Oregon mourns passing of accidental inventor of whale confetti.
An engineer who blew up a whale carcass in Oregon using some 20 cases of dynamite has died, but the biggest bang of his career will live forever in YouTube infamy.
George Thornton, who was called into action by the Oregon Department of Transportation when a 45-foot whale washed up on the beach near Florence, Ore., in 1970, passed away on Sunday, The Oregonian reported. He was 84.
The massive mammal that beached on Oregon’s coastline on Nov. 9, 1970, was dead on arrival, and for a few days, local officials, unaccustomed to whales washing up on their shore, struggled with what to do with it. Burying it could result in it being uncovered; cutting it up or burning it were also ruled out because it was so big.
So highway officials called on Oregon Department of Transportation highway engineer Thornton to think of another way to remove the whale, which by that point, was starting to decay. Thornton devised a plan: He and a crew would line the beached beast with dynamite, hit the plunger, and let the pieces of blubber scatter into the water. What was left would be cleaned up by seagulls and crabs, he figured.
“It was unbelievable,” former correspondent Paul Linnman, whose news report on the whale explosion has garnered millions of views on YouTube, said of the whale. “The smell would have knocked you over. We went about our business, and got the video we needed.”
The event was captured by cameras on Nov. 12, 1970, for Linnman’s news station, Portland affiliate KATU-TV.
“I’m confident that it will work. The only thing is, we’re not sure just exactly how much explosives it will take to disintegrate this thing so the scavengers — seagulls, crabs and whatnot — can clean it up,” Thornton, wearing a hard hat, told Linnman on-camera minutes before the explosion.
It didn’t go as planned.
Bystanders were moved back a quarter of a mile before the blast, but were forced to flee as blubber and huge chunks of whale came raining down on them. Parked cars even further from the scene got smashed by pieces of dead whale. No one was hurt, but the small pieces of whale remains were flecked onto anyone in the area.
To relive this superb piece of engineering history, click here or check out the video below:
