Why Did It Rain Meat Over Kentucky in 1876?

The Kentucky meat shower was documented in 1876, and preserved tissue survives in a museum. The leading explanation is a flock of vultures regurgitating carrion in flight.

On March 3, 1876, pieces of red meat fell from a clear sky over a patch of farmland near Olympia Springs in Bath County, Kentucky. Mrs. Crouch, who was making soap on her porch, described it as “snowing meat.” Most pieces measured about two inches square; two men tasted samples and guessed lamb or deer, while later microscope work identified animal lung tissue, muscle, and cartilage.

Scientific American, The New York Times, and the Louisville Medical News reported the event. The leading explanation is less supernatural but no less strange: startled vultures likely regurgitated carrion in flight, a known escape behavior. A preserved sample rediscovered at Transylvania University in 2004 remains in the Moosnick Medical and Science Museum, and Bath County marked the event's 149th anniversary with a festival in March 2025.