On March 3rd, 1876, on a clear afternoon in Bath County, Kentucky, chunks of raw meat fell from a cloudless sky onto a farm near Olympian Springs. The event lasted approximately two minutes. The meat covered an area roughly the size of a football field, in pieces ranging from the size of a hailstorm to the size of a woman's hand. The New York Times reported it. Scientific American wrote it up. Laboratories across the country analyzed the samples and confirmed they were genuine animal tissue—lung, muscle, cartilage, and connective tissue. Real meat. From a clear sky. With no explanation before or after.

Host Shawn Spainhour takes you into the full story: Rebecca Crouch, who was standing outside making soap when it started; the scientists who raced to identify what exactly had fallen; the leading theory involving mass-vomiting vultures; and t ...