“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it an explosion, but it can be like an enormous fart. It would be quite unpleasant if the stomach blows up. It’s not very nice to have rotten whale parts showering over you.” These comments were made by Tore Haug of the Norwegian Marine Research Institute in Bergen as he [...]

In this AP photo, the giant, swollen tongue of a dead humpback whale appears close to exploding. Alas, it did not. The ballooning organ did, however, contribute to the whale’s death. While some officials initially said the swollen tongue indicated an infection, experts now believe that a large volume of air may have been forced [...]

Register-Guard columnist and perennial exploding whale enthusiast Bob Welch has once again referenced Oregon’s exploding whale in one of his columns. In “Dozer, not dynamite, eases whale’s final passage” — part of his “Where are they now?” series — Welch discusses the fate of the 40-foot gray whale that recently washed up on Oregon’s coast [...]

On Sunday, May 27, 2007, the carcass of a 40-foot California Gray Whale washed up on a beach near Seal Rock, Oregon, a mere 40 or so miles north of where Oregon’s original exploding whale incident occurred. Scientists have been unable to determine a cause of death. The whale will be buried in a nearby [...]

A United States Coast Guard crew based on the Big Island of Hawaii attempted to sink a bloated whale carcass found floating outside Hilo Harbor by firing more than 30 rounds into it from an M-16 rifle. It didn’t work. The lieutenant in charge explained that this method “does not appear to have worked very [...]