Early
in November 1970, a 45-foot long, 8 ton sperm
whale beached itself near Florence
on the central Oregon Coast. This turned out to be fatal for the
unfortunate whale which, which, based on its size—about half the length of a
full grown bull, was likely an adolescent female.
Sperm
whales were still being actively hunted by several countries, most
notably the Japanese, Soviets, and Norwegians though their numbers had been reduced to the point where
the species was threatened.
Although the United States
was out of the business, its fleets of whalers
had roamed the globe from New
England ports from the late 18th
Century to the early mid-20th
Century and had taken the biggest toll on the population of the
world’s largest toothed predator. The waxy substance known as spermaceti which is encased in a large
compartment comprising most of the animal’s large, boxy head produced oils
which were the most commonly used lamp
fuels in North America and Northern Europe up until the
development of kerosene. It was also a fine lubricant for industrial machinery. Bi-products including parts of the skeleton
provided the tough but flexible whale
bone required in ladies’
corsets and ambergris, a waste
product from the digestive system, is still used as a fixative
in perfumes.
The
great American whale fleets—think Moby Dick, Captain Ahab, and the Pequod—generated great fortunes. But when progress—and petroleum—replaced prime market for
whale oil and ladies’ undergarments became all about the latex and wire, there was no profit left and
Americans turned to other occupations.
The Japanese pioneered in new uses for whale carcasses, including
as pet food, and developed modern factory ships to process the kill and
were thus still in the business.
Various
whale species, including the great krill sifting Humpbacks and Blues as
well as more diminutive Minkes were
a common sight in the waters off the Pacific Northwest coast.
But sperm whales were rare. So
uncommon that despite the beached animal’s distinctive blunt block head, it was
commonly reported that the animal on the sands at Florence was a Gray Whale.
The
beaching of whale species was not unknown, although it was then far less common
than it is today when various factors—infections
and destruction of hearing by underwater explosives and Navy
sonar technology—is suspected. But
this sperm whale carcass, which quickly began to emit a tangy aroma, was
much bigger than anyone called upon had ever had to deal with.
The authority
in charge, due to a quirk in the Oregon law at the time which
classified the state’s beaches as public
highways, was the Oregon Highway
Division evidently because it had the heavy
equipment and manpower to deal with damage and beach erosion after heavy storms.
Unfortunately, it did not have expertise in this kind of mortuary disposal.
Evidently
someone at the Highway Division consulted someone at the Navy.
The concern was that if the carcass was buried on the beach under the
sands, it could become exposed again by surf erosion and that it
was too big to haul away without being cut into pieces. Nobody seemed to have the stomach to
do that. So, the Navy, which had a hammer and saw all problems as nails, cheerfully suggested blowing the damn thing up and letting
scavenging birds take care of the pieces.
Unfortunately, they provided no suggestions on just how to do it.
That
job fell to career civil engineer George
Thornton, who got the job because the chief district engineer was
conveniently away on a hunting trip.
Although Thornton may have been a whizz at designing ramps,
widening lanes, and overseeing heavy equipment, he had little experience
with explosives—and none at all with explosives and tons of soft tissue. Before carrying out his job he blithely told Portland TV newsman Paul Linnman that
he wasn’t exactly sure how much dynamite
would be needed.
Finally,
he figured that 20 cases of dynamite—half a ton—of explosives would do the
trick and blow the whale away like a boulder that had rolled onto a highway
in an earthquake. Sand was
scooped out under the body and the dynamite shoved underneath.
By
chance among the growing crowd gathering to watch the unusual operations was Walter Umenhofer, a veteran with
experience in blowing things up with the Army
Corps of Engineers. He just happened
to be in the area scouting the location for a new manufacturing facility for
his employer. Umenhofer was aghast by
what he was seeing. He hastily advised
Thornton that he was using far too much dynamite—ten strategically placed
sticks would do the job. Thornton was
not open to unsolicited advice. He
proceeded as planned.
A KATU-TV cameraman, covering the
operation with Linnman, was set up to capture the blast.
And
it was one hell of a blast. The
explosion threw huge chunks of whale flesh over 800 feet away, raining down
on buildings, businesses, autos, and an actual State
highway that separated the beach from the town.
One huge chunk fell on Umenhofer’s almost new Oldsmobile 98 which he had recently bought at a dealer’s Whale of a Sale. Despite being built like a Sherman tank, the shiny new Olds was crushed.
Yet
only part of the whale was actually removed—the part directly over the
explosives, which also dug a deep hole in the sand underneath it. Most of the carcass remained on the
beach. Worse, the scavenger birds
counted on to devour the leftovers were frightened away by the blast and
did not quickly return.
Linnman
filed a pun-filled report with his Portland station, “land-lubber
newsmen became land-blubber newsmen ... for the blast blasted blubber beyond
all believable bounds.” The report was
aired locally that night and was a one-day local sensation, soon faded
from memory.
Highway
Division workers had to come in and bury the bulky remains anyway, pretty much where
they laid—and of course had to assist the local populace clean up the shreds
and chunks of rotting flesh on their property. Thornton maintained that the
operation had been “largely successful in meeting its objectives.” He was promoted within a few months
and served out a distinguished career until retiring from the Highway
Division’s successor, the Oregon
Department of Transportation. He
would be plagued by questions about the operation for the rest of his
career and steadfastly stood by his assessment of his own success.
Someone
at the Division, however, must have learned something. A few years later in 1979 and not far away a
whole pod of 40 sperm whales beached
themselves and the Department burned and buried the remains in the sand.
Within
a few years the exploding whale had become something of an urban legend of suspect reliability. Then almost 20 years later on of May 20, 1990
humor columnist Dave Barry in his
popular nationally syndicated Miami Herald column claimed
to be in possession of footage of an explosion.
Without mentioning that it had occurred decades earlier he wrote, “Here
at the Exploding Animal Research
Institute we watch it often, especially at parties.” An excerpt from the longer article ran in
many newspapers as The Far Side Comes to
Life in Oregon—a reference to the popular comic panel by Gary Larson.
The
Highway Department was deluged with calls, many of which were from outraged animal lovers who were
convinced the dastards had blown up a still living whale. And although they gradually tapered off, they
never disappeared.
However, a story this good has legs. The original TV story, or clips from it, became a sensation on the Internet circulated by a web site called explodingwhale.com, alas no longer up, which featured all sorts of coverage of exploding whales—usually blown up by expanding gasses in their rotting corpses. YouTube spread it further. At one point it was reported to be the most watched local TV news story in history and had racked up over 350 million hits world-wide.
And
every time an anniversary rolls around or some asshole with a cheeky blog like Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout
files a story, the folks at Oregon DOT are deluged anew with calls and the long
retired Thornton has to fend off new generations of reporters.
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