Short Stuff: Kentucky Meat Shower

The podcast "Short Stuff" explores the bizarre 1876 Kentucky Meat Shower incident, where chunks of unidentified meat rained down on a homestead. Initial theories ranged from rehydrated frog spawn to a vegetable-like cyanobacteria called "Gnostic," but these were dismissed due to the clear skies during the event. A chemistry professor proposed the widely accepted explanation: mass vulture vomiting. Vultures, capable of flying up to 20,000 feet, could have simultaneously regurgitated their meals, which consisted of already decomposing animal flesh. An art professor, Kurt Goda, even created Kentucky Meat Shower jelly beans based on flavor compounds from the incident, which tasters described as bacon-like or reminiscent of rotten lamb.