Observations on the production of vibrationally excited oxygen molecules in the flash photolysis of nitrogen peroxide and of ozone have extended previous work on these systems. In the case of nitrogen peroxide it has been shown that oxygen molecules possessing the entire exothermicity of the reaction in the form of vibrational energy are produced. A new class of reactions is reported in which vibrationally excited hydroxyl radicals are produced under isothermal conditions by the reaction O(1D) + RH → OH* + R, in which the energy for excitation is contributed by the electronic energy of the oxygen atom.These and other cases of non-equilibrated energy distributions in reaction products and theories accounting for this phenomenon are reviewed.