remains the gold standard for "what not to do."
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Better ways to handle a dead whale
If a whale washes up today, the protocol is vastly different. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has very strict guidelines.
- Natural Decomposition: If the beach is remote, they just let it rot. It’s a vital part of the ecosystem.
- On-site Burial: If the beach is public, they use massive excavators to dig a hole deep enough that scavengers won't dig it up.
- Composting: In some cases, they actually move the whale to a facility where it can be turned into nutrient-rich soil.
- The "Whale Fall": Sometimes, they tow the carcass back out to sea and sink it with heavy weights. This creates a "whale fall," providing food for deep-sea organisms for decades.
Lessons learned from the 1970 disaster
George Thornton never really lived it down. He was promoted later in his career, but whenever he was interviewed about the whale, he tended to be prickly about it. He claimed the operation was a success because the whale was eventually gone and no one was "seriously" hurt.
The city of Florence, however, eventually embraced the chaos. In 2020, they officially named a new park the "Exploding Whale Memorial Park." They realized that being the site of the world's most famous ecological blunder was actually a great tourist draw.
Moving forward: What to do if you find a stranded whale
Don't touch it. Seriously. Aside from the risk of it literally exploding from gas buildup, whales carry zoonotic diseases that can jump to humans. If you find a carcass or a live stranded animal:
- Call the professionals. Contact the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network or your local equivalent.
- Keep your distance. Federal law (the Marine Mammal Protection Act) actually makes it illegal to touch or disturb the remains.
- Don't bring your dog. Dogs are attracted to the smell and can get incredibly sick from eating the rotting blubber or contracting parasites.
The 1970 Florence incident taught us that some problems can't be solved with TNT. It’s a messy, hilarious, and slightly disgusting reminder that nature usually wins. If you ever find yourself in charge of a 45-foot carcass, leave the dynamite at home. Bury it, sink it, or just walk away—but whatever you do, don't try to turn it into "bird food" with twenty cases of explosives.