Great Salt Lake whale hoax

[1] According to the article, Wickham captured the whales near Australia and transported them from San Francisco, California, to Utah by train in specially designed tanks filled with seawater.

One article included a letter from a Cleveland, Ohio, resident humorously asking whether a permit from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members constituted a majority of Utah's population at the time, would be required to begin a whaling industry in the Great Salt Lake.

[2] The Utah Historical Quarterly also highlighted that the claims of Wickham's experiment were exaggerated, portraying them as a product of the creative imagination of the time, meant more for entertainment than factual reporting.

[4] In 2019, artists Christine Baczek and David Hyams featured the story in their exhibit "Whale of a Tale" at the Rio Gallery in Salt Lake City.

[6] In 2021, Professor Justin Diggle created a print, A Whale from the Great Salt Lake, Utah, for the imPRESSions Open Printmaking Biennial.