Exploding Whale Video

[jrg]

Sorry if this has already been around before...



This story, well-known to readers of alt.folklore.urban, reached me through email several years ago in the form of a 1990 article written by syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry. And believe it or not, it is neither folklore nor urban. It is a completely true story, and one that I guarantee you will not soon forget.

It happened on November 12, 1970. The carcass of a sperm whale had been rotting on the beach just south of Florence, OR for several days. At the time, the Oregon Highway Division (now called the Oregon Department of Transportation) had jurisdiction over beaches and decided to dispose of the whale the same way they would clear a large boulder from a highway construction project. The rest is history.

The story was originally reported in the Register-Guard newspaper by reporter Larry Bacon. On the 25th anniversary of the event, the Register-Guard ran another article by Bacon about the incident. Scanned images of the 1995 article are available below.

But perhaps the most convincing (and humorous) piece of evidence in this strange whale of a tale is the video news reel of the whole event with then-reporter Paul Linnman from KATU Channel 2 in Portland, OR. That news reel has been available on the internet as a movie file for some time and is also available below along with several other resources and evidence.



links to video:

http://perp.com/whale/video.html

http://www.hackstadt.com/features/whale/

 

[buff]

All that dynamite I would call overKILL-but the whale was already dead!!!!

Chunks of blubber everywhere-so funny. Idle men and dynamite are a bad combination. This is some of the worst judgement I have ever seen in my life!!!

Why didn't they just let it rot? it's natural and would have been gone in a few weeks.

 

[jrg]

Back in the good old days, you could solve just about any problem you had with dynamite! Everybody had dynamite. Watch some old western movies if you don't believe me. Blowing up the whale was just SOP back then. (But it's pretty funny today!)

 

[BOATS313]

They tried the same thing a few years ago with a wreck on the beach (tanker) with only slightly better results.

 

[nickjb]

I went to a talk by the UK 'reciever of the wreck'. This department is responsible for all wreck bought into th UK. One of their responsibilites is for 'fishes royal', or something like that. It basically stems from the monarch claiming ownership of all big 'fish' washed up on UK shores in days of old. Now that responsibility is more of a pain than any benefit. Aparently they can't tow them out to sea as once it is washed up it counts as waste and can't be dumped at sea and you can't just leave them to rot as they stink.

Nick



PS the sound is really bad on that download, is there anything I can tweak? I've seen it before but I'd like to show my housemates

 

[McKee Boykin]

Show them this whale!

http://www.yakfishing.com/messages/31308.html

:wacko:

 

[DEEPSEAWOLF]

Ya'd need a NUKE to get rid of THAT carcass, (both actually).
Hmmm good thing it wasn't the LAPD! They might have actually HAD one!

 

[SHPWRCKDVR]

I can't remember the last time I've laughed so hard. Great posting!! By the way if your goofing off at work, don't watch the video. I repeat don't watch the video if your at work. It's hard to explain to your boss and fellow coworkers the sudden outburst of laughter. This warning goes double for the following "whale" posting!!!

 

[ggunn]

This is very reminiscent of one of my favorite movie scenes of all time, the one in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" where the Kid asks Butch, "Do you think we used enough dynamite?"

 

[ScubaJewel]

that was hilarious

thanx

Julie