On 9 November a dead 45-foot long sperm whale weighing approximately 8 tons washed up on a beach south of the small city of Florence on the central Oregon coast. The decaying whale was initially a source of fascination for sightseers, but its advanced state of decomposition also brought what a local newspaper referred to as ‘a big smell’. In response the State Highway Division, which was responsible for management of the coastline, made the decision to blow up the rotting carcass with dynamite.
Worried that the whale would soon be uncovered by the tide if they buried it, the authorities reasoned that the explosion would break the body into small pieces and send them out to sea, where scavenger animals would dispose of them. Consequently they placed 20 cases – half a ton – of dynamite under the mass of blubber.
At around 3:45pm on 12 November the dynamite was detonated. A local journalist who joined the crowds on the sand dunes a quarter of a mile away reported watching a ‘hundred-foot geyser of blood, blubber and sand going up into the sky’. Seconds later, chunks of rotting flesh and blubber began raining down on the surrounding area, sending panicked onlookers running for cover.
Although no casualties were reported, a brand new Oldsmobile car parked nearby was hit by a 3-foot piece of falling meat that flattened the roof. Shortly afterwards, flakes of putrefying blubber drifted down from the sky and left a smell that lingered for days on everything they touched. It turned out that the explosive charge was both too strong to push the whale out to sea, but not strong enough to vaporise it.
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