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This is one of those things you have to see it to believe it🤯 On...
fOx@fOx1257067
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Aug 31, 2026
~1 min read
This is one of those things you have to see it to believe it🤯
On November 9, 1970, a 45-foot, roughly 8-ton sperm whale washed ashore near Florence on the Oregon coast.
Three days later, the situation was getting worse. The carcass was decomposing, the smell was becoming unbearable, and curious people were coming down to the beach just to see it.
At the time, Oregon’s beaches were under the responsibility of the Oregon State Highway Division, so somehow the job of getting rid of an 8-ton whale landed in the hands of highway officials.
Assistant District Highway Engineer George Thornton was put in charge of figuring out what to do with something that was far too large to simply haul away.
On November 12, reporters and spectators gathered on the beach to watch. KATU reporter Paul Linnman and cameraman Doug Brazil were there recording the whole thing.
It did not go according to plan.
More than 50 years later, the footage is still almost impossible to believe.
What would you have done with an 8-ton whale you couldn’t move?
On November 9, 1970, a 45-foot, roughly 8-ton sperm whale washed ashore near Florence on the Oregon coast.
Three days later, the situation was getting worse. The carcass was decomposing, the smell was becoming unbearable, and curious people were coming down to the beach just to see it.
At the time, Oregon’s beaches were under the responsibility of the Oregon State Highway Division, so somehow the job of getting rid of an 8-ton whale landed in the hands of highway officials.
Assistant District Highway Engineer George Thornton was put in charge of figuring out what to do with something that was far too large to simply haul away.
On November 12, reporters and spectators gathered on the beach to watch. KATU reporter Paul Linnman and cameraman Doug Brazil were there recording the whole thing.
It did not go according to plan.
More than 50 years later, the footage is still almost impossible to believe.
What would you have done with an 8-ton whale you couldn’t move?
