What do you think of this fact?
Rain, snow, hail: fine. But on March 3, 1876, something else came down on a farm in Olympian Springs, Kentucky. According to Mental Floss, it was a sunny, cloudless day when chunks of what looked like raw meat started falling from the sky.
“Grandma, it’s snowing!”
Mrs. Crouch was making soap in the yard when her grandson said it was snowing. It wasn’t snow. Gristly flakes of flesh were landing all around them, some reportedly as long as her hand. Mental Floss reports that she estimated at least half a bushel, spread over roughly an acre, about 4,000 square meters.
The story made it all the way to the New York Times, which ran it under the headline “Flesh Descending in a Shower.” Locals came to inspect the stuff, and some even put it in their mouths. A butcher from nearby Mount Sterling reportedly chewed a piece, spat it out and compared it to mutton. A trapper insisted it was bear meat. The farm animals apparently didn’t care and simply ate it.
Science tried, and argued
Samples were preserved and sent to experts, who couldn’t agree. One, Leopold Brandeis, identified the material as Nostoc, a cyanobacterium that can form jelly-like clumps after rain. Others who examined samples said it was meat. Skeptoid points out that much of the story traces back to one local man, Harrison Gill, so it’s hard to know how much really happened as told.
The most plausible explanation, then and now, is surprisingly gross: vultures. Turkey vultures and black vultures throw up when they feel threatened, so a flock emptying its stomachs over the farm would explain the meat shower. It has never been proven, though.
Bonus fact: A preserved piece is kept at Transylvania University. In 2007, an art professor had a lab create jelly beans based on its flavor compounds. One taste-tester guessed “strawberry porkchop.”
The mystery is still open, and Bath County celebrates it anyway. In February 2026, a Kentucky Meat Shower Festival marked the 150th anniversary with a cookoff, meat-themed games and a look at the preserved sample. Some places get a famous hailstorm. This one got a sky full of meat.