Wikipedia has an article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale The 1970 event remained little-known unti

Wikipedia has an article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale The 1970 event remained little-known until in 1990 Dave Barry wrote about it[1], and it became really well-known thanks to the internet in 1993 or so when (part of) this article[2] “went viral” on bulletin boards. The engineer in charge of the explosion, George Thornton, insisted that the operation was an overall success, and got promoted after this event [3]: > "I said to my supervisors, usually when something happens like this, the person ends up getting promoted," Thornton added. "Sure enough, about six months later, I got promoted to Medford." I see some debate about whether the amount of explosive used was too much or too little; apparently (thanks to following one of the citations from Wikipedia) it was both: > Umenhofer had received explosives training during his World War II service and what he saw on the beach that day made him very, very nervous. He knew project manager George Thornton was not going to get the results he wanted — he either needed a lot less dynamite, so that the whale would just be pushed out to sea, or a whole lot more, so that it would be torn into tiny pieces. Umenhofer told the Springfield paper he tried to warn Thornton but was blown off. [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1990/05/20/thar-she-blows/8f6bc076-3843-4653-99d0-a50df88eabaf/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/19... [2]: https://www.theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/resources/dave-barry-article https://www.theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/resources/dave-ba... [3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20110717092953/http://tafkac.org/animals/exploding.whale/son_of_blubber.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110717092953/http://tafkac.org...