Editing Exploding whale (section)

===Florence whale===
{{external media | width = 210px | headerimage = [[File:Exploding Whale screen capture.jpg|210px|KATU-TV's broadcast of the explosion, remastered in 2020]] |float = right | video1 = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6CLumsir34 ''Exploding Whale 50th Anniversary, Remastered!''], [[KATU]] 
}}
On November 9, 1970,<ref name="oreg-2013oct31">{{cite news|last1=Tomlinson|first1=Stuart|title=The man behind Oregon's exploding whale dies at 84<!--(print-edition title)-->|newspaper=[[The Oregonian]]|date=October 31, 2013|pages=A1, A4|orig-year=online date October 30|url=http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/10/george_thornton_the_odot_engin.html|access-date=February 28, 2017|archive-date=March 19, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170319224219/http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/10/george_thornton_the_odot_engin.html|url-status=live}}</ref> a {{convert|45|ft|m|0|adj=mid|-long}} [[sperm whale]] [[Drift whale|washed ashore]] at [[Florence, Oregon|Florence]] on the central [[Oregon Coast]].<ref name="offbeatoregon.com">{{cite web |author=John |first=Finn J. D. |date=July 2, 2009 |title=The truth about the legendary exploding whale of Florence, Oregon |url=http://www.offbeatoregon.com/H001_ExplodWhale.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140822121740/http://www.offbeatoregon.com/H001_ExplodWhale.html |archive-date=August 22, 2014 |access-date=July 17, 2013 |website=Offbeatoregon.com}}</ref><ref name="spermwhale">Linnman, Paul and Doug Brazil, Chapter 7. Linnman contacted Dr. Bruce Mate, a [[marine biologist]] at the [[Hatfield Marine Science Center]] in [[Newport, Oregon|Newport]] who was there that day. Dr. Mate says that it was not a [[gray whale]], but was in fact a [[sperm whale]].</ref> The weight of the carcass was estimated at {{convert|8|ST|lb kg}}.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63143771/road-crews-to-blow-up-whale-near/ |title=Road Crews to Blow Up Whale Near Florence |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |newspaper=[[Statesman Journal]] |location=[[Salem, Oregon]] |page=1 |date=November 12, 1970 |access-date=November 12, 2020 |via=newspapers.com |archive-date=November 13, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201113052346/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63143771/road-crews-to-blow-up-whale-near/ |url-status=live }}</ref> At the time, Oregon beaches were under the jurisdiction of the state's Highway Division, which, after consulting with the United States Navy, decided to remove the whale using [[dynamite]]{{snd}}assuming that the resulting pieces would be small enough for [[scavenger|scavenger animals]] to consume.

George Thornton, the engineer in charge of the operation, told an interviewer that he was not sure how much dynamite would be needed, saying that he had been chosen to remove the whale because his supervisor had gone hunting. A charge of [[Short ton|{{convert|1/2|ST|kg|spell=in}}]] of dynamite was selected.<ref name="linnmantranscript">{{cite news
|author=Paul Linnman
|publisher=KATU-TV
|others=transcribed by Hackstadt, J.; Hackstadt, S.
|url=http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/resources/transcript/
|title=Annotated transcript of the video
|access-date=July 17, 2013
|archive-date=February 17, 2006
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060217172655/http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/resources/transcript/
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref name="snopes">{{cite web
 | last1=Mikkelson
 | first1=Barbara
 | last2=Mikkelson
 | first2=David P.
 | date=March 19, 2000
 | url=http://www.snopes.com/critters/disposal/whale.htm
 | work=Critter Country
 | title=Thar She Blows!
 | publisher=snopes.com
 | access-date=July 17, 2013
 | archive-date=March 29, 2020
 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200329075007/http://www.snopes.com/critters/disposal/whale.htm
 | url-status=live
 }}</ref> A military veteran with explosives training who happened to be in the area warned that the planned twenty cases of dynamite was far too much, and that 20 sticks ({{cvt|3.8|kg|lb|order=flip|disp=or}})<ref name="Austin Blaster Guide">{{cite web |url=http://www.austinpowder.com/BlastersGuide/docs/pib/Dynamite%20Series.PDF |title=Austin Powder Guide, Dynamite series page 2 |access-date=9 June 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120321201205/http://www.austinpowder.com/BlastersGuide/docs/pib/Dynamite%20Series.PDF |archive-date=21 March 2012 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> would have sufficed, but his advice went unheeded.<ref name="offbeatoregon.com"/>

The dynamite was detonated on November 12 at 3:45{{nbsp}}p.m.<ref name="oreg-2013oct31"/> A cameraman, Doug Brazil, filmed it for a story by news reporter [[Paul Linnman]] of [[KATU]]-TV in [[Portland, Oregon]]. In his voice-over, Linnman joked that "land-lubber newsmen" became "land-{{em|blubber}} newsmen{{nbsp}}[...] for the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds".<ref name="linnmantranscript"/> The explosion caused large pieces of blubber to land near buildings and in parking lots some distance away from the beach. Only some of the whale was disintegrated; most of it remained on the beach for the Oregon Highway Division workers to clear away. In his report, Linnman also noted that scavenger birds, who it had been hoped would eat the remains of the carcass after the explosion, did not appear as they were possibly scared away by the noise.

Days before the blast, a local explosive expert had purchased a new automobile in a "Get a Whale of a Deal" promotion. It was damaged by a chunk of falling [[blubber]].<ref name="offbeatoregon.com"/>

Ending his story, Linnman noted that "It might be concluded that, should a whale ever be washed ashore in [[Lane County, Oregon|Lane County]] again, those in charge will not only remember what to do, they'll certainly remember what {{em|not}} to do". When 41 sperm whales beached nearby in 1979, state parks officials burned and buried them.<ref name="transcriptwhaledisposal">
 {{cite web
 | title = Son of Blubber
 | url = http://tafkac.org/animals/exploding.whale/son_of_blubber.html
 | publisher = Oregon Department of Transportation employee newspaper (transcript)
 | date = July 1994
 | access-date = January 8, 2007
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110717092953/http://tafkac.org/animals/exploding.whale/son_of_blubber.html
 | archive-date= July 17, 2011
}}</ref>

Later that day, Thornton told the Eugene ''[[The Register-Guard|Register-Guard]]'', "It went just exactly right.{{nbsp}}[...] Except the blast funneled a hole in the sand under the whale" and that some of the whale chunks were subsequently blown back toward the onlookers and their cars.<ref>
{{cite news
|work=The Eugene Register-Guard
|date=November 13, 1970
|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KOdVAAAAIBAJ&pg=6114%2C3133152
|title=When they blow up a whale they really blow it up!
|author=Larry Brown
}}</ref>

Thornton was promoted to the [[Medford, Oregon|Medford]] office several months after the incident, and served in that post until his retirement. When Linnman contacted him in the mid-1990s, the newsman said Thornton felt the operation had been an overall success and had been converted into a public-relations disaster by hostile media reports.<ref>
{{cite book
|author=Paul Linnman
|others=photographed by Doug Brazil
|title=The Exploding Whale: And Other Remarkable Stories from the Evening News
|publisher=West Winds Press
|date=2003
|isbn= 978-1-55868-743-1
}}</ref>

The [[Siuslaw Pioneer Museum]] has bone fragments of the Florence exploding whale, called "Florence's most infamous moment" by local press.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Duvernay |first=Adam |title=Fifty years later, Florence embraces the tale of the exploding whale |url=https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2020/11/12/fifty-years-later-florence-oregon-embraces-tale-exploding-whale/6259171002/ |access-date=2023-11-02 |website=Statesman Journal |language=en-US}}</ref> Currently, [[Oregon Parks and Recreation Department|Oregon State Parks Department]] policy is to bury whale carcasses where they land. If the sand is not deep enough, they are relocated to another beach.<ref>
 {{cite news
 | url=http://www.kptv.com/news/18886423/detail.html
 | title=Workers Bury Dead Whale on Oregon Beach
 | publisher=[[KPTV]]
 | date=March 9, 2009
 | access-date=March 9, 2009
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090615155544/http://www.kptv.com/news/18886423/detail.html
 | archive-date = June 15, 2009
}}</ref>

====Renewed interest====
The story was brought to widespread public attention by writer [[Dave Barry]] in his ''[[Miami Herald]]'' column of May 20, 1990, when he reported that he possessed footage of the event. Barry wrote: "Here at the institute we watch it often, especially at parties." Some time later, the Oregon State Highway division started to receive calls from the media after a shortened version of the article was distributed on bulletin boards under the title "''[[The Far Side]]'' Comes to Life in Oregon". The unattributed copy of Barry's article did not explain that the event had happened approximately 25 years earlier. Barry later said that, on a fairly regular basis, someone would forward him his own column and suggest he write something about the described incident.<ref>
 {{cite book |author=Barry |first=Dave |author-link=Dave Barry |title=[[Dave Barry in Cyberspace]] |publisher=[[Ballantine Books]] |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-517-59575-6 |location=New York City |pages=164–165 |oclc=34943209}}</ref> As a result of these omissions, an article in the ODOT's ''TranScript'' notes that:

{{blockquote|"We started getting calls from curious reporters across the country right after the electronic bulletin board story appeared," said Ed Schoaps, public affairs coordinator for the Oregon Department of Transportation. "They thought the whale had washed ashore recently, and were hot on the trail of a governmental blubber flub-up. They were disappointed that the story has twenty five years of dust on it."

Schoaps has fielded calls from reporters and the just plain curious in Oregon, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and [[Massachusetts]]. ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' called, and Washington, D.C.–based ''[[Governing (magazine)|Governing]]'' magazine covered the immortal legend of the beached whale in its June issue. And the phone keeps ringing. "I get regular calls about this story," Schoaps said. His phone has become the blubber hotline for ODOT, he added. "It amazes me that people are still calling about this story after nearly twenty five years."<ref name="snopes"/>
}}

The KATU footage resurfaced later as a video file on several websites, becoming a [[viral video]].<ref name="hackstadtevidence">
 {{cite web
 | first=Steven|last=Hackstadt
 | title=The Evidence
 | url=http://theexplodingwhale.com/#evidence
 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109035349/http://theexplodingwhale.com/
 | archive-date = November 9, 2013
 | publisher=TheExplodingWhale.com
 | access-date=November 17, 2013
}}</ref> A 2006 study found that the video had been viewed 350{{nbsp}}million times across various websites.<ref>{{cite news
 | title=Star Wars Kid is top viral video
 | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6187554.stm
 | work=[[BBC News]]
 | date=November 27, 2006
 | access-date=July 17, 2013
 | archive-date=March 9, 2011
 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110309065824/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6187554.stm
 | url-status=live
 }}</ref> In 2020, residents of Florence voted to name a new recreational area "Exploding Whale Memorial Park" in honor of the incident;<ref>{{cite news |last=Pietsch |first=Bryan |date=June 20, 2020 |title='Exploding Whale' Park Memorializes Blubber Blast 50 Years Later |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/us/exploding-whale-memorial-park.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=June 20, 2020 |archive-date=June 20, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200620214802/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/us/exploding-whale-memorial-park.html |url-status=live }}</ref> it also has a memorial plaque.<ref name=":0" /> For the 50th anniversary of the event, KATU pulled the original [[16 mm film|16 mm]] footage from the archives and released a remastered edition of the news report in [[4K resolution]].<ref>{{cite news |title=The Exploding Whale remastered: 50th anniversary of legendary Oregon event |url=https://katu.com/news/local/the-exploding-whale-50th-anniversary-of-legendary-oregon-event |access-date=12 November 2020 |work=KATU |date=12 November 2020 |archive-date=November 13, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201113000702/https://katu.com/news/local/the-exploding-whale-50th-anniversary-of-legendary-oregon-event |url-status=live }}</ref> Commemorating the anniversary as well, locals were reported to visit the beach and dress as whales.<ref name=":0" />

Florence celebrates Exploding Whale Day annually at Exploding Whale Memorial Park. In 2024, the public was invited to build an altar for the exploded whale.<ref>{{cite news |title= Exploding Whale Day now a full-fledged holiday on the Oregon coast. Here's how to celebrate |url=https://www.oregonlive.com/travel/2024/11/exploding-whale-day-now-a-full-fledged-holiday-on-the-oregon-coast-heres-how-to-celebrate.html |access-date= 7 November 2024 |work=Oregon Live |date= 7 November 2024}}</ref>