With free agency kicking off this week, seems like a lot of teams are hungry for winners – I’ve sent my staff criss-crossing the country to do some scouting research as we sort out our roster for the coming year, which is great because it frees up my time to do a little bit of exploring of my own in between college pro days and various other events. In fact, while rolling through the Midwest in the Mystery Machine, I just happened to stumble upon a very curious story indeed, and felt I needed to tell y’all a little more about it…

THE KENTUCKY MEAT SHOWER

Location: Olympia Springs, Bath County, Kentucky

Date: March 3rd, 1876

The Story: On a clear and sunny Friday morning over 140 years ago, Mrs. Allen Crouch and her 11-year-old grandson were outside their house, located near the Olympia Springs area of Kentucky. By all accounts, it was a very regular day as the young boy played in the yard and Mrs. Crouch was making some soap, when all of a sudden, a flood of meat began to rain down from the sky. As they ran into the house, most alarmed at the sudden turn in the weather, chunks of unidentifiable flesh rained down over a fairly small concentrated area; the total area covered area was only about a hundred yards long by fifty yards wide. Nevertheless, the meat shower went on to make national and international news, thanks to a few stories from the New York Times in subsequent weeks.

What’s Weird: There’s a lot of skepticism over whether the meat shower actually happened or not, but for the sake of this article, we’re going to assume that it indeed did take place. According to the news, Mrs. Crouch said that a number of the animals had eaten the meat after the meat shower finished, and “seemed to like it well”. The dog apparently was sick a while after eating it, but it’s hard to say whether that was directly as a result of eating the meat or not. Also strange was the fact that the fence appeared to be stained with blood, although neither Mrs. Crouch nor her grandson noted anything like blood raining from the sky either. Initial reports stated that there was enough meat on the ground to fill a wagon, but further investigations and an interview with Mrs. Crouch revised that to be probably only about half a bushel’s worth – about 32 pounds, give or take. A few quick-thinking folks preserved a few pieces of meat in glycerine and sent it off to various scientific societies for testing; results came back that it appeared to be lung tissue from either a horse or a human infant. A few other brave souls also tasted the meat, which apparently looked like beef, and said that it tasted somewhat of lamb, mutton or venison.

What might have happened?

A number of theories abound about this meat shower; the most cynical of these was that the entire event was just one big practical joke, staged for the sake of entertaining people and attempts to mislead journalists. The late 19th century rivalled our current age in sensational journalism, and with fewer ways to confirm scientific validity, there’s a chance it may have been… but we’re not about cynicism on this website, folks? Right?

Assuming that this meat shower really did indeed happen, one of the leading theories initially was that the material on the ground was not actually meat, but nostoc, which is a cyanobacteria that forms slimy, jelly-like colonies that resemble meat when activated by moisture, such as rain. Not only was this theory disproven by subsequent analysis of the meat, which did confirm it to be meat, but the fact that the day was a sunny and clear one, and also hadn’t seen any rain the night before, further disproved this theory.

Another theory is that the meat was the result of some animal getting caught in an explosion of some variety, though the specifics of that can also be debated; additionally, the uneven size of all of the chunks means that the blast likely would have needed to come from within the animal itself… such as a bored farmer inserting a stick of lit dynamite up some poor critter’s ass. While this also seems implausible, we do have to remember that this is rural Kentucky we’re talking about here…

Oddly enough, one of the weirdest theories out there actually seems to be the most plausible. Many believe that the meat was projectile-vomited by one or more vultures flying through the sky directly overtop of the affected area; while this sounds strange and disgusting, it actually makes a lot of sense, for a number of reasons:

• • A local hunter by the name of B.F. Ellington saw the meat in question, and swore that it was bear meat in an interview with some reporters. Bear meat is apparently naturally somewhat greasy to begin with, and coupled with the fact that it may have came from the stomach of a vulture, would explain both A) the unevenly-sized chunks and B) the sticky, slimy look to it.
  • Projectile-vomiting is a known defence mechanism of vultures who are trying to flee predators; their stomachs contain a lot of bacteria that is toxic to other animals, which would have explained the Crouch family dog getting sick after eating it.
  • Mrs. Crouch and her grandson both confirmed that they saw the meat coming down at a very straight angle, as opposed to being blown about, which also suggests that it was disgorged, and not from a high altitude, which would have had time to rip it apart further and also distribute it over a much wider area.
  • This would also make sense due to the fact that both the black vulture and the turkey vulture are both commonly found throughout Kentucky.
  • Finally, the Crouch farm was surrounded on multiple sides by the Daniel Boone National Forest, which would have been an ideal place for rotting animal carcasses to lay undisturbed and later picked clean by vultures and other animals; this would have allowed for bear meat to be a possibility as stated by the hunter B.F. Ellington.

Coach Carroll’s Hypothesis: I can only imagine what’s running through Andy Reid’s brain right now. Poor bastard. First all those divisional round losses, and now knowing that he missed out on this great opportunity. At any rate, if he gets canned if KC flames out yet again this coming year, I may hire him eventually! Either as an OC or as a scientific researcher for this case. I haven’t quite decided yet. It may cost me more in meat than it would to pay him a suitable coordinator’s salary…

Information for this article taken from here, here, here, and here.

Banner image courtesy of Low Commander of the Super Soldiers.