Largest meat shower

The largest rain of meat took place in Bath County, Kentucky, USA, on 3 March 1876. A field belonging to farmers Allen and Rebecca Crouch was covered with "half a wagonload of pieces of fresh meat" that came down in a mysterious shower between 11 a.m. and noon. The meat was apparently fresh, and reportedly tasted like "mutton or venison"

This bizarre phenomenon was witnessed by the Allens and their neighbours, who lived in a small farming community near a spot called Mud Lick Springs (located on Kentucky State Route 36, about halfway between Olympia and Sudith, in the midst of what is now the Olympia State Forest).

A group of investigators from nearby Transylvania College (today Transylvania University in Lexington) described the rain as comprising "half a wagonload of pieces of fresh meat, sliced into thin strips, some of it quite bloody". The largest pieces were "3-4 inches square" and "perfectly fresh". Researchers testing samples variously reported that it was lung tissue, muscle tissue, cartilage or the meat of small reptiles.

Bizarre though this event undoubtedly was, such showers of blood or meat (or meat-like substances) are not unprecedented in the historical record. There are at least a dozen well-attested cases from the USA in the 19th century, and a scattering of similar reports from Europe.

The next most significant fall of meat on record took place on the tobacco plantation of a Mr Ekillis Chandler near Lebanon, Tennessee, on 6 August 1841. A substance, described as "putrid flesh, or a bloody glutinous matter concreted", fell over an area "forty to sixty yards in width" and "six or eight hundred yards in length" (approximately 55 x 732 m). The matter was described as "thinly scattered, probably a drop for every ten of fifteen feet, although irregularly dispersed". The largest pieces were an inch or two in length and composed of a mixture of muscle and fatty tissue.

The cause of these strange occurrences has never been conclusively proven. Many contemporary scholars claimed the material was dropped by passing butterflies, with others suggesting it may have been buzzard vomit or carrion picked up by a dust devil or tornado.