right|thumb|1970 whale explosion in [[Florence, Oregon, filmed by KATU news, one of the most widely reported cases of the exploding whale phenomenon. This explosion was intentionally caused using dynamite, but whale carcasses may also burst on their own.]]
There have been several cases of natural or intentional explosion of whale carcasses. Naturally, this occurs due to a buildup of gas in the decomposition process. This can occur when a whale strands itself ashore. Explosives have also been used intentionally by humans to assist in disposing of whale carcasses, ordinarily after towing the carcass out to sea, and as part of a beach cleaning effort. It was reported as early as 1928, when an attempt to preserve a carcass failed due to faulty chemical usages.
A widely reported case of an exploding whale occurred in Florence, Oregon, in November 1970, when the Oregon Highway Division (now the Oregon Department of Transportation) blew up a decaying sperm whale with dynamite to dispose of its rotting carcass. The explosion threw whale flesh up to away, and its odor lingered for some time. American humorist Dave Barry wrote about it in his newspaper column in 1990 after viewing television footage of the explosion, and later the same footage from news station KATU circulated on the Internet. It was also parodied in the 2007 American film Reno 911!: Miami, the 2018 Australian film Swinging Safari, and the 2010 The Simpsons episode, "The Squirt and the Whale". It has since been honored by the Eugene Emeralds of Minor League Baseball in 2023.
An example of a spontaneously bursting whale carcass occurred in Taiwan in January 2004, when the buildup of gas inside a decomposing sperm whale caused it to burst in a crowded urban area while being transported for a post-mortem examination. Other cases, natural and artificial, have also been reported in Canada, South Africa, Iceland, Australia, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. Artificial explosions have also been imposed by governments, and approved by the International Whaling Commission in emergency situations. However, it has also been criticized for its long-lasting odor. a sperm whale washed ashore at Florence on the central Oregon Coast. The weight of the carcass was estimated at . At the time, Oregon beaches were under the jurisdiction of the state's Highway Division, which, after consulting with the United States Navy, decided to remove the whale using dynamiteassuming that the resulting pieces would be small enough for scavenger animals to consume.
George Thornton, the engineer in charge of the operation, told an interviewer that he was not sure how much dynamite would be needed, saying that he had been chosen to remove the whale because his supervisor had gone hunting. A charge of Short ton| of dynamite was selected. A military veteran with explosives training who happened to be in the area warned that the planned twenty cases of dynamite was far too much, and that 20 sticks () would have sufficed, but his advice went unheeded.
Later that day, Thornton told the Eugene Register-Guard, "It went just exactly right.[...] Except the blast funneled a hole in the sand under the whale" and that some of the whale chunks were subsequently blown back toward the onlookers and their cars.
Thornton was promoted to the Medford office several months after the incident, and served in that post until his retirement. When Linnman contacted him in the mid-1990s, the newsman said Thornton felt the operation had been an overall success and had been converted into a public-relations disaster by hostile media reports.
The Siuslaw Pioneer Museum has bone fragments of the Florence exploding whale, called "Florence's most infamous moment" by local press. Currently, Oregon State Parks Department policy is to bury whale carcasses where they land. If the sand is not deep enough, they are relocated to another beach.
Renewed interest
The story was brought to widespread public attention by writer Dave Barry in his Miami Herald column of May 20, 1990, when he reported that he possessed footage of the event. Barry wrote, "… we watch it often, especially at parties." Some time later, the Oregon State Highway division started to receive calls from the media after a shortened version of the article was distributed on bulletin boards under the title "The Far Side Comes to Life in Oregon". The unattributed copy of Barry's article did not explain that the event had happened approximately 25 years earlier. Barry later said that, on a fairly regular basis, someone would forward him his own column and suggest he write something about the described incident. As a result of these omissions, an article in the ODOT's TranScript notes that: