Tons of rotting corpses are flying in the air, and this is the weirdest explosion I've ever seen.

on the afternoon of November 12, 1970, there was a whale rain on the beach in Florence. Fragments of rotting whale carcasses fell from the sky and flew to the fleeing crowd with a suffocating stench.

No, it's not Florence in Italy, it's a small town in Oregon in the United States. on this day, workers have just carried out a bizarre task of "beautifying the city": blowing up a whale with half a ton of explosives .

Yes, this is a whale exploding | KATU News

blowing up a whale

on November 9, 1970, a dead whale appeared on a beach south of Florence. This is a 14-meter-long sperm whale with an estimated weight of about 7300 kilograms.

at first, the dead whale aroused the curiosity of onlookers, but it soon became a big problem: the whale carcass was rotting and the whole beach was filled with a suffocating stench.

the sperm whale that died on the beach, and the reporter Paul Linnman | KATU News

the reporter who went to the story fell to the (The Oregon State Highway Division) of the Oregon Highway Department to deal with the dead whale-a department that sounds like it has nothing to do with marine life, but at the time, the coast was under their jurisdiction. The conventional idea would be to bury the whale on the spot, but people feared that the whale's carcass would be exposed again under the tide-so they thought of blowing the whale to pieces with explosives.

the idea is a little crazy, but it also seems to be "neat". according to expectations, explosives will instantly blow dead whales into tiny pieces and let them fall into the sea -so that seagulls and fish and shrimp can eat them, and workers just have to pick up the leftover bones.

"this will work, and I'm confident," engineer Thornton said in a television interview. "KATU News"

on the afternoon of November 12th, Operation Whale bombing was held on a sunny beach as scheduled. Under the guidance of engineer George Thornton (George Thornton), staff dug small holes in the sand beneath the whale carcass and placed a total of 450 kg of explosives . "it will work, and I am confident." "the only thing we don't know is how many explosives we need to make it completely disintegrate," Thornton said in an interview. "

the sand dunes in the upwind hundreds of meters away are already full of residents and media reporters who have come to watch the hustle and bustle, and even some people have specially come from the neighboring city of Eugene, just to witness the rare scene of fried whales.

Thornton pushed down the joystick that detonated the explosive, and sand and whale fragments were instantly lifted 30 meters high. Paul Linman (Paul Linnman), a reporter at the scene, recalled, "the explosion in the movie looked like a fire, but this time it was more like a powerful tomato juice explosion."

Tomato juice exploded, and there was a picture in my mind. KATU News

everything seemed to be going well in the first second or two, and the onlookers cheered with the explosion. But the cheers were quickly replaced by exclamations: the whale fragments did not fall into the sea as scheduled, but flew toward the onlookers . Large chunks of whale carrion roared over people's heads and hit the beach around them. A moment ago, people who were watching the hustle and bustle fled, looking for a place to hide. Fortunately, no one was hurt by the big pieces of meat. the only victim was a new car parked nearby-it was hit by about a meter of whale meat and the roof was flattened instantly.

"the insurance company will never believe such a thing," owner Walter Umenhoff (Walt Umenhofer) said at the scene. "KATU News

however, it's not over yet. A large piece of debris fell to the ground, followed by a "whale rain"-small pieces of fried meat and blubber rained on people . This time, no one can hide. The foul smell infected everyone's coat, and people began to retch.

after a period of chaos, a big hole was left on the beach, as well as the tail of the whale that failed to disintegrate-and, of course, small fragments that fell everywhere. At this point, the only thing on everyone's mind is to go home and take a few more baths at once.

after a period of confusion, bulldozers began to clean up the remains of the whale carcass from the explosion. Although the whale has long been dead, it still feels a little miserable to be tossed around like this. | KATU News

enduring

it has been more than 50 years since this unsuccessful "whale bombing operation", but it has not faded out of history, and even set off a new upsurge in the Internet era.

netizens have compiled all kinds of historical materials about the whale bombing in Florence and set up a special website for it. Theexplodingwhale.com

every few years, new people find out about it and cheerfully share it with more people (as is the case with the author of this article). Humorist Dave Barry (Dave Barry) once joked in his column that it was "the most wonderful event in the history of the universe". The whale bombing has not only its own fan sites and anniversary events, but also a 4K fixed high-definition version of the video, which has garnered tens of millions of views on the Internet alone. Lin Man, the journalist who appeared in the video report, is also famous for it, almost every day.Someone will ask him about the whale. In Florence, there is even a park named "fried whale memorial park" (Exploding Whale Memorial Park).

fried whale memorial park (is this mascot serious? ) | Megan Messmer/City of Florence

there is only one party who does not want to mention these past events-- Thornton, the engineer in charge of placing explosives. He always thought that the "whale bombing mission" had been very successful, but the media had demonized it into a disaster.

what should I do with dead whales?

this incident tells us that it is obviously not a good idea to blow up a rotting whale with explosives. So, what is the proper way to deal with it?

now, when whale carcasses appear on the coast, researchers usually take samples first, because this is a rare opportunity to study cetaceans . The researchers dissected the dead whale, speculated on the cause of death, and collected samples of tissue and stomach contents and took them back to the laboratory for testing.

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researchers perform autopsy and sampling of dead whales | Kristi West

next, dead whales can be buried on the spot, or dismembered and then transported to other places for disposal. Sometimes, the dead whale can be towed back to sea by boat-but the flow direction of the sea must be calculated first to prevent it from being washed back to shore. Sometimes, whale carcasses are stuffed and displayed in museums. (read more: how many steps are there to put sperm whales in museums? ).

what happened to that car?

this chaotic whale bombing seems to have turned into a happy page in history-but what happened to the smashed car?

according to the report, after some consultation, the owner Umenhoff received a "satisfactory amount" of compensation, but he no longer wanted the car-not because the flat roof could not be repaired, but because the smell of the whale carcass lingered in the car.

despite the compensation, Umenhoff was still dissatisfied with the rashness of Operation Whale bombing: "they were just lucky they didn't kill anyone."

sharing a strange historical event this time is not so important, but the moment I saw it, I felt like I really wanted to write.

in addition to being blown up by explosives, whale carcasses sometimes explode themselves, which is caused by the accumulated pressure of microbes in the intestines, and now experienced workers will deflate the dead whales.

another thankful thing is that smells don't spread through the Internet