Local resident Michelle Bedford says what she saw can only be described as ‘incredibly unlikely’ and ‘bizarrely beautiful’.
“The guy got on the roof of his van with a crazy look in his eyes I’ve never seen before, as if in his universe there was only him and the Skywhale. He hurled the broomhandle like a harpoon, got it right through the eye.
“We all clapped and cheered, not like we hate the Skywhale or anything but it was just unbelievably cool.”
It then took several hours for security staff and onlookers to disentangle Ahab from the corpse of the Skywhale which had slowly but majestically fallen directly on top of him, like a heavenly blanket with massive breasts.
The sculpture, a hot air balloon depicting a whale as it may have evolved if it lived in the air rather than the sea, has had a mixed reception since it was first launched in 2013. Critics of the Skywhale cited its outlandish appearance, large breast-like appendages and ‘dumb, smug whale face’.
Artist Patricia Piccinini, who designed the sculpture, has asked that charges not be pressed against Mr Ahab, claiming that she was “invigorated” to see the public engaging with the artwork on such a meaningful level and that she couldn’t ask for a “more fitting way for a big balloon that looks like a whale to complete its lifecycle in the public eye.”
When asked if the ‘killing’ of the Skywhale had any allegorical significance or if the quest to find and destroy it was in some way symbolic of a larger tale Mr Ahab told reports “Nah mate, just f-ing hate that bloody whale.”
