History knows a lot of examples of falling rain with fish, frogs, earthworms or even with the inhabitants of the ocean – octopuses and mussels, but what happened in the US March 3, 1876 is still a mystery.
On March 3, 1876, large pieces of meat fell from the sky over Olympia Springs in Kat County, Kentucky. This phenomenon occurred right near the house of Allen Crouch, who became an eyewitness of an unusual phenomenon.
As told to the journalists Crouch that day the sky was absolutely clear, no clouds or clouds foretelling rain. Suddenly, large pieces of meat began to fall from the sky, resembling beef in texture.
And the locals who fled to the house of Crouch caught a moment of “meat rain” when pieces of meat fell from the sky like snowflakes covering everything around. The meat was scattered over a large area, it lay on the ground, roofs and hung on fences. Most of the small pieces had a size of 5 to 5 centimeters, but there were also large pieces.
The most interesting thing is that the meat was fresh, the pieces juicy and not rotten. Two local gentlemen even ventured to cook and eat the meat fallen from the sky and according to them it tasted like venison or lamb to taste. Samples of meat fallen from the sky were collected and stored in the glycerin by a local teacher, and three months later the Institute analyzed these samples, but it was not possible to determine the exact identity of the meat.
To reassure the God-fearing public, which already gave the title to this phenomenon – “The Meat of Witches” and “The Miracle in Kentucky,” it was announced that this is not meat at all, but a type of cyanobacteria forming colonies surrounded by a protective gelatinous membrane.
This phenomenon scientists called “Star Jelly”, but their explanation of the local residents did not reassure, because no rain could bring these clots of bacteria that day was not observed, and the local citizens were certainly able to distinguish meat from some gelatinous mass.
Eventually, samples of this meat were given for analysis to the experienced histologist and president of the Newark Science Association, Dr. A. Mead Edwards, who said that it was probably nothing more than lung tissue belonging to a person or horse. Another histologist, Dr. JWS Arnold, studied the samples and agreed with Mead, concluding in the “American Journal of Microscopy and Folk Science” that the samples consist of some animal cartilage and lung tissue.
In the end, seven samples were examined by several scientists who confirmed that two are pulmonary tissue, three are muscle tissue, and two of the cartilage.
This news as one can understand was not pleased with the inhabitants of Olympia Springs and there they believed in the supernatural nature of what had happened. Scientists made public their version of the reasons for the incident, which said that the cause of the “meat rain” were vultures, allegedly a whole flock of black vultures or Indian vultures flew over the city, and before that, she somewhere, someone found something and took food with them prozapas, but something frightened them and they all threw their prey, covering the city with pieces of meat.
As you know, no flocks of vultures, or vultures, none of the residents at the time of the anomalous rain did not see. Therefore, no one took seriously the assertions of scientists, and the mystery of this unusual rain remained undisclosed …
