On March 3, 1872, meat started falling from the sky at eleven in the morning in Bath County, Kentucky. Over the next several minutes, chunks of what was thought to be red meat fell from the sky onto a hundred by fifty yard, or ninety-one by forty-six meter, area. These chunks ranged from being two inches by two inches or five centimeters by five centimeters, with pieces as large as four inches by four inches or ten centimeters by ten centimeters.[1]
To this day, there is no concrete explanation as to why meat-like substances fell from the sky. There have been very reports that said the meat was beef, lamb, deer, bear, horse, or even human. Two men who tasted it believed it to be either lamb or deer. However, others thought it to be beef.
Dr. Alan McLean Hamilton wrote in the Medical Record Journal that he identified the meat as being lung tissue from either a horse or a human infant. He stated that “the structure of the organ in these two cases being almost identical [meaning that horse and human lungs were similar to determine which was the right substance].”[2] Nevertheless, other scientists believed that it might have been a substance known as nostoc, a type of cyanobacteria found in a variety of environments. Still yet, the most popular theory is that a group of vultures vomited their food after being forced to make a quick escape somewhere, a common defense method.[3]
[1] Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned, (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1919), p. 45–46.
[2] Alasdair Wilkins, “When It Rains Animals: The Science of True Weather Weirdness,” Gizmodo, March 21, 2012, https://gizmodo.com/when-it-rains-animals-the-science-of-true-weather-weir-5895116.
[3] Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned, (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1919), p. 45–46.
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