The morning of Friday , March 3 , 1876 , dawned sunny and cloudless over Olympian Springs in northeastern Kentucky . A lightsome snap tickle the fields of the Crouch family farm as Mrs. Crouch made soap in the 1000 . Then , shortly before noon , something unexpected started tumbling from the skies .
“ Why , gran , it ’s snowing!”saidMrs . Crouch ’s preadolescent grandson , Allen . But what pummeled the dimension for the next few minute was n’t snowbird . They were gristly , oozing chunks of flesh — some as long as Mrs. Crouch ’s paw .
For one horrible second , as she later told a reporter , Mrs. Crouch regard the possibility that her “ hubby and son , who were by , had been torn to piece and their remains were being brought home … by the wind . ”
gratefully , that had n’t fall out . So what had ?
Am-ooze Bouche
It did n’t take long for tidings of the mystery meat to pass around across the nation . “ Flesh Descending in a Shower , ” read aNew York Timesheadlinethe following hebdomad . TheNew York Heraldupped the ante by sending a correspondent from Louisville to inquire the matter .
The reporter , unnamed in theHerald , bounded around town gleaning item about the incident from all style of residents . Chief among them were the Crouches themselves . Mrs. Crouch had bolted inside soon after the shower began , but she guessed that at least half a bushel ( 4 gallons ) of meaty flake had fall . When Mr. Crouch return home after that day , he surveyed the mass murder , which affected roughly an acre of Din Land . The fences were flecked with tissue paper and defile with what looked like blood ; barbed tree heath bore gobs of flesh like Christmas Tree from hell .
The gory horror of the fit was completely lost on the Crouches ’ hogs , chickens , CT , and andiron , all of whom “ had been consume [ the centre ] freely , and seemed to care it well , ” grant to Mrs. Crouch . ( The dog did suspiciously fall ill sometime by and by that month . )
Mr. Crouch collected a number of samples and hand some off to Olympian Springs owner Harrison Gill , who uphold them in alcoholic beverage . Other chunks terminate up in the mouths of dauntless locals — like 27 - year - old botcher L.C. “ Friz ” Frisbe in the nearby metropolis of Mount Sterling .
“ Several persons … told me it was a life-threatening experiment , but I assure them my constitution could stand as much of it as a cock ’s or a cat ’s , ” Frisbe told theHeraldreporter , their conversation soundtracked by the steady snoring of a bone saw and occasional thwack of a chopper . But even blade - stomached Friz had decide to ptyalise out the inwardness “ after chewing it a petty , ” perhaps because“a kind of whitish , watery fluid oozed out of it , ” he said . Though he likened its appearance to mutton and its texture to veal or lamb , he could n’t place the taste or odour .
A merchandiser describe Joe Jordan also spat out his specimen , which smelled like a beat body and percolate “ brown mucose . ” Like Friz , Reverend J.R. Nichols compared the meat to mouton , while C.J. Craig claim it looked like “ pounded beefsteak . ” Benjamin Franklin Ellington , a trapper , swore it was bear inwardness .
TheHeraldcorrespondent even tried to bribe an Irish railroad line proletarian , Jimmy Welsh , to taste a bite . Welsh agreed to do it for a clam , but kept finding ways to put off the deed . First he asked for side dishes , then demand whisky , and lastly claimed he just was n’t hungry . After the newspaperman leaven the reward to $ 3 , Welsh short remember that he could n’t run through meat because it was Lent .
If fumbler , preachers , and railroad workers could n’t work out the closed book , perchance scientist could .
Game of Theories
accord to one rumor , the whole matter was a hoax staged by Mrs. Crouch to frighten her husband into sell their farm . The Crouches had a practiced jape when theHeraldreporter relay this explanation : obviously , Mr. Crouch had already desire to sell the farm . Another amateur theorizer posited , per theHerald , that “ the meat might have fallen from the lunch basketful of a passing balloonist . ”
As samples made their path to laboratory , slightly less fanciful theories start to emerge . Chemist J. Lawrence SmithtoldThe New York Timesthat he believed the shower was dried batrachian spawn “ transported from the pond and marshy grounds by currents of fart . ” To some multitude who ’d seen the junk in all its gutsy glory , this notion was about as punishing to swallow as the meat itself .
In the weekly medical journalThe Louisville Medical News , Leopold Brandeis suggested that the subject matter wasNostoc — a type of cyanobacteria that expands into snotty , jellylike clumps when there ’s excessive moisture on the ground . Because this oftenhappensafter rainfall , legend had it thatNostocrained down , too . Brandeis , for his part , just thought the wind had borne some along to rural Kentucky .
But the most plausible possibility — thenand now — is that the meat spewed away from the pecker of vultures soaring overhead . Turkey vultures and grim vultures , bothnativeto Kentucky , sometimes vomit when threaten . Not only does their extremely acidic chunder function as a arm of form , but an empty venter might also help themmakea quicker getaway .
“ I have always think there were large yap in that theory because Mrs. Crouch said the meat fall from a light blue sky and surely she would have noticed a flock of vultures of a quantity needed to fill a football - sized field of force with meat by vomiting,”Kurt Gohde , an artwork prof at Kentucky ’s Transylvania University who ’s researched the meat cascade extensively , recount Mental Floss .
Gohde has since make out around after find out more about black vultures — namely , that they ’ve been known to fly at a20,000 - footaltitude inflocks(orkettles ) of dozens or even C , and they can scarf down British pound after pound sterling of flesh in mere minutes . In other words , it ’s completely potential that the marauder were fly high up enough that Mrs. Crouch did n’t see them , and that the kettle was large enough to cast half a bushel of bits or more . This theory also describe for the want of consistency in everyone ’s descriptions of what Gohde calls “ the meatrain . ” Even scientists couldn’tagreeon whether it was musculus , gristle , productive , or something else .
“ Those marauder would have had different meal in their stomach and quite likely there were a handful of unlike centre mixed into the shower bath of flesh , ” he explicate . “ Meats of various dead beast soaked in the acidic brine of vulture abdomen digestive fluids . That sounds like a horrible matter to use up ! ” Bully for Jimmy Welsh .
The Electric Jelly Bean Taste Test
Gohde ’s study of the Kentucky Meat Shower was n’t confined to explore vulture habits . In 2004 , asAtlas Obscura describe , he happened to excavate a survive chunk swallow in storage at Transylvania University . So he had it genetically tested .
“ The tests did n’t reveal the creature and did n’t uncover much else either , ” he says . “ The fluid it was suspended in was an alcohol conservation fluid . The bobfloat was estimated to have been only about 40 years old at the time and it was assumed that was when the fluid was probably swap out ( from what may have been methanal ) for intoxicant . ” ( These days , the chunk is tucked safely off in an apothecary cabinet at TU’sMonroe Moosnick Medical and Science Museum . )
Without genetic analysis to nail down exactly what one vulture may have vomit up that fatal March twenty-four hours , Gohde enlisted a Cincinnati sense of taste lab to create jelly beans ground on the sample ’s look compounds . He described the flavor of the treat as “ strong enough that I would have immediately spit out any meat with that taste , ” with a lingering chemical aftertaste . In 2007 , he solicited feedback from other gustation - testers at Mount Sterling ’s annual fall festivalCourt Days .
Many compared the flavor to ham ; “ Charles Lamb that has pop out to turn ” and “ pre - cooked bacon ” also came up . Gohde mused that the preservatives in pre - cooked bacon products might “ bring a flavor to the Viscount St. Albans that passably matches the chemical taste I sensed myself when I tasted the jelly beans . ”
“ My out-and-out favorite was ‘ strawberry porkchop ’ because that is what was judge the instant a large man with a whiskers put it into his backtalk . He was sure , ” withdraw Gohde , who ’d never heard of such a knockout . “ I prefer to just let that persist as a sort of wonder in my mind so I have n’t looked it up at all . ”
Gohde is happy to leave the thing of the Kentucky Meat Shower unnerve , too — however plausible the vulture vomit theory seems .
“ I do n’t know if I will ever think of it as a closed cause , ” he says . “ I prefer to call up of it as a mystery that was left open because it come about at a clock time when people did n’t need to solve all things . ”
