Today marks the 50th anniversary of the exploding beached whale incident that took place in Florence, Oregon on November 12, 1970 when highway patrol used way too much dynamite to remove a whale carcass.

…a half-ton of dynamite was detonated under an 8-ton beached whale. As it turns out, that was overkill. Mammalian marine guts spewed everywhere, raining down on townsfolk. A quarter-mile away, cars were smashed with chunks of cetacean carcass.

This story remained a local legend for two decades, until the early ’90s, when the newspaper columnist Dave Barry mentioned seeing footage of the exploding beast. Soon after, a video clip went viral on the internet, long before “going viral on the internet” was even a thing.

To celebrate the anniversary, the Oregon Historical Society arranged for a 4K transfer of the original raw film footage from their archive and KATU re-edited the package from the new high resolution video. If you’ve never seen it, you’re either Amish or an infant. I believe it’s a law that you have to watch it when logging on to the internet for the first time otherwise police come to your house and arrest you.

Keep going for the gloriously remastered video in all its legendary glory.

Source: Geekologie – The Exploding Whale footage was remastered for its 50th anniversary