Short Stuff: Kentucky Meat Shower

In 1876 it rained meat out of the clear blue sky on a homestead in Bath County, Kentucky. While the mystery of what happened will never be solved, the best explanation makes the story even weirder than it seems. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability and it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. When you're in do it yourself mode, the last thing you want to do is drop everything to pick up that one part or tool that you need. That's where My Lowe's Rewards and My Lowe's Pro Rewards come in. Place your order and Lowe's handles the rest.

• 0:49Josh Clark?

  Lowe's will make the run for you with free same day delivery. Members get more at Lowe's $25 minimum and loyalty membership required. Order eligible items by 2pm. Subject to weight and size restrictions and availability. Terms at Lowe's.com/shippingterms.

• 1:10Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Jocelyn, there's Chuck and Jared, Jared's here too for Dave. So this is short stuff.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  That's right. A rare episode where the title itself is a band name. Not a good one, though.

• 1:24Josh Clark?

  No, I guess maybe horror bluegrass, like a bluegrass Misfits cover band, maybe?

• 1:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, Kentucky Meat Shower. I could see that.

• 1:35Josh Clark?

  I want to shout out Ben Fisher, who is a listener who wrote in a while back to suggest this one. So thanks, Ben.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  I hope Ben has that band registered as a trademark.

• 1:48Josh Clark?

  Also hat tip to Menafloss, IFL Science, Scientific American, the Lexington, Kentucky Herald Leader and Atlas Obscura. Atlas Obscura.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Great sites.

• 2:01Josh Clark?

  But yes, the, the, had you heard of the Kentucky Meat Shower before this Chuck? Cause I, I didn't, I hadn't. I'm just going to come out and say it as bad, as badly as I want to say, like, of course I'd heard of this. I had not heard of it.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  No, I think this is fairly arcane.

• 2:15Josh Clark?

  Okay, good. You just made me feel a lot better.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:19Josh Clark?

  The, what we're talking about, we should probably get around to saying is the Kentucky Meat Shower took place just over 150 years ago. We just missed the anniversary by two days. On March 3rd, 1876, a Hopestetter named Rebecca Crouch was outside her, well, homestead, making soap with her grandson Alan when it began to rain meat down on them.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  That's right. We should point out, because this will come up later, that was a clear sky, so it wasn't like it was rainy, and also meat came down.

• 2:53Josh Clark?

  Right, good point.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  This was just meat that came down, and they were landing all over the yard. And over the course of a few minutes, it rained down over the size of about a football field on her farm, these smallish chunks of meat everywhere, even though she said one of them was about the size of her palm, but most of them were smaller than that.

• 3:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah. They, they, you could compare them to snowflakes, I think. It was the general idea I, I got. And so, obviously, as you would do if meat was raining on you, Mrs. Crouch and grandson Alan went indoors, the livestock and the cat came to the yard instead, because they were like, there's a bunch of meat all of a sudden everywhere in the yard, so we're going to start eating it. And as much as they tried, they couldn't eat it all, because before, I think like the next day, a man named Harrison Gill, he was the first sighted witness to verify that, yes, there was meat all over their yard. It was stuck to the fence. Mental Floss put it that the fences were flecked with tissue

• 3:56Josh Clark?

  and stained with what looked like blood. Thorny briars bore gobs of flesh like Christmas trees from hell.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  You know, a second ago, when I thought very seriously that you were going to say, they did what you would do, and they went inside, and I thought you were going to say, and got some hot dog buns.

• 4:17Josh Clark?

  Gross.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  But thank God you didn't because that's gross and all this stuff is gross. Because this was not just a regular meat. It's not like there were little pieces of tender loin falling from the sky. There was a local butcher named Friz Frisbee, believe it or not, who of course he's the butcher. So he's like, sure, I'll try it. So he put it in his mouth. He spit it out and this was the butcher. And he said, he spit it out after chewing it a little. And he said it had kind of a milky watery fluid oozing out of it. And other people also verified that it was oozy. And also described it as like a brown mucus, similar in appearance to veal or mutton. But it was awful smelling and tasting.

• 4:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they weren't like, it tastes like veal or mutton. They just said it kind of looks like cooked veal or mutton. There was a guy who apparently found all this quite enticing. He was a neighbor named Eli Willis. He scooped up like a handful of this stuff and took it home to cook for dinner. And his family of being more sensible than he realized that he was going to do this. Tried to talk him out of it, found they couldn't. And so some family members held him down while other family members scooped up the meat and ran outside and threw it away in a place he couldn't find it.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  That all smacks of 1870s news reporting, doesn't it?

• 5:32Josh Clark?

  It definitely does, but that also smacks of 2026 podcast re-reporting.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Should we take a break?

• 5:41Josh Clark?

  I think we should, sure.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  All right, we'll be right back right after this.

• 6:02Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on the truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  That's right. Make a smart buy on the off-road ready Tacoma or a half ton Tundra. Two of Toyota's most capable and longest lasting trucks. Built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure and the rugged style for everything in between.

• 6:24Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's Off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you could trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. Cozy season is upon us. And that means crisp mornings, that means soft layers, and that means Bombas.

• 7:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Bombas makes your comfiest fall staples, so you can make the most out of one of the best seasons of the year. Bombas has new suede moccasins that are perfect for fall because they have cushy soles, a sheerling lining, and they're made of water-resistant suede.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  That's right, and their slippers are everything you'd want for a cozy night in, made with the softest, squishiest materials.

• 7:30Josh Clark?

  And of course, Bombas has socks. Not just any socks, socks for every type of weather, every type of occasion, because fall can be fickle, and Bombas makes socks that can handle it all. And the best part about Bombas, for every item you purchase, they donate an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity. One purchased equals one donated, with over 200 million donations and counting.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  So head on over to bombas.com/sysk and use code SYSK at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash SYSK, using code SYSK at checkout.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  All right, so people stopped eating this meat. They did think to like, maybe we should find out what this is. So they took some samples to Transylvania University, which was close by, as well as some other places. And eventually, things kind of got back to normal. But that wasn't the end of it because people, you know, people want to know what the heck this thing was. So of course, people start surmising and hypothesizing what, what this meat could have actually been, what animal this could have been.

• 8:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And this being a gross event, some of the theories that they came up with were gross too. One of them was that it was rehydrated frog spawn, which is frog ejaculate and eggs mixed together. So it described. And the idea was that this had, well, the spawn had been spread, it dried out, got carried up in the, the breeze into the sky. And then when it rained, it rehydrated and fell down as globs. That was mistaken for meat.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  That's right. But it wasn't raining. As we pointed out, it was clear skies. So that doesn't hold much water.

• 9:24Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  There was a water sanitation expert named Leopold Brandies, who analyzed the samples and said, I don't think this is animal at all. He said, I think it's a cyanobacteria. And he said, like a low form of vegetable existence. And I, you know, he called it a gnostic. And I've seen this stuff in lakes before. And I've also seen it on, like in forests.

• 9:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  I've heard it called star jelly.

• 9:53Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  You know, it kind of looks like, like a apple, apple butter or apple jelly. So, you know, that could have been a thing that came down in the rain. But again, it wasn't raining.

• 10:02Josh Clark?

  No. So just like the frog spawn theory, this one had a hole in it in that it would require precipitation to come back down. Also, that was kind of the prevailing thought at the time that this stuff somehow ended up on the breeze and then rained back down because it, you couldn't see it until it rehydrated on the ground and it wasn't really in the sky anyway. So not a good theory. Finally, I think in 1876, the same year, chemistry professor named Dr. L. D. Castenbein proposed what is now can widely considered the correct explanation for what exactly happened. And what exactly happened, Chuck?

• 10:44Speaker 02

  Well, it doesn't make it any less gross to sort of find out what it was. In fact, it probably makes it more gross than mystery meat. In 1876, he wrote in the Louisville Medical News that he thought it was a mass vulture vomiting incident. Not a bad band name in and of itself, now that I think about it. But yeah, vultures are known to vomit. Sometimes it's to lighten their weight while flying, which would have made sense in this case, or as a defense mechanism. But yeah, he was like, you guys were eating vulture vomit, is what you were doing. And God knows what kind of meat it was to begin with, because they were eating, you know, all manner of dead animals.

• 11:22Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Yeah. So they ate what had been decomposing animal flesh initially, eaten by vultures, and then thrown back up, and then those guys tasted it. I just want to make sure that that is fully clear, because that is what happened in Kentucky, when those locals put that in their mouth and tried to see what it was.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, but people didn't stop there, as far as poo-pooing these hypotheses, because there's a guy named Kurt Gode, who's an art professor, and he was like, hey, man, I've been studying this thing for two decades. I guess I haven't had a lot to do. And there's no way that she would have missed this large group of vultures overhead, like raining down meat on her, because that was a lot of meat. So it would have been a lot of vultures. And for years and years, every time somebody offered up this vulture vomit thing, it seemed like this Kurt guy was right behind him, saying, there's no way she would have missed that.

• 12:18Josh Clark?

  Right. And then at some point, someone told Kurt that vultures actually can fly up to 20,000 feet in the air.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  That's crazy.

• 12:29Josh Clark?

  And that, yes, it would have been quite possible for a flock, actually, I think they're called a vault, a venue, or a committee of vultures. That a committee of vultures, flying at 20,000 feet, vomiting down, kind of simultaneously, onto poor Mrs. Crouch in her yard, she definitely would not be able to see that with the naked eye. So it is entirely possible it was a mass vulture vomiting event.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, they're never going to solve this thing, obviously. I think they did have tissue samples, but not the kind of thing that's still around today to like test genetically. So the weirdest part of this story maybe is that later on, that art professor said, "Hey, maybe I can analyze these flavor compounds and get it made into a jelly bean." So he did that. He took it to a jelly bean maker and they made Kentucky meat shower jelly beans. And he gave them out as samples at a state fair at the Court Day's festival and said, "Just tell me what it tastes like and you can have one of these Kentucky meat shower jelly beans."

• 13:37Speaker 02

  And people said, "Well, maybe bacon before it's cooked, maybe lamb that's going rotten, or strawberry pork chops, which sounds like the best thing out of all of them."

• 13:46Josh Clark?

  For sure, but Cody told Atlas Obscura that he just frankly finds them vile.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:53Josh Clark?

  Kurt Cody sounds like a Stuff You Should Know listener, if you ask me. So if you are listening, Professor Cody, write in and let us know how we did on this. Say it, Chuck.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Does that mean your stuff is out?

• 14:08Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.