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The Strange and Spectacularly Disgusting Story of the Great Kentucky Meat Shower · Ridiculous History

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Yea. Let's start today's episode with a quotation from The
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: New York Times on March tenth, eighteen seventy six. We'll
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: just give you the headline here, flesh descending in a shower,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: an astounding phenomenon in Kentucky, fresh meat like mutton or
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: venison falling from a clear sky. Yea, yes, they said
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: like mutton or like venison. But what was it? Hi,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I'm Ben, Okay, I'm no, and uh it's rain and
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: meat rain. Yeah, it was a singer when I walked in.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Why you gotta one on me? Ben? Now you didn't
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: even right. It's rating min No, that's true. Oh but
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: we are also joined by our super producer, Casey Pegram,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and this is the first time the three of us
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: have been back on the show together in a little
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: in a little while, isn't it. Yeah, I guess it
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: has been a minute, probably like a like a month
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: or something. Oh yeah, that voice from the sky like
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: like like showers of meat in our ears. Super producer
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram, Man, I've missed you, guys, missed you. I know.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: It's weird. Casey was in France for a while and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: then we were away and then I was away last week,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and here we are. Here we are, and we decided,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: now that the three of us have reunited after far
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: too long, that we were going to pick up our
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: continuing mission to do an episode for every state in
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the United States. Uh, and we're going to hopefully succeed.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Where Sufyan paused for a second, he just I think
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: it was a troll. Honestly, I don't think he had
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: any intention of doing it. He only made two. Maybe
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: he's got a back cat. Maybe he's just really stuck
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: on Rhode Island. You mean, like a vault maybe unreleased
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: state records that no one's gonna ever hear, sort of
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: like J. D. Salinger had all those stories that no
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: one saw him laughters. Idn't know that, Yeah, but hopefully
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: a little bit different. Well, speaking of stories, speaking of stories,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: no we got one today. We do. We do, so
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: this episode will count for our our Kentucky episode, right
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And from this headline you can tell that we're describing
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: something pretty bizarre. You see, back in March nine of
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: what do we say eighteen seventy six? Yeah, back in
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: March ninth in Bath County, Kentucky, there was someone named
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Alan Crouch. This guy lived about two or three miles
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: from a place we've seen alternately called Olympian Springs in
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the original New York Times piece, but then later called
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: what was that Olympia Springs? Who knows? Who knows? Probably
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the people that lived there, right, And Mrs Crouch was
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: out in the yard at the time. She was making soap,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and then she looked around. She heard the pitter pattern
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of what she thought was, you know, maybe the beginning
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: of rain on a clear day without a cloud in
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the sky. And she looked around, and what was falling
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: in her yard was not rain, not precipitation. It was meat. Yeah,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: in an event that would go down in history as
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the Great Kentucky Meat Shower, which is not some kind
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: of crazy mullet right right, or or weird euphemism. Also,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I love the fact that they added great to the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: name because it implies that there were some other relatively
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: mediocre there. There had to have been some lesser meat showers. Um,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: But what what happened? Why? Why why was meat raining
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: from the sky? And it wasn't. It wasn't just like
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: little pieces of meat. It was like all kinds of
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: from sized pieces of meat. Yes, yeah, the ones that
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Mrs Crouch saw where three to four inches square, so
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: pretty substantial, you know. And other people saw this too,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just Mrs Crouch. And people try to immediately
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: figure out what this could be. And we have to
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: remember that the people in this area at this time
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: were well aware of other anecdotal stories of strange things
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: falling from the sky rains of fish, for instance, you know,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: or or a rain of stones, but these were often
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: considered to be um stories of old you know, things
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: you would read about in ancient text. Is there anything
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: in the Bible about a plague of meat rain? Surely
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: there's some sort of supernaturalesque rain, but I don't think
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: it's just straight up meat. Was there's frogs? Yeah yeah, frogs. Yeah,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: they will eventually become meat. I mean, if you're ambitious.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing. Not only did other people see it,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: but to people in the area got their gumption up
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and they said, there's one easy way to figure out
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: what kind of meat this is. Let's taste it. M M. Yeah.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: There was a guy um named Harrison gil who was
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: nearby and who the New York Times article refers to
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: as having unquestionable veracity. So he he spoke the truth. Um,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and he was seeing these pieces of meat like sticking
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: to fences and all scattered every which where. And yeah,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: he was one of the ones that decided, let's give
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: it a taste. And um. It was kind of argued
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: between some of the tasters, the intrepid sky meat tasters
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: whether it was bare or possibly venison or a popular
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: one was mutton, right because they described a slightly gamey
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: taste to it, and mutton and venison especially can meat game.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I've never eaten bear, No I have either, but I
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: would assume it's super dark meat, very very gay, mean
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: all the mutton. To me, it would be the dead
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: giveaway because you know lamb and then he kind of
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: meat like mutton, has a very very distinct taste it
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: It tastes like anything else. Distinct, is the is the
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: correct word? I would think there. And I don't even
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: know if it's legal to eat a bear. That just
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not living the kind of life where that's come up. Yet.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: What about you, Well, this is in so that was
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: probably the wild West as far as bear meats. That's
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a good point. That's a really good point. The first
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: explanation from a man of science at the time comes
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: from a guy named Leopold Brandy's about what three months
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: after the incident, he is able to get ahold of
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: some of the specimens, or it looks like a specimen,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: but he gets some of it in a jar preserved
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: or a bottle preserved in glycerin, and he starts poking
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: around at it, and then he makes the declaration that
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: while this may appear to be meat, it is not
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: actually meet at all. Wait what, Yeah, that's what he said.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: He said it was not in fact meat. He believed
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: it was something called no stock. No stock. Oh that's right.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: This is like a like a plant based organism. Yeah. Yeah,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: it's a Sino bacteria that comes actually from the soil,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: from the ground. You can find out moist rocks, bottoms
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: of lakes and springs. It used to be called troll
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: butter or which jelly back in Europe. You're joking, No,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: that's true. Those are amazing names for food products. I know,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I know, troll jelly or witch butter, troll butter, which jelly,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: but I think either one, you know, they're both evocative.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: This is great. I'm going to use those, yeah, just
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: for I don't know, I don't know why yet, but
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I love those. Yeah, I've I've been thinking the same thing.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: And when this stuff is dry, it's pretty easy to miss.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: But when it's when it's wet, it does have this
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: jelly like I guess you could say maybe meat esk
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: meat esque appearance. But Brandy said that it's pretty easy
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to identify the subject he was He was, also, by
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the way, convinced this was true. The Kentucky wonder is
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: no more or less than nostock, and people have known
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: about the nostock since the sixty hundreds. I mean, that's
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: how you get nicknames like which jelly. But how did it? Where?
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Where did it come from? What was his What was
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: his idea about how this stuff made it up in
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere and then showered down upon this relatively small area.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: It goes back to when it is dry versus when
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: it is wet. So when this stuff is dried so inconspicuous,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: people thought that it would float on the breeze until
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: it rained, and then when it was raining, the nostock
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: would absorb the moisture and then it would fall from
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: this guy as a jelly. Interesting, but that's not the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: only theory that's not the only theory. That's not the
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: only theory. Um. Oh, we shall also mentioned those other nicknames,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Star slubber, I don't know what I want to care for,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: that one that feels somehow dirty, and then star jelly,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: which is still I don't know which is butter, which
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: is jelly? Those are my picks. So he believed Brandy's
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of course, believed that this was the absolute answer. But
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the problem is that for his theory to be correct,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it would have had to have rained at some point,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: or there would have had to be at least some
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: rain bearing clouds in the sky, you know what I mean,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: because the non stock would have to absorb this moisture,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Is perfectly
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: clear day. And this meant that there were going to
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: be other theories. Like you said, no, what was What
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: was one of the other theories that came up? Yeah,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: this is a pretty gross one. Um. It was this
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: notion from a guy named dr Ama Edwards who believed
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: that this meat stuff was actually lung from a horse
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: or possibly an infant, yes, a human child. And now
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: what's the deal with that? There there was a lot
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: of them. That is a lot of lung meat. You
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: don't have to have a lot of babies to make
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: that much lung meat. I mean we're talking like, you know,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: sticking to the fences, bed scattered across the ground. Yeah, yeah,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: that's the problem, right, that explanation, it's even tougher to believe,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: but there is truth to it. Right. They examined seven
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: samples of this meat shower and they confirmed, I believe
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: two of them to be lung tissue, and three were
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: muscle tissue, and two were made of cartilage. So there
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: was lung tissue in there. But how would it come
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: from human infant specifically or a horse? And also how
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: similar are the lungs of a horse and the lungs
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: of a human infant apparently quite apparently distressingly similar, So
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: what gives People couldn't really answer that question, could they?
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: They said, They just said, because it's lung tissue, we
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: believe that it came from human infant or a horse.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: But they didn't really explain how it could have gotten
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: there into the sky then onto the ground to Bath County.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: That's the thing that no one seems to be looking
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: for that particular solution. They're more like, what's what's the meat.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: It is the mystery of the meat, not about how
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: in the hell it ended up coming down from the sky.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: That seems like the least of people's concerns, which is
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: strange because it makes you think about priorities, you know.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: But again, there were more theories, right, some more plausible
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: than others. So one of my favorite theories that actually
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: does try to take a look at how this material
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: could have managed to make it up into the sky
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and and and rain down upon these hapless people of
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Olympia blames this occurrence on a meteor shower. Do tell
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: super meaty meteor shower? Um. So here's a quote from
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the New York Times from William Livingston Alden. He wrote,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: according to the present theory of astronomers, an enormous belt
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: of meteoric stones constantly revolves around the Sun, and when
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the Earth comes in contact with this belt, she has
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: soundly pelted. Okay. He goes on to say, similarly, we
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: may suppose that there revolves around the Sun a belt
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: of venison, mutton, and other meats divided into small fragments
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: which are precipitated upon the Earth whenever the latter crosses
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: their path. Help me unpack that, Ben, I mean it
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: sounds like what it says on the tin. So how
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: likely do you think that is? Not? Mary? I actually
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: saw another version of this theory that said that this
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: was like potentially like alien meat. So this is space venice,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: space meat and space nis alright, space mutton. So that
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: that idea is fascinating. I don't know if it's true.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say it. I don't want to be
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: a pessimist, you know, I don't want to shut the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: guy down. What do you think, Oh, I mean it's bonkers.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: You know, you don't want to live in a world
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: space venison. I don't know, man, I mean that's not
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I don't want to live in that world, just that
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that world exists. How did they
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: get up there? I don't know that it was a
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: real jump. And this guy he's like, so here, there's
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: this thing called asteroids, an asteroid belt. So if there's
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: an asteroid belt, why couldn't there also be a similar
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: belt of meat. Maybe the guy was just very pro belt.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I don't I think it was high. So speaking of high,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: there may be another explanation, and it's an explanation that
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: involves animals, birds, your favorite your your favorites. And this
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: explanation originally came from an old farmer in Ohio, who,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: upon uh learning of the meat shower, said, I have
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: an explanation. It's not space venison. It's not it's not
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: human lung tissue. It's nothing that you guys have said before.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: It is, in fact, something that I've seen vultures do
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: in the past. He said that this deluge of meat
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: was actually a disgorgement of meat from vultures who are
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: flying too high to be visible from the ground. And
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: some vultures can fly as high as like a little
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: less than forty feet or twelve tho, so it'd be
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: tough to see them. And he said that this was
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: vulture vomit. And then a little bit later, a guy
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: named Dr. L. D. Castebine, writing in the Louisville Medical News, said, Yeah,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I think the farmer's right. I think this is vulture vomit.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: And he obtained his own sample and he lit it
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: on fire and he's like, Ah, this is not just mutton,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: it's rancid mutton. And this made him believe that the
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: culprits were vultures. They ate a dead sheep and they
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: flew off, but due to the weight of the meat
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: they were carrying in their bodies, they were having a
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: hard time flying, so they vomited in the sky to
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: make it easier for them to fly. What is the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: thing the vultures do, kind of on the rag, they'll
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: unburden themselves of a heavy load of meat because you know,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: they eat this stuff raw. They also have really acidic
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: stomachs to aid in this digestion, and so sometimes they're
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: so loaded down um from gorging themselves on you know,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Lincoln dead sheep, Like you said that, they have to
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: puke it up just so they can fly properly. And
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: some vultures even vomit on their feet to regulate their temperature.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: That's disgusting. The vultures are filthy, disgusting creatures. They're very different.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: They're very different things. Have you ever seen them up close,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: just to the side of the road. Yeah, you know,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I don't go for them, don't stop. I don't go
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: pick up those times. No, dude. Do you know what
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: a group of vultures is called? It's cool. There's there's
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: a different name for for them, depending on what they're doing.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, later on, So a group of vultures
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: is a committee, a venue, or a vault, which I like,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: which do you prefer? Um? I guess it depends on
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: what they're doing a vault. Well, so then if they're
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: in flight, they're um a kettle. I think I've heard
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: that one yet. And if they're feeding in a group,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: it's because the best one it's called awake. Yes, yeah, yeah,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: But what's a vault. It's just like it's just general.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: They're interchangeable. A group of vultus can be either a committee,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: a venue, or a vault. Do you know what a
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: group of ravens is called? It's an unkindness, Yes, an
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: unkindness of ravens. So this vulture vomit explanation may not
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: be particularly enjoyable or I don't know, it's it can
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: be pretty disgusting, especially when consider those two guys ate it,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: but it does give us the ability to conjecture a
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: little bit about how the vultures came to vomit over
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Bath County. First off, vultures don't tend to fly of
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: their own free will after they eat because they are digesting.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: So this means that something must have startled the vultures.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: We don't know what it was. Was it a sheep
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: on a mission of revenge? Was it a farmer discovering
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the sheep and shooting at the vultures. Yeah. This is
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: coming from a great article from Motherboard called the Mystery
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: of the Kentucky Meat Shower by Kaylee Rogers, and she
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: actually speaks to the vice president for field Programs at
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the Wildlife Conservation Society, who says his name is Joe Walston.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: He says, if you want to take off quickly with
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: a huge amount of weight, the first thing you're going
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: to do is vomit, which I think applies to everyone,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: you know. So I I also pulled some vulture facts
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: from this excellent book I want to recommend if you're
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: ready for a deep dive into human vulture relationships called
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Carrie in Dreams. It's written by a guy named Benjamin
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Joel Wilkinson, and as far as I can tell, man
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: he is just super into the history of vultures, and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: he describes vulture is in folklore and mythology as well.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: You know, if you go back to the ancient days
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: of history, and one of the interesting things is that
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: when and where a vulture vomits is also considered significant
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: in certain cultures or folklore events. It's a sign which
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: is neat you know. For instance, here in Georgia, it
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: used to be common, you know, folk tale belief that
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: if you deeply desire something, all you have to do
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: is wish for it, as you throw a kiss at
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: a vulture, and your wish will come true. But you
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: had to be careful not to speak to a vulture
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: while it was flying overhead, because if you did and
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: it heard, you punish you by vomiting on you. So
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: maybe is that really that really in there, that's really
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: a thing. Yeah, I'm telling you. Carrie and Dreams is
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a great book. It's also a very weird book. But
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: so if that's true, perhaps somebody spoke to a vulture
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: while it was flying over Kentucky. Well here's the thing too,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: It's like this would have had to be a multiple,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: a group puke session, a cattle whole kettle. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: the whole the whole cattle puking, you know. On mass
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: um and and in this Motherboard article, they also speak
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: to the named Kurt Goad, who's an art professor at
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Transylvania University in Lexington, UM and a self professed expert
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: in in meat showers. He proposes that this is definitely
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the most likely scenario that would have happened, because all
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: of the meat was different sizes it came so, which
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: would have made sense if it had come from different
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: animals that were, you know, chewing and feeding on different
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: carcasses or whatever, and then ended up together. Uh. And
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: they couldn't exactly ever figure out what types of animal
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: that came from, but it would have been from all
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: different kinds and that there was some you know, cartilage
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and lung material in there as well. So it's certainly
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: was a mixed bag of meat. And here's the thing,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: we don't know a exactly how much meat actually fell.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: We don't have a measure of you know, x amount
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: of tons or this many pounds. Instead we have what's
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the phrase they use in most of the news at
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: the time, They say it was enough to fill a
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: horse wagon full. And for most people these days, that's
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: not a it's not a very easy rule of thumb
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: kind of measurement. Right. So there's there's a defense that
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Kurt comes up with in this Dr Goad. He says
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: that in eighteen seventy six. If you said, oh, it
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: was a horse wagon full of meat, that was the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: equivalent now of saying it's like a big gulp from McDonald's.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: So his argument is that horse wagons were ubiquitous enough
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: at the time that most people would have a rough
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: idea of what that size meant. I'm trying to picture
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: it him. Sorry, I'm picturing this, this wagon full of meat.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: That's the thing is a lot. Is it a wagon
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: to carry horses or is it a wagon that horses
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: carry behind them? That makes a difference. That's true, And
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm just picturing one of those standard UH
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: wagons with the little slats on the side that would
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: be pulled behind a horse. Yeah, where somebody sits up
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and yeah. So either way, that's a distressing amount of
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: meat to fall from the sky. What do you think
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: is the mystery solved? Well, I mean, with the most
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: logical explanation being vulture vomit. I wonder how those towns
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: people felt about having, you know, snacked on some of
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: that stuff out of curiosity. I think I think at
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the time eating raw meat wasn't quite as you know,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: frowned upon. They weren't really worried about food born illnesses
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: so much. I think yeah, And I believe the idea
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: was that one wouldn't get sick if you just tasted it,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: rather than you know, consuming a large amount of it
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: or a the amount that would be equivalent to a meal.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: It certainly wouldn't have been like, oh, free food, I
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: don't know, from heaven. Yeah, manna, it's not a meaty
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: manna situation. There is a question here that we have
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: for you ridiculous historians. Which explanation do you think is
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the most plausible or which do you wish was the
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: true story. So we've got let's see, we've got human flesh,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: we've got no stock, we've got uh space venison, space meat,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: we've got a curse from a vulture, and then of
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: course we just have a panicked vulture panics kettle of
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: vultures attempting to fly. I'll tell you, man, my favorite
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: my favorites personally are either the space venison or the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: vulture curse. You are all about the space venecine. M Yeah,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that's what people say about me. I guess we should
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: add there are a couple more details that we can
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: add to these theories. One in terms of vulture behavior
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: is that have you ever seen those episodes of South
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Park or Family Guy. It's on so many comedy shows,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: this trope of one person throwing up and then every
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: one seen them throw up, and then they throw up
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: as well in reaction. Yeah, so vultures really do that.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: That's the thing when when they are flying in a group,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: if one goes, they all go. See this is this
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: has got to be the answer. Right, This doesn't invalidate
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a vulture curse. It may mean that the vultures vomit
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: swarmed on them, cursing everyone in the town. So I
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: guess the moral of the story of that theory is
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: true is don't talk to vultures while they're busy, right,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't tell anywhere near the ugly bastards. We had
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: some more details than on Is it a whole new theory?
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Is it's something to add to Well? I was trying
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: to find a little more information about this supposed meat
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: meteor shower, but it's it's it's really not a whole
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: lot out there. It's it's it all kind of comes
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: down to that quote about how there may be a
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: belt of venison mutton and other meats divided into some
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: small fragments that are revolving around the sun, which is bizarre.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: But there's another one. The woman I believe her name
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: was Mary Crouch, who was making soap um. She apparently
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: initially was scared that her husband uh and son I believe,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: had been sucked up into the sky and shredded and
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: eviscerated by an angry god and then rained down upon
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: her uh in retribution for what soap who knows? Who knows?
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Just being a sinner, it's an angry god up there, Ben, Yeah, yeah,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: did you ever read that original sermon? Yeah, sinners in
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the hand of an angry God's a wild one. We
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: should do an episode on that. We should, We should.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Actually I have a lot of that. I have a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: lot of the work from that time. But for now,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: we believe that we have solved to a great degree
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the mystery of the Kentucky meat shower. We didn't do
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: it well, I say, we as the human species. Yeah.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Whatever people say we, they usually mean in a global
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: event like the human species. Right, I agree, I agree,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: And I if I thought of a better musical theme
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: for this episode, actually better than a training meat what
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: is it? Red y is coming down, red rain, It's fallen,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: which is a totally useless Peter Gabriel song to me,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: but completely useful in this context. Well, you're welcome, Peter,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: And what better note to end our show on today.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. Let us know, especially
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: if you happen to live in this area of Kentucky,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: let us know if people still talk about this strange
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: event in eighteen seventies six, and if so, what do
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: they say about it? And have you heard of any
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of the lesser meat showers of other locale I'm very
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: interested to hear that, yeah, Or have you heard of
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: any other extraordinary stories of things falling from the sky
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: in your neck of the Global Woods? If so, let
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: us know. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: especially on our one of our favorite places on the internet,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: our Facebook community page, Ridiculous Historians, where you know, we
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: see some cool stuff. Stuff happens there. It's a it's
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a it's a it's a place uh in our hearts
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: and also on the internet. That's a great way to
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: describe I bit. Additionally, would like to thank, as always,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegrham. I would like think Alex Williams,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: who could posed our theme. Our research pals Christopher Hasciotas
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: and E's Jeff Cooke, and I believe Ben, we have
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a new member to the Ridiculous History Research team as
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Christopher and Eves kind of move on to start working
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: on some stuff of their own. Yes, thank you to
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Gabrielle Losier who Funny Store used to also work with
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: mental flaws. It's awesome. I love that man. Happy to have.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: So that's it for today, but stay tuned for next
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: time when we reveal way, wait, well did you hear that?
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: You know I heard it, Ben, I was gonna just
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: keep going. HiT's time, gentlemen. You know Nathan Strickland, the Quister,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: really leaned into that. Are you well, it's been a
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: long time. I have to it has to make up
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: for lost time. It has been a long time. And
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: although we are swore nemesses, I just want to check
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: in real quick. How how you've been doing? Pretty good?
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Pretty good? Kids are great, you know, uh, just like
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: kids in general interest general. I don't charged myself, but
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you know, they seem to be going to school and
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I understand that's a good thing. Yeah, things, are you
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: know things are fine. Did they learn about the Great
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Kentucky Meat Shower in school or any of the other
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: showers that are implied by that title. Well, in fact,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: we're going to be exploring a shower of our own.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: My friends, get in the shower with me, My buddies,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: come on in. Okay, a shower of the mind. The
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: weird animals are just fine. Now listen. We know that
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I am part of the most cringe worthy segment and
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: all the podcasting and which I had the quisters show
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: up and I pose a scenario to the two of you,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and you determine whether or not it is actually representative
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: of a real thing what happened in history, or I
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: had done made it all up? Seats right, get three minutes.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: You can discuss amongst yourselves for three minutes. A friend,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: can we can we rope Casey into the No. If
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: you had friends, you could in fact phone them. But
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I know for a fact that our friends. That's hurtful.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: We're not friends. Are you kidding? I see? I always
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: confuse this. Okay, okay, But in addition to that, you
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: also add one arbitrary rule, right, so that if you
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: wish to ask any question to me. You must first
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: obey a rule of arbitrary nature that I make up
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: typically two minutes before I come in here. Okay, and
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: you have to do that in order to ask a question.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: I will tell you what that rule is after I
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: have given you your scenario. All right, you know what.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling good, I'm feeling all right. No, casey, I
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: think we got this. I will I'll give you the scenario. Okay,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I will give you your arbitrary rule, and then time
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: will begin, at which point I will vault over to
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: that gigantic grandfather clock, pull the poll cord, going yeah, alright, alright,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: it gets really fumi in here. All right, here's your scenario.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: In to end two. In Shropshire, England, locals were perplexed
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: by what they described as a rain of worms falling
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: upon the village in what amounted to thousands of worms,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: covering the entire area, including the rooftops of several buildings.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: The odd weather was met not with superstition and fear,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: as we'd usually guess, but with a sort of bewildered amusement. However,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: this historical event would later be immortalized by none other
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: than William Shakespeare. Who fudged the date so that it
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: happened more than a year later, on the eve of
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the Battle of Shrewsbury, which features in Henry the Fourth,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Part one inact for seene one, Hairy hotspur Percy, the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: leader of a rebellion against Henry the Fourth, says, yester een,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: they do say that worms fell as though rain, fortune
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: is so disposed to us that nature herself turns against
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: this pretender king. In the mid nineteenth century, when Shakespeare's
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: as became more popular, Shropshire began what would become an
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: annual tradition, a festival day celebrating the rain of worms.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: It happens every year on the second Saturday of April.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: And your arbitrary rule is you must quote Shakespeare, any Shakespeare,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: before asking me a question. Begin the time. I'm taking
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: a run for it. And we are okay, we're good.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: You've made worms meat of me. You have a question? No,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I do, I do um, I don't know. I just
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: wanted to quote some Shakespeare. Don't really have any questions.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: This is a good it's a good quote. Very well.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I bite my thumb at you. Romeo and Juliet reference
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: go ah, okay, so this festival. What's the name of
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: it again? It is known as the Rain of Worms Festival,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: and it is second Saturday of every April. In your story,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: it's ongoing. It is ongoing in your story, it is ongoing, Casey,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: what do you think? Oh? Just for so wait, wait,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: we're letting Casey come into this as earlier and you
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: ignored me and said I had no friends for everything.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: For everybody listening, what happened when you heard that dead
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: air and those pauses between the quister and myself? I
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: was staring at him to read body language somewhat unsuccessfully.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: All right, Casey, what's what's your take? Man? Oh boy? See,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: I hate this because whenever you and nol are not
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: an agreement on something, I'm going to be the tiebreaker.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: And I'm probably gonna get it wrong with this. I
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: don't know. We usually tend to be on the same
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: page pretty quickly. You do rock paper scissors every time,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: so we've got to We've got a stick that works, man.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: But that means that you're at opposition with one another.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: If you were an agreement, you wouldn't have to do
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: rock paper scissors. That's what you can only really do.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Rock paper scissors with friends. I don't know if you
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: have a lot of friends, Jonathan, but if you have
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: friends and you play rock paper scissors. Okay, look, we're
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: in a minute twenty. I kind to think this is true,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: but I could be completely wrong, or it could be
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: from a different shape. But I'm just say or that's
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: kind of how this works, you know. I'm just skeptical
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: that they're of the Initially, I'm skeptical of a festival
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: built on worms, because people in general aren't wild about works. Wow,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: this is this one's taken the longest because usually we
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: we've nailed something down by now we're at fifty seconds.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say not feel you know what. I'm tempted
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: to say the same thing, just because it was so detailed.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: You want to lock it in. Let's lock it in
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and you'll come back if we're okay, alright, three to
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: one false false. You're correct, Yea. There was no reign
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: of words to instructure England. I made up the line
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: from the fourth part one. There's there is a line
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: that does say that that fortune is disposed to us,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: but Hotspur says it in a completely different context. There's
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: no festival of the rain of worms. I would think
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: I would have heard of this. It's a little love
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: crafty and just from England. You probably wouldn't have heard
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: that I had. I had prepared an explanation or description
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: of the festival, but you you, you had sussed it
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: out so early that I didn't have a chance to
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Where does this further? Where is the count? Now? Where
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: does this put us? Oh, you're getting a little closer.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I want to say that maybe I'm one or two headed. Honestly,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: it's been so long that I just declared myself supreme
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: winner of Old things world. Hey, I've got an idea.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: You should. You should come back. So you want to
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: have you have another matching of wits? Oh that's that's
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: a strong word. I just I thought I would give
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: you another chance to do a little better. Next time.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I'll go and count them up if you want me to.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I'm at least one or two ahead.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: But it is on like the key Kong, Mr Bolan, fantastic, fantastic. Well, no,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: we gotta win. We did get away. Sometimes you just
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: need a win. And thanks Casey, thanks for thanks for
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: intervening in there too. That was really cool. I I
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: appreciate that you believe in me, Casey. So this concludes
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: our episode, but not our show. Stay tuned next time
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: when we explore the strange, hilarious, somewhat disgusting, definitely ridiculous
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: method that scientists use to trace the path of the
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark expedition. It's the smell test.