Vulture vomit is the leading theory for Kentucky's 1876 meat shower
The Kentucky meat shower of 1876 remains a peculiar historical event, with vulture vomit being the leading explanation for the phenomenon. Eyewitness accounts described chunks of meat falling from the sky, prompting scientific investigations that yielded inconclusive results. The mystery continues to intrigue, with a preserved sample of the meat now housed in a university museum.
- ▪On March 3, 1876, chunks of meat fell from the sky in Bath County, Kentucky.
- ▪The leading theory attributes the event to vultures regurgitating their stomach contents.
- ▪A preserved sample of the meat is currently stored at Transylvania University.
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Vulture vomit is the leading theory for Kentucky's 1876 meat shower Ellsworth Toohey 3:19 pm Mon May 18, 2026 Boing Boing / Google Gemini Mrs. Crouch, a farmer's wife in Bath County, Kentucky, was stirring a kettle of soap on her porch around 11 a.m. on March 3, 1876 when chunks of fresh meat began dropping out of a cloudless sky. By her own account, quoted in Wikipedia's writeup of the Kentucky meat shower, the sky was simply snowing meat, and each piece hit the ground with a sharp snap. The flakes — mostly two inches square, with one specimen four inches across — covered a patch of pasture roughly 100 yards long and 50 yards wide, just outside the village of Olympia Springs. The whole shower lasted only a few minutes.
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