November 13, 2018 • 34 mins
On March 3rd, 1876, residents of Bath County, Kentucky were startled to see what appeared to be chunks and flakes of meat falling from the clear, cloudless sky. The rain, which only lasted a few minutes, captured national attention. People across the country proposed various theories explaining the deluge, and today the guys believe they've finally solved the mystery.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yea. Let's start today's episode with a quotation from The
New York Times on March tenth, eighteen seventy six. We'll
just give you the headline here, flesh descending in a shower,
(00:34):
an astounding phenomenon in Kentucky, fresh meat like mutton or
venison falling from a clear sky. Yea, yes, they said
like mutton or like venison. But what was it? Hi,
I'm Ben, Okay, I'm no, and uh it's rain and
meat rain. Yeah, it was a singer when I walked in.
(00:56):
Why you gotta one on me? Ben? Now you didn't
even right. It's rating min No, that's true. Oh but
we are also joined by our super producer, Casey Pegram,
and this is the first time the three of us
have been back on the show together in a little
in a little while, isn't it. Yeah, I guess it
has been a minute, probably like a like a month
(01:17):
or something. Oh yeah, that voice from the sky like
like like showers of meat in our ears. Super producer
Casey Pegram, Man, I've missed you, guys, missed you. I know.
It's weird. Casey was in France for a while and
then we were away and then I was away last week,
and here we are. Here we are, and we decided,
(01:37):
now that the three of us have reunited after far
too long, that we were going to pick up our
continuing mission to do an episode for every state in
the United States. Uh, and we're going to hopefully succeed.
Where Sufyan paused for a second, he just I think
it was a troll. Honestly, I don't think he had
any intention of doing it. He only made two. Maybe
(02:00):
he's got a back cat. Maybe he's just really stuck
on Rhode Island. You mean, like a vault maybe unreleased
state records that no one's gonna ever hear, sort of
like J. D. Salinger had all those stories that no
one saw him laughters. Idn't know that, Yeah, but hopefully
a little bit different. Well, speaking of stories, speaking of stories,
(02:20):
no we got one today. We do. We do, so
this episode will count for our our Kentucky episode, right
And from this headline you can tell that we're describing
something pretty bizarre. You see, back in March nine of
what do we say eighteen seventy six? Yeah, back in
(02:42):
March ninth in Bath County, Kentucky, there was someone named
Alan Crouch. This guy lived about two or three miles
from a place we've seen alternately called Olympian Springs in
the original New York Times piece, but then later called
what was that Olympia Springs? Who knows? Who knows? Probably
the people that lived there, right, And Mrs Crouch was
(03:06):
out in the yard at the time. She was making soap,
and then she looked around. She heard the pitter pattern
of what she thought was, you know, maybe the beginning
of rain on a clear day without a cloud in
the sky. And she looked around, and what was falling
in her yard was not rain, not precipitation. It was meat. Yeah,
(03:30):
in an event that would go down in history as
the Great Kentucky Meat Shower, which is not some kind
of crazy mullet right right, or or weird euphemism. Also,
I love the fact that they added great to the
name because it implies that there were some other relatively
mediocre there. There had to have been some lesser meat showers. Um,
(03:51):
But what what happened? Why? Why why was meat raining
from the sky? And it wasn't. It wasn't just like
little pieces of meat. It was like all kinds of
from sized pieces of meat. Yes, yeah, the ones that
Mrs Crouch saw where three to four inches square, so
pretty substantial, you know. And other people saw this too,
(04:11):
It wasn't just Mrs Crouch. And people try to immediately
figure out what this could be. And we have to
remember that the people in this area at this time
were well aware of other anecdotal stories of strange things
falling from the sky rains of fish, for instance, you know,
or or a rain of stones, but these were often
(04:33):
considered to be um stories of old you know, things
you would read about in ancient text. Is there anything
in the Bible about a plague of meat rain? Surely
there's some sort of supernaturalesque rain, but I don't think
it's just straight up meat. Was there's frogs? Yeah yeah, frogs. Yeah,
they will eventually become meat. I mean, if you're ambitious.
(04:57):
And here's the thing. Not only did other people see it,
but to people in the area got their gumption up
and they said, there's one easy way to figure out
what kind of meat this is. Let's taste it. M M. Yeah.
There was a guy um named Harrison gil who was
nearby and who the New York Times article refers to
(05:17):
as having unquestionable veracity. So he he spoke the truth. Um,
and he was seeing these pieces of meat like sticking
to fences and all scattered every which where. And yeah,
he was one of the ones that decided, let's give
it a taste. And um. It was kind of argued
between some of the tasters, the intrepid sky meat tasters
(05:40):
whether it was bare or possibly venison or a popular
one was mutton, right because they described a slightly gamey
taste to it, and mutton and venison especially can meat game.
I've never eaten bear, No I have either, but I
would assume it's super dark meat, very very gay, mean
all the mutton. To me, it would be the dead
(06:02):
giveaway because you know lamb and then he kind of
meat like mutton, has a very very distinct taste it
It tastes like anything else. Distinct, is the is the
correct word? I would think there. And I don't even
know if it's legal to eat a bear. That just
I'm not living the kind of life where that's come up. Yet.
What about you, Well, this is in so that was
probably the wild West as far as bear meats. That's
(06:23):
a good point. That's a really good point. The first
explanation from a man of science at the time comes
from a guy named Leopold Brandy's about what three months
after the incident, he is able to get ahold of
some of the specimens, or it looks like a specimen,
but he gets some of it in a jar preserved
(06:47):
or a bottle preserved in glycerin, and he starts poking
around at it, and then he makes the declaration that
while this may appear to be meat, it is not
actually meet at all. Wait what, Yeah, that's what he said.
He said it was not in fact meat. He believed
it was something called no stock. No stock. Oh that's right.
(07:08):
This is like a like a plant based organism. Yeah. Yeah,
it's a Sino bacteria that comes actually from the soil,
from the ground. You can find out moist rocks, bottoms
of lakes and springs. It used to be called troll
butter or which jelly back in Europe. You're joking, No,
that's true. Those are amazing names for food products. I know,
(07:29):
I know, troll jelly or witch butter, troll butter, which jelly,
but I think either one, you know, they're both evocative.
This is great. I'm going to use those, yeah, just
for I don't know, I don't know why yet, but
I love those. Yeah, I've I've been thinking the same thing.
And when this stuff is dry, it's pretty easy to miss.
But when it's when it's wet, it does have this
(07:50):
jelly like I guess you could say maybe meat esk
meat esque appearance. But Brandy said that it's pretty easy
to identify the subject he was He was, also, by
the way, convinced this was true. The Kentucky wonder is
no more or less than nostock, and people have known
about the nostock since the sixty hundreds. I mean, that's
(08:12):
how you get nicknames like which jelly. But how did it? Where?
Where did it come from? What was his What was
his idea about how this stuff made it up in
the atmosphere and then showered down upon this relatively small area.
It goes back to when it is dry versus when
it is wet. So when this stuff is dried so inconspicuous,
people thought that it would float on the breeze until
(08:35):
it rained, and then when it was raining, the nostock
would absorb the moisture and then it would fall from
this guy as a jelly. Interesting, but that's not the
only theory that's not the only theory. That's not the
only theory. Um. Oh, we shall also mentioned those other nicknames,
Star slubber, I don't know what I want to care for,
that one that feels somehow dirty, and then star jelly,
(08:58):
which is still I don't know which is butter, which
is jelly? Those are my picks. So he believed Brandy's
of course, believed that this was the absolute answer. But
the problem is that for his theory to be correct,
it would have had to have rained at some point,
(09:20):
or there would have had to be at least some
rain bearing clouds in the sky, you know what I mean,
because the non stock would have to absorb this moisture,
and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Is perfectly
clear day. And this meant that there were going to
be other theories. Like you said, no, what was What
was one of the other theories that came up? Yeah,
(09:40):
this is a pretty gross one. Um. It was this
notion from a guy named dr Ama Edwards who believed
that this meat stuff was actually lung from a horse
or possibly an infant, yes, a human child. And now
what's the deal with that? There there was a lot
of them. That is a lot of lung meat. You
(10:02):
don't have to have a lot of babies to make
that much lung meat. I mean we're talking like, you know,
sticking to the fences, bed scattered across the ground. Yeah, yeah,
that's the problem, right, that explanation, it's even tougher to believe,
but there is truth to it. Right. They examined seven
samples of this meat shower and they confirmed, I believe
two of them to be lung tissue, and three were
(10:26):
muscle tissue, and two were made of cartilage. So there
was lung tissue in there. But how would it come
from human infant specifically or a horse? And also how
similar are the lungs of a horse and the lungs
of a human infant apparently quite apparently distressingly similar, So
what gives People couldn't really answer that question, could they?
(10:49):
They said, They just said, because it's lung tissue, we
believe that it came from human infant or a horse.
But they didn't really explain how it could have gotten
there into the sky then onto the ground to Bath County.
That's the thing that no one seems to be looking
for that particular solution. They're more like, what's what's the meat.
It is the mystery of the meat, not about how
(11:09):
in the hell it ended up coming down from the sky.
That seems like the least of people's concerns, which is
strange because it makes you think about priorities, you know.
But again, there were more theories, right, some more plausible
than others. So one of my favorite theories that actually
(11:32):
does try to take a look at how this material
could have managed to make it up into the sky
and and and rain down upon these hapless people of
Olympia blames this occurrence on a meteor shower. Do tell
super meaty meteor shower? Um. So here's a quote from
the New York Times from William Livingston Alden. He wrote,
(11:55):
according to the present theory of astronomers, an enormous belt
of meteoric stones constantly revolves around the Sun, and when
the Earth comes in contact with this belt, she has
soundly pelted. Okay. He goes on to say, similarly, we
may suppose that there revolves around the Sun a belt
of venison, mutton, and other meats divided into small fragments
(12:15):
which are precipitated upon the Earth whenever the latter crosses
their path. Help me unpack that, Ben, I mean it
sounds like what it says on the tin. So how
likely do you think that is? Not? Mary? I actually
saw another version of this theory that said that this
was like potentially like alien meat. So this is space venice,
(12:37):
space meat and space nis alright, space mutton. So that
that idea is fascinating. I don't know if it's true.
I'm just gonna say it. I don't want to be
a pessimist, you know, I don't want to shut the
guy down. What do you think, Oh, I mean it's bonkers.
You know, you don't want to live in a world
space venison. I don't know, man, I mean that's not
(12:58):
I don't want to live in that world, just that
I don't know that that world exists. How did they
get up there? I don't know that it was a
real jump. And this guy he's like, so here, there's
this thing called asteroids, an asteroid belt. So if there's
an asteroid belt, why couldn't there also be a similar
belt of meat. Maybe the guy was just very pro belt.
I don't I think it was high. So speaking of high,
(13:22):
there may be another explanation, and it's an explanation that
involves animals, birds, your favorite your your favorites. And this
explanation originally came from an old farmer in Ohio, who,
upon uh learning of the meat shower, said, I have
(13:46):
an explanation. It's not space venison. It's not it's not
human lung tissue. It's nothing that you guys have said before.
It is, in fact, something that I've seen vultures do
in the past. He said that this deluge of meat
was actually a disgorgement of meat from vultures who are
(14:08):
flying too high to be visible from the ground. And
some vultures can fly as high as like a little
less than forty feet or twelve tho, so it'd be
tough to see them. And he said that this was
vulture vomit. And then a little bit later, a guy
named Dr. L. D. Castebine, writing in the Louisville Medical News, said, Yeah,
(14:33):
I think the farmer's right. I think this is vulture vomit.
And he obtained his own sample and he lit it
on fire and he's like, Ah, this is not just mutton,
it's rancid mutton. And this made him believe that the
culprits were vultures. They ate a dead sheep and they
flew off, but due to the weight of the meat
(14:54):
they were carrying in their bodies, they were having a
hard time flying, so they vomited in the sky to
make it easier for them to fly. What is the
thing the vultures do, kind of on the rag, they'll
unburden themselves of a heavy load of meat because you know,
they eat this stuff raw. They also have really acidic
stomachs to aid in this digestion, and so sometimes they're
(15:17):
so loaded down um from gorging themselves on you know,
Lincoln dead sheep, Like you said that, they have to
puke it up just so they can fly properly. And
some vultures even vomit on their feet to regulate their temperature.
That's disgusting. The vultures are filthy, disgusting creatures. They're very different.
They're very different things. Have you ever seen them up close,
(15:38):
just to the side of the road. Yeah, you know,
I don't go for them, don't stop. I don't go
pick up those times. No, dude. Do you know what
a group of vultures is called? It's cool. There's there's
a different name for for them, depending on what they're doing.
Oh yeah, yeah, later on, So a group of vultures
is a committee, a venue, or a vault, which I like,
which do you prefer? Um? I guess it depends on
(16:00):
what they're doing a vault. Well, so then if they're
in flight, they're um a kettle. I think I've heard
that one yet. And if they're feeding in a group,
it's because the best one it's called awake. Yes, yeah, yeah,
But what's a vault. It's just like it's just general.
They're interchangeable. A group of vultus can be either a committee,
a venue, or a vault. Do you know what a
(16:21):
group of ravens is called? It's an unkindness, Yes, an
unkindness of ravens. So this vulture vomit explanation may not
be particularly enjoyable or I don't know, it's it can
be pretty disgusting, especially when consider those two guys ate it,
(16:42):
but it does give us the ability to conjecture a
little bit about how the vultures came to vomit over
Bath County. First off, vultures don't tend to fly of
their own free will after they eat because they are digesting.
So this means that something must have startled the vultures.
(17:02):
We don't know what it was. Was it a sheep
on a mission of revenge? Was it a farmer discovering
the sheep and shooting at the vultures. Yeah. This is
coming from a great article from Motherboard called the Mystery
of the Kentucky Meat Shower by Kaylee Rogers, and she
actually speaks to the vice president for field Programs at
(17:22):
the Wildlife Conservation Society, who says his name is Joe Walston.
He says, if you want to take off quickly with
a huge amount of weight, the first thing you're going
to do is vomit, which I think applies to everyone,
you know. So I I also pulled some vulture facts
from this excellent book I want to recommend if you're
(17:42):
ready for a deep dive into human vulture relationships called
Carrie in Dreams. It's written by a guy named Benjamin
Joel Wilkinson, and as far as I can tell, man
he is just super into the history of vultures, and
he describes vulture is in folklore and mythology as well.
(18:02):
You know, if you go back to the ancient days
of history, and one of the interesting things is that
when and where a vulture vomits is also considered significant
in certain cultures or folklore events. It's a sign which
is neat you know. For instance, here in Georgia, it
used to be common, you know, folk tale belief that
(18:24):
if you deeply desire something, all you have to do
is wish for it, as you throw a kiss at
a vulture, and your wish will come true. But you
had to be careful not to speak to a vulture
while it was flying overhead, because if you did and
it heard, you punish you by vomiting on you. So
maybe is that really that really in there, that's really
a thing. Yeah, I'm telling you. Carrie and Dreams is
(18:45):
a great book. It's also a very weird book. But
so if that's true, perhaps somebody spoke to a vulture
while it was flying over Kentucky. Well here's the thing too,
It's like this would have had to be a multiple,
a group puke session, a cattle whole kettle. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
the whole the whole cattle puking, you know. On mass
(19:09):
um and and in this Motherboard article, they also speak
to the named Kurt Goad, who's an art professor at
Transylvania University in Lexington, UM and a self professed expert
in in meat showers. He proposes that this is definitely
the most likely scenario that would have happened, because all
(19:30):
of the meat was different sizes it came so, which
would have made sense if it had come from different
animals that were, you know, chewing and feeding on different
carcasses or whatever, and then ended up together. Uh. And
they couldn't exactly ever figure out what types of animal
that came from, but it would have been from all
different kinds and that there was some you know, cartilage
(19:51):
and lung material in there as well. So it's certainly
was a mixed bag of meat. And here's the thing,
we don't know a exactly how much meat actually fell.
We don't have a measure of you know, x amount
of tons or this many pounds. Instead we have what's
the phrase they use in most of the news at
(20:12):
the time, They say it was enough to fill a
horse wagon full. And for most people these days, that's
not a it's not a very easy rule of thumb
kind of measurement. Right. So there's there's a defense that
Kurt comes up with in this Dr Goad. He says
that in eighteen seventy six. If you said, oh, it
(20:33):
was a horse wagon full of meat, that was the
equivalent now of saying it's like a big gulp from McDonald's.
So his argument is that horse wagons were ubiquitous enough
at the time that most people would have a rough
idea of what that size meant. I'm trying to picture
it him. Sorry, I'm picturing this, this wagon full of meat.
That's the thing is a lot. Is it a wagon
(20:54):
to carry horses or is it a wagon that horses
carry behind them? That makes a difference. That's true, And
I guess I'm just picturing one of those standard UH
wagons with the little slats on the side that would
be pulled behind a horse. Yeah, where somebody sits up
and yeah. So either way, that's a distressing amount of
meat to fall from the sky. What do you think
(21:16):
is the mystery solved? Well, I mean, with the most
logical explanation being vulture vomit. I wonder how those towns
people felt about having, you know, snacked on some of
that stuff out of curiosity. I think I think at
the time eating raw meat wasn't quite as you know,
frowned upon. They weren't really worried about food born illnesses
so much. I think yeah, And I believe the idea
(21:38):
was that one wouldn't get sick if you just tasted it,
rather than you know, consuming a large amount of it
or a the amount that would be equivalent to a meal.
It certainly wouldn't have been like, oh, free food, I
don't know, from heaven. Yeah, manna, it's not a meaty
manna situation. There is a question here that we have
(22:03):
for you ridiculous historians. Which explanation do you think is
the most plausible or which do you wish was the
true story. So we've got let's see, we've got human flesh,
we've got no stock, we've got uh space venison, space meat,
we've got a curse from a vulture, and then of
(22:25):
course we just have a panicked vulture panics kettle of
vultures attempting to fly. I'll tell you, man, my favorite
my favorites personally are either the space venison or the
vulture curse. You are all about the space venecine. M Yeah,
that's what people say about me. I guess we should
add there are a couple more details that we can
(22:46):
add to these theories. One in terms of vulture behavior
is that have you ever seen those episodes of South
Park or Family Guy. It's on so many comedy shows,
this trope of one person throwing up and then every
one seen them throw up, and then they throw up
as well in reaction. Yeah, so vultures really do that.
(23:06):
That's the thing when when they are flying in a group,
if one goes, they all go. See this is this
has got to be the answer. Right, This doesn't invalidate
a vulture curse. It may mean that the vultures vomit
swarmed on them, cursing everyone in the town. So I
guess the moral of the story of that theory is
true is don't talk to vultures while they're busy, right,
(23:27):
I wouldn't tell anywhere near the ugly bastards. We had
some more details than on Is it a whole new theory?
Is it's something to add to Well? I was trying
to find a little more information about this supposed meat
meteor shower, but it's it's it's really not a whole
lot out there. It's it's it all kind of comes
down to that quote about how there may be a
belt of venison mutton and other meats divided into some
(23:50):
small fragments that are revolving around the sun, which is bizarre.
But there's another one. The woman I believe her name
was Mary Crouch, who was making soap um. She apparently
initially was scared that her husband uh and son I believe,
had been sucked up into the sky and shredded and
eviscerated by an angry god and then rained down upon
(24:14):
her uh in retribution for what soap who knows? Who knows?
Just being a sinner, it's an angry god up there, Ben, Yeah, yeah,
did you ever read that original sermon? Yeah, sinners in
the hand of an angry God's a wild one. We
should do an episode on that. We should, We should.
Actually I have a lot of that. I have a
(24:34):
lot of the work from that time. But for now,
we believe that we have solved to a great degree
the mystery of the Kentucky meat shower. We didn't do
it well, I say, we as the human species. Yeah.
Whatever people say we, they usually mean in a global
event like the human species. Right, I agree, I agree,
And I if I thought of a better musical theme
(24:55):
for this episode, actually better than a training meat what
is it? Red y is coming down, red rain, It's fallen,
which is a totally useless Peter Gabriel song to me,
but completely useful in this context. Well, you're welcome, Peter,
And what better note to end our show on today.
Thank you so much for listening. Let us know, especially
(25:17):
if you happen to live in this area of Kentucky,
let us know if people still talk about this strange
event in eighteen seventies six, and if so, what do
they say about it? And have you heard of any
of the lesser meat showers of other locale I'm very
interested to hear that, yeah, Or have you heard of
any other extraordinary stories of things falling from the sky
in your neck of the Global Woods? If so, let
(25:38):
us know. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
especially on our one of our favorite places on the internet,
our Facebook community page, Ridiculous Historians, where you know, we
see some cool stuff. Stuff happens there. It's a it's
a it's a it's a place uh in our hearts
and also on the internet. That's a great way to
(25:59):
describe I bit. Additionally, would like to thank, as always,
super producer Casey Pegrham. I would like think Alex Williams,
who could posed our theme. Our research pals Christopher Hasciotas
and E's Jeff Cooke, and I believe Ben, we have
a new member to the Ridiculous History Research team as
Christopher and Eves kind of move on to start working
on some stuff of their own. Yes, thank you to
(26:20):
Gabrielle Losier who Funny Store used to also work with
mental flaws. It's awesome. I love that man. Happy to have.
So that's it for today, but stay tuned for next
time when we reveal way, wait, well did you hear that?
You know I heard it, Ben, I was gonna just
keep going. HiT's time, gentlemen. You know Nathan Strickland, the Quister,
(26:42):
really leaned into that. Are you well, it's been a
long time. I have to it has to make up
for lost time. It has been a long time. And
although we are swore nemesses, I just want to check
in real quick. How how you've been doing? Pretty good?
Pretty good? Kids are great, you know, uh, just like
kids in general interest general. I don't charged myself, but
you know, they seem to be going to school and
(27:03):
I understand that's a good thing. Yeah, things, are you
know things are fine. Did they learn about the Great
Kentucky Meat Shower in school or any of the other
showers that are implied by that title. Well, in fact,
we're going to be exploring a shower of our own.
My friends, get in the shower with me, My buddies,
come on in. Okay, a shower of the mind. The
(27:25):
weird animals are just fine. Now listen. We know that
I am part of the most cringe worthy segment and
all the podcasting and which I had the quisters show
up and I pose a scenario to the two of you,
and you determine whether or not it is actually representative
(27:46):
of a real thing what happened in history, or I
had done made it all up? Seats right, get three minutes.
You can discuss amongst yourselves for three minutes. A friend,
can we can we rope Casey into the No. If
you had friends, you could in fact phone them. But
I know for a fact that our friends. That's hurtful.
We're not friends. Are you kidding? I see? I always
(28:09):
confuse this. Okay, okay, But in addition to that, you
also add one arbitrary rule, right, so that if you
wish to ask any question to me. You must first
obey a rule of arbitrary nature that I make up
typically two minutes before I come in here. Okay, and
you have to do that in order to ask a question.
I will tell you what that rule is after I
(28:31):
have given you your scenario. All right, you know what.
I'm feeling good, I'm feeling all right. No, casey, I
think we got this. I will I'll give you the scenario. Okay,
I will give you your arbitrary rule, and then time
will begin, at which point I will vault over to
that gigantic grandfather clock, pull the poll cord, going yeah, alright, alright,
(28:54):
it gets really fumi in here. All right, here's your scenario.
In to end two. In Shropshire, England, locals were perplexed
by what they described as a rain of worms falling
upon the village in what amounted to thousands of worms,
covering the entire area, including the rooftops of several buildings.
(29:16):
The odd weather was met not with superstition and fear,
as we'd usually guess, but with a sort of bewildered amusement. However,
this historical event would later be immortalized by none other
than William Shakespeare. Who fudged the date so that it
happened more than a year later, on the eve of
(29:36):
the Battle of Shrewsbury, which features in Henry the Fourth,
Part one inact for seene one, Hairy hotspur Percy, the
leader of a rebellion against Henry the Fourth, says, yester een,
they do say that worms fell as though rain, fortune
is so disposed to us that nature herself turns against
this pretender king. In the mid nineteenth century, when Shakespeare's
(30:00):
as became more popular, Shropshire began what would become an
annual tradition, a festival day celebrating the rain of worms.
It happens every year on the second Saturday of April.
And your arbitrary rule is you must quote Shakespeare, any Shakespeare,
before asking me a question. Begin the time. I'm taking
(30:22):
a run for it. And we are okay, we're good.
You've made worms meat of me. You have a question? No,
I do, I do um, I don't know. I just
wanted to quote some Shakespeare. Don't really have any questions.
This is a good it's a good quote. Very well.
I bite my thumb at you. Romeo and Juliet reference
(30:44):
go ah, okay, so this festival. What's the name of
it again? It is known as the Rain of Worms Festival,
and it is second Saturday of every April. In your story,
it's ongoing. It is ongoing in your story, it is ongoing, Casey,
what do you think? Oh? Just for so wait, wait,
we're letting Casey come into this as earlier and you
(31:07):
ignored me and said I had no friends for everything.
For everybody listening, what happened when you heard that dead
air and those pauses between the quister and myself? I
was staring at him to read body language somewhat unsuccessfully.
All right, Casey, what's what's your take? Man? Oh boy? See,
I hate this because whenever you and nol are not
(31:28):
an agreement on something, I'm going to be the tiebreaker.
And I'm probably gonna get it wrong with this. I
don't know. We usually tend to be on the same
page pretty quickly. You do rock paper scissors every time,
so we've got to We've got a stick that works, man.
But that means that you're at opposition with one another.
If you were an agreement, you wouldn't have to do
rock paper scissors. That's what you can only really do.
Rock paper scissors with friends. I don't know if you
(31:52):
have a lot of friends, Jonathan, but if you have
friends and you play rock paper scissors. Okay, look, we're
in a minute twenty. I kind to think this is true,
but I could be completely wrong, or it could be
from a different shape. But I'm just say or that's
kind of how this works, you know. I'm just skeptical
that they're of the Initially, I'm skeptical of a festival
(32:13):
built on worms, because people in general aren't wild about works. Wow,
this is this one's taken the longest because usually we
we've nailed something down by now we're at fifty seconds.
I'm gonna say not feel you know what. I'm tempted
to say the same thing, just because it was so detailed.
(32:35):
You want to lock it in. Let's lock it in
and you'll come back if we're okay, alright, three to
one false false. You're correct, Yea. There was no reign
of words to instructure England. I made up the line
(32:57):
from the fourth part one. There's there is a line
that does say that that fortune is disposed to us,
but Hotspur says it in a completely different context. There's
no festival of the rain of worms. I would think
I would have heard of this. It's a little love
crafty and just from England. You probably wouldn't have heard
(33:17):
that I had. I had prepared an explanation or description
of the festival, but you you, you had sussed it
out so early that I didn't have a chance to
Where does this further? Where is the count? Now? Where
does this put us? Oh, you're getting a little closer.
I want to say that maybe I'm one or two headed. Honestly,
it's been so long that I just declared myself supreme
winner of Old things world. Hey, I've got an idea.
(33:39):
You should. You should come back. So you want to
have you have another matching of wits? Oh that's that's
a strong word. I just I thought I would give
you another chance to do a little better. Next time.
I'll go and count them up if you want me to.
I'm pretty sure I'm at least one or two ahead.
But it is on like the key Kong, Mr Bolan, fantastic, fantastic. Well, no,
(34:04):
we gotta win. We did get away. Sometimes you just
need a win. And thanks Casey, thanks for thanks for
intervening in there too. That was really cool. I I
appreciate that you believe in me, Casey. So this concludes
our episode, but not our show. Stay tuned next time
when we explore the strange, hilarious, somewhat disgusting, definitely ridiculous
(34:27):
method that scientists use to trace the path of the
Lewis and Clark expedition. It's the smell test.
Yea. Let's start today's episode with a quotation from The
New York Times on March tenth, eighteen seventy six. We'll
just give you the headline here, flesh descending in a shower,
(00:34):
an astounding phenomenon in Kentucky, fresh meat like mutton or
venison falling from a clear sky. Yea, yes, they said
like mutton or like venison. But what was it? Hi,
I'm Ben, Okay, I'm no, and uh it's rain and
meat rain. Yeah, it was a singer when I walked in.
(00:56):
Why you gotta one on me? Ben? Now you didn't
even right. It's rating min No, that's true. Oh but
we are also joined by our super producer, Casey Pegram,
and this is the first time the three of us
have been back on the show together in a little
in a little while, isn't it. Yeah, I guess it
has been a minute, probably like a like a month
(01:17):
or something. Oh yeah, that voice from the sky like
like like showers of meat in our ears. Super producer
Casey Pegram, Man, I've missed you, guys, missed you. I know.
It's weird. Casey was in France for a while and
then we were away and then I was away last week,
and here we are. Here we are, and we decided,
(01:37):
now that the three of us have reunited after far
too long, that we were going to pick up our
continuing mission to do an episode for every state in
the United States. Uh, and we're going to hopefully succeed.
Where Sufyan paused for a second, he just I think
it was a troll. Honestly, I don't think he had
any intention of doing it. He only made two. Maybe
(02:00):
he's got a back cat. Maybe he's just really stuck
on Rhode Island. You mean, like a vault maybe unreleased
state records that no one's gonna ever hear, sort of
like J. D. Salinger had all those stories that no
one saw him laughters. Idn't know that, Yeah, but hopefully
a little bit different. Well, speaking of stories, speaking of stories,
(02:20):
no we got one today. We do. We do, so
this episode will count for our our Kentucky episode, right
And from this headline you can tell that we're describing
something pretty bizarre. You see, back in March nine of
what do we say eighteen seventy six? Yeah, back in
(02:42):
March ninth in Bath County, Kentucky, there was someone named
Alan Crouch. This guy lived about two or three miles
from a place we've seen alternately called Olympian Springs in
the original New York Times piece, but then later called
what was that Olympia Springs? Who knows? Who knows? Probably
the people that lived there, right, And Mrs Crouch was
(03:06):
out in the yard at the time. She was making soap,
and then she looked around. She heard the pitter pattern
of what she thought was, you know, maybe the beginning
of rain on a clear day without a cloud in
the sky. And she looked around, and what was falling
in her yard was not rain, not precipitation. It was meat. Yeah,
(03:30):
in an event that would go down in history as
the Great Kentucky Meat Shower, which is not some kind
of crazy mullet right right, or or weird euphemism. Also,
I love the fact that they added great to the
name because it implies that there were some other relatively
mediocre there. There had to have been some lesser meat showers. Um,
(03:51):
But what what happened? Why? Why why was meat raining
from the sky? And it wasn't. It wasn't just like
little pieces of meat. It was like all kinds of
from sized pieces of meat. Yes, yeah, the ones that
Mrs Crouch saw where three to four inches square, so
pretty substantial, you know. And other people saw this too,
(04:11):
It wasn't just Mrs Crouch. And people try to immediately
figure out what this could be. And we have to
remember that the people in this area at this time
were well aware of other anecdotal stories of strange things
falling from the sky rains of fish, for instance, you know,
or or a rain of stones, but these were often
(04:33):
considered to be um stories of old you know, things
you would read about in ancient text. Is there anything
in the Bible about a plague of meat rain? Surely
there's some sort of supernaturalesque rain, but I don't think
it's just straight up meat. Was there's frogs? Yeah yeah, frogs. Yeah,
they will eventually become meat. I mean, if you're ambitious.
(04:57):
And here's the thing. Not only did other people see it,
but to people in the area got their gumption up
and they said, there's one easy way to figure out
what kind of meat this is. Let's taste it. M M. Yeah.
There was a guy um named Harrison gil who was
nearby and who the New York Times article refers to
(05:17):
as having unquestionable veracity. So he he spoke the truth. Um,
and he was seeing these pieces of meat like sticking
to fences and all scattered every which where. And yeah,
he was one of the ones that decided, let's give
it a taste. And um. It was kind of argued
between some of the tasters, the intrepid sky meat tasters
(05:40):
whether it was bare or possibly venison or a popular
one was mutton, right because they described a slightly gamey
taste to it, and mutton and venison especially can meat game.
I've never eaten bear, No I have either, but I
would assume it's super dark meat, very very gay, mean
all the mutton. To me, it would be the dead
(06:02):
giveaway because you know lamb and then he kind of
meat like mutton, has a very very distinct taste it
It tastes like anything else. Distinct, is the is the
correct word? I would think there. And I don't even
know if it's legal to eat a bear. That just
I'm not living the kind of life where that's come up. Yet.
What about you, Well, this is in so that was
probably the wild West as far as bear meats. That's
(06:23):
a good point. That's a really good point. The first
explanation from a man of science at the time comes
from a guy named Leopold Brandy's about what three months
after the incident, he is able to get ahold of
some of the specimens, or it looks like a specimen,
but he gets some of it in a jar preserved
(06:47):
or a bottle preserved in glycerin, and he starts poking
around at it, and then he makes the declaration that
while this may appear to be meat, it is not
actually meet at all. Wait what, Yeah, that's what he said.
He said it was not in fact meat. He believed
it was something called no stock. No stock. Oh that's right.
(07:08):
This is like a like a plant based organism. Yeah. Yeah,
it's a Sino bacteria that comes actually from the soil,
from the ground. You can find out moist rocks, bottoms
of lakes and springs. It used to be called troll
butter or which jelly back in Europe. You're joking, No,
that's true. Those are amazing names for food products. I know,
(07:29):
I know, troll jelly or witch butter, troll butter, which jelly,
but I think either one, you know, they're both evocative.
This is great. I'm going to use those, yeah, just
for I don't know, I don't know why yet, but
I love those. Yeah, I've I've been thinking the same thing.
And when this stuff is dry, it's pretty easy to miss.
But when it's when it's wet, it does have this
(07:50):
jelly like I guess you could say maybe meat esk
meat esque appearance. But Brandy said that it's pretty easy
to identify the subject he was He was, also, by
the way, convinced this was true. The Kentucky wonder is
no more or less than nostock, and people have known
about the nostock since the sixty hundreds. I mean, that's
(08:12):
how you get nicknames like which jelly. But how did it? Where?
Where did it come from? What was his What was
his idea about how this stuff made it up in
the atmosphere and then showered down upon this relatively small area.
It goes back to when it is dry versus when
it is wet. So when this stuff is dried so inconspicuous,
people thought that it would float on the breeze until
(08:35):
it rained, and then when it was raining, the nostock
would absorb the moisture and then it would fall from
this guy as a jelly. Interesting, but that's not the
only theory that's not the only theory. That's not the
only theory. Um. Oh, we shall also mentioned those other nicknames,
Star slubber, I don't know what I want to care for,
that one that feels somehow dirty, and then star jelly,
(08:58):
which is still I don't know which is butter, which
is jelly? Those are my picks. So he believed Brandy's
of course, believed that this was the absolute answer. But
the problem is that for his theory to be correct,
it would have had to have rained at some point,
(09:20):
or there would have had to be at least some
rain bearing clouds in the sky, you know what I mean,
because the non stock would have to absorb this moisture,
and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Is perfectly
clear day. And this meant that there were going to
be other theories. Like you said, no, what was What
was one of the other theories that came up? Yeah,
(09:40):
this is a pretty gross one. Um. It was this
notion from a guy named dr Ama Edwards who believed
that this meat stuff was actually lung from a horse
or possibly an infant, yes, a human child. And now
what's the deal with that? There there was a lot
of them. That is a lot of lung meat. You
(10:02):
don't have to have a lot of babies to make
that much lung meat. I mean we're talking like, you know,
sticking to the fences, bed scattered across the ground. Yeah, yeah,
that's the problem, right, that explanation, it's even tougher to believe,
but there is truth to it. Right. They examined seven
samples of this meat shower and they confirmed, I believe
two of them to be lung tissue, and three were
(10:26):
muscle tissue, and two were made of cartilage. So there
was lung tissue in there. But how would it come
from human infant specifically or a horse? And also how
similar are the lungs of a horse and the lungs
of a human infant apparently quite apparently distressingly similar, So
what gives People couldn't really answer that question, could they?
(10:49):
They said, They just said, because it's lung tissue, we
believe that it came from human infant or a horse.
But they didn't really explain how it could have gotten
there into the sky then onto the ground to Bath County.
That's the thing that no one seems to be looking
for that particular solution. They're more like, what's what's the meat.
It is the mystery of the meat, not about how
(11:09):
in the hell it ended up coming down from the sky.
That seems like the least of people's concerns, which is
strange because it makes you think about priorities, you know.
But again, there were more theories, right, some more plausible
than others. So one of my favorite theories that actually
(11:32):
does try to take a look at how this material
could have managed to make it up into the sky
and and and rain down upon these hapless people of
Olympia blames this occurrence on a meteor shower. Do tell
super meaty meteor shower? Um. So here's a quote from
the New York Times from William Livingston Alden. He wrote,
(11:55):
according to the present theory of astronomers, an enormous belt
of meteoric stones constantly revolves around the Sun, and when
the Earth comes in contact with this belt, she has
soundly pelted. Okay. He goes on to say, similarly, we
may suppose that there revolves around the Sun a belt
of venison, mutton, and other meats divided into small fragments
(12:15):
which are precipitated upon the Earth whenever the latter crosses
their path. Help me unpack that, Ben, I mean it
sounds like what it says on the tin. So how
likely do you think that is? Not? Mary? I actually
saw another version of this theory that said that this
was like potentially like alien meat. So this is space venice,
(12:37):
space meat and space nis alright, space mutton. So that
that idea is fascinating. I don't know if it's true.
I'm just gonna say it. I don't want to be
a pessimist, you know, I don't want to shut the
guy down. What do you think, Oh, I mean it's bonkers.
You know, you don't want to live in a world
space venison. I don't know, man, I mean that's not
(12:58):
I don't want to live in that world, just that
I don't know that that world exists. How did they
get up there? I don't know that it was a
real jump. And this guy he's like, so here, there's
this thing called asteroids, an asteroid belt. So if there's
an asteroid belt, why couldn't there also be a similar
belt of meat. Maybe the guy was just very pro belt.
I don't I think it was high. So speaking of high,
(13:22):
there may be another explanation, and it's an explanation that
involves animals, birds, your favorite your your favorites. And this
explanation originally came from an old farmer in Ohio, who,
upon uh learning of the meat shower, said, I have
(13:46):
an explanation. It's not space venison. It's not it's not
human lung tissue. It's nothing that you guys have said before.
It is, in fact, something that I've seen vultures do
in the past. He said that this deluge of meat
was actually a disgorgement of meat from vultures who are
(14:08):
flying too high to be visible from the ground. And
some vultures can fly as high as like a little
less than forty feet or twelve tho, so it'd be
tough to see them. And he said that this was
vulture vomit. And then a little bit later, a guy
named Dr. L. D. Castebine, writing in the Louisville Medical News, said, Yeah,
(14:33):
I think the farmer's right. I think this is vulture vomit.
And he obtained his own sample and he lit it
on fire and he's like, Ah, this is not just mutton,
it's rancid mutton. And this made him believe that the
culprits were vultures. They ate a dead sheep and they
flew off, but due to the weight of the meat
(14:54):
they were carrying in their bodies, they were having a
hard time flying, so they vomited in the sky to
make it easier for them to fly. What is the
thing the vultures do, kind of on the rag, they'll
unburden themselves of a heavy load of meat because you know,
they eat this stuff raw. They also have really acidic
stomachs to aid in this digestion, and so sometimes they're
(15:17):
so loaded down um from gorging themselves on you know,
Lincoln dead sheep, Like you said that, they have to
puke it up just so they can fly properly. And
some vultures even vomit on their feet to regulate their temperature.
That's disgusting. The vultures are filthy, disgusting creatures. They're very different.
They're very different things. Have you ever seen them up close,
(15:38):
just to the side of the road. Yeah, you know,
I don't go for them, don't stop. I don't go
pick up those times. No, dude. Do you know what
a group of vultures is called? It's cool. There's there's
a different name for for them, depending on what they're doing.
Oh yeah, yeah, later on, So a group of vultures
is a committee, a venue, or a vault, which I like,
which do you prefer? Um? I guess it depends on
(16:00):
what they're doing a vault. Well, so then if they're
in flight, they're um a kettle. I think I've heard
that one yet. And if they're feeding in a group,
it's because the best one it's called awake. Yes, yeah, yeah,
But what's a vault. It's just like it's just general.
They're interchangeable. A group of vultus can be either a committee,
a venue, or a vault. Do you know what a
(16:21):
group of ravens is called? It's an unkindness, Yes, an
unkindness of ravens. So this vulture vomit explanation may not
be particularly enjoyable or I don't know, it's it can
be pretty disgusting, especially when consider those two guys ate it,
(16:42):
but it does give us the ability to conjecture a
little bit about how the vultures came to vomit over
Bath County. First off, vultures don't tend to fly of
their own free will after they eat because they are digesting.
So this means that something must have startled the vultures.
(17:02):
We don't know what it was. Was it a sheep
on a mission of revenge? Was it a farmer discovering
the sheep and shooting at the vultures. Yeah. This is
coming from a great article from Motherboard called the Mystery
of the Kentucky Meat Shower by Kaylee Rogers, and she
actually speaks to the vice president for field Programs at
(17:22):
the Wildlife Conservation Society, who says his name is Joe Walston.
He says, if you want to take off quickly with
a huge amount of weight, the first thing you're going
to do is vomit, which I think applies to everyone,
you know. So I I also pulled some vulture facts
from this excellent book I want to recommend if you're
(17:42):
ready for a deep dive into human vulture relationships called
Carrie in Dreams. It's written by a guy named Benjamin
Joel Wilkinson, and as far as I can tell, man
he is just super into the history of vultures, and
he describes vulture is in folklore and mythology as well.
(18:02):
You know, if you go back to the ancient days
of history, and one of the interesting things is that
when and where a vulture vomits is also considered significant
in certain cultures or folklore events. It's a sign which
is neat you know. For instance, here in Georgia, it
used to be common, you know, folk tale belief that
(18:24):
if you deeply desire something, all you have to do
is wish for it, as you throw a kiss at
a vulture, and your wish will come true. But you
had to be careful not to speak to a vulture
while it was flying overhead, because if you did and
it heard, you punish you by vomiting on you. So
maybe is that really that really in there, that's really
a thing. Yeah, I'm telling you. Carrie and Dreams is
(18:45):
a great book. It's also a very weird book. But
so if that's true, perhaps somebody spoke to a vulture
while it was flying over Kentucky. Well here's the thing too,
It's like this would have had to be a multiple,
a group puke session, a cattle whole kettle. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
the whole the whole cattle puking, you know. On mass
(19:09):
um and and in this Motherboard article, they also speak
to the named Kurt Goad, who's an art professor at
Transylvania University in Lexington, UM and a self professed expert
in in meat showers. He proposes that this is definitely
the most likely scenario that would have happened, because all
(19:30):
of the meat was different sizes it came so, which
would have made sense if it had come from different
animals that were, you know, chewing and feeding on different
carcasses or whatever, and then ended up together. Uh. And
they couldn't exactly ever figure out what types of animal
that came from, but it would have been from all
different kinds and that there was some you know, cartilage
(19:51):
and lung material in there as well. So it's certainly
was a mixed bag of meat. And here's the thing,
we don't know a exactly how much meat actually fell.
We don't have a measure of you know, x amount
of tons or this many pounds. Instead we have what's
the phrase they use in most of the news at
(20:12):
the time, They say it was enough to fill a
horse wagon full. And for most people these days, that's
not a it's not a very easy rule of thumb
kind of measurement. Right. So there's there's a defense that
Kurt comes up with in this Dr Goad. He says
that in eighteen seventy six. If you said, oh, it
(20:33):
was a horse wagon full of meat, that was the
equivalent now of saying it's like a big gulp from McDonald's.
So his argument is that horse wagons were ubiquitous enough
at the time that most people would have a rough
idea of what that size meant. I'm trying to picture
it him. Sorry, I'm picturing this, this wagon full of meat.
That's the thing is a lot. Is it a wagon
(20:54):
to carry horses or is it a wagon that horses
carry behind them? That makes a difference. That's true, And
I guess I'm just picturing one of those standard UH
wagons with the little slats on the side that would
be pulled behind a horse. Yeah, where somebody sits up
and yeah. So either way, that's a distressing amount of
meat to fall from the sky. What do you think
(21:16):
is the mystery solved? Well, I mean, with the most
logical explanation being vulture vomit. I wonder how those towns
people felt about having, you know, snacked on some of
that stuff out of curiosity. I think I think at
the time eating raw meat wasn't quite as you know,
frowned upon. They weren't really worried about food born illnesses
so much. I think yeah, And I believe the idea
(21:38):
was that one wouldn't get sick if you just tasted it,
rather than you know, consuming a large amount of it
or a the amount that would be equivalent to a meal.
It certainly wouldn't have been like, oh, free food, I
don't know, from heaven. Yeah, manna, it's not a meaty
manna situation. There is a question here that we have
(22:03):
for you ridiculous historians. Which explanation do you think is
the most plausible or which do you wish was the
true story. So we've got let's see, we've got human flesh,
we've got no stock, we've got uh space venison, space meat,
we've got a curse from a vulture, and then of
(22:25):
course we just have a panicked vulture panics kettle of
vultures attempting to fly. I'll tell you, man, my favorite
my favorites personally are either the space venison or the
vulture curse. You are all about the space venecine. M Yeah,
that's what people say about me. I guess we should
add there are a couple more details that we can
(22:46):
add to these theories. One in terms of vulture behavior
is that have you ever seen those episodes of South
Park or Family Guy. It's on so many comedy shows,
this trope of one person throwing up and then every
one seen them throw up, and then they throw up
as well in reaction. Yeah, so vultures really do that.
(23:06):
That's the thing when when they are flying in a group,
if one goes, they all go. See this is this
has got to be the answer. Right, This doesn't invalidate
a vulture curse. It may mean that the vultures vomit
swarmed on them, cursing everyone in the town. So I
guess the moral of the story of that theory is
true is don't talk to vultures while they're busy, right,
(23:27):
I wouldn't tell anywhere near the ugly bastards. We had
some more details than on Is it a whole new theory?
Is it's something to add to Well? I was trying
to find a little more information about this supposed meat
meteor shower, but it's it's it's really not a whole
lot out there. It's it's it all kind of comes
down to that quote about how there may be a
belt of venison mutton and other meats divided into some
(23:50):
small fragments that are revolving around the sun, which is bizarre.
But there's another one. The woman I believe her name
was Mary Crouch, who was making soap um. She apparently
initially was scared that her husband uh and son I believe,
had been sucked up into the sky and shredded and
eviscerated by an angry god and then rained down upon
(24:14):
her uh in retribution for what soap who knows? Who knows?
Just being a sinner, it's an angry god up there, Ben, Yeah, yeah,
did you ever read that original sermon? Yeah, sinners in
the hand of an angry God's a wild one. We
should do an episode on that. We should, We should.
Actually I have a lot of that. I have a
(24:34):
lot of the work from that time. But for now,
we believe that we have solved to a great degree
the mystery of the Kentucky meat shower. We didn't do
it well, I say, we as the human species. Yeah.
Whatever people say we, they usually mean in a global
event like the human species. Right, I agree, I agree,
And I if I thought of a better musical theme
(24:55):
for this episode, actually better than a training meat what
is it? Red y is coming down, red rain, It's fallen,
which is a totally useless Peter Gabriel song to me,
but completely useful in this context. Well, you're welcome, Peter,
And what better note to end our show on today.
Thank you so much for listening. Let us know, especially
(25:17):
if you happen to live in this area of Kentucky,
let us know if people still talk about this strange
event in eighteen seventies six, and if so, what do
they say about it? And have you heard of any
of the lesser meat showers of other locale I'm very
interested to hear that, yeah, Or have you heard of
any other extraordinary stories of things falling from the sky
in your neck of the Global Woods? If so, let
(25:38):
us know. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
especially on our one of our favorite places on the internet,
our Facebook community page, Ridiculous Historians, where you know, we
see some cool stuff. Stuff happens there. It's a it's
a it's a it's a place uh in our hearts
and also on the internet. That's a great way to
(25:59):
describe I bit. Additionally, would like to thank, as always,
super producer Casey Pegrham. I would like think Alex Williams,
who could posed our theme. Our research pals Christopher Hasciotas
and E's Jeff Cooke, and I believe Ben, we have
a new member to the Ridiculous History Research team as
Christopher and Eves kind of move on to start working
on some stuff of their own. Yes, thank you to
(26:20):
Gabrielle Losier who Funny Store used to also work with
mental flaws. It's awesome. I love that man. Happy to have.
So that's it for today, but stay tuned for next
time when we reveal way, wait, well did you hear that?
You know I heard it, Ben, I was gonna just
keep going. HiT's time, gentlemen. You know Nathan Strickland, the Quister,
(26:42):
really leaned into that. Are you well, it's been a
long time. I have to it has to make up
for lost time. It has been a long time. And
although we are swore nemesses, I just want to check
in real quick. How how you've been doing? Pretty good?
Pretty good? Kids are great, you know, uh, just like
kids in general interest general. I don't charged myself, but
you know, they seem to be going to school and
(27:03):
I understand that's a good thing. Yeah, things, are you
know things are fine. Did they learn about the Great
Kentucky Meat Shower in school or any of the other
showers that are implied by that title. Well, in fact,
we're going to be exploring a shower of our own.
My friends, get in the shower with me, My buddies,
come on in. Okay, a shower of the mind. The
(27:25):
weird animals are just fine. Now listen. We know that
I am part of the most cringe worthy segment and
all the podcasting and which I had the quisters show
up and I pose a scenario to the two of you,
and you determine whether or not it is actually representative
(27:46):
of a real thing what happened in history, or I
had done made it all up? Seats right, get three minutes.
You can discuss amongst yourselves for three minutes. A friend,
can we can we rope Casey into the No. If
you had friends, you could in fact phone them. But
I know for a fact that our friends. That's hurtful.
We're not friends. Are you kidding? I see? I always
(28:09):
confuse this. Okay, okay, But in addition to that, you
also add one arbitrary rule, right, so that if you
wish to ask any question to me. You must first
obey a rule of arbitrary nature that I make up
typically two minutes before I come in here. Okay, and
you have to do that in order to ask a question.
I will tell you what that rule is after I
(28:31):
have given you your scenario. All right, you know what.
I'm feeling good, I'm feeling all right. No, casey, I
think we got this. I will I'll give you the scenario. Okay,
I will give you your arbitrary rule, and then time
will begin, at which point I will vault over to
that gigantic grandfather clock, pull the poll cord, going yeah, alright, alright,
(28:54):
it gets really fumi in here. All right, here's your scenario.
In to end two. In Shropshire, England, locals were perplexed
by what they described as a rain of worms falling
upon the village in what amounted to thousands of worms,
covering the entire area, including the rooftops of several buildings.
(29:16):
The odd weather was met not with superstition and fear,
as we'd usually guess, but with a sort of bewildered amusement. However,
this historical event would later be immortalized by none other
than William Shakespeare. Who fudged the date so that it
happened more than a year later, on the eve of
(29:36):
the Battle of Shrewsbury, which features in Henry the Fourth,
Part one inact for seene one, Hairy hotspur Percy, the
leader of a rebellion against Henry the Fourth, says, yester een,
they do say that worms fell as though rain, fortune
is so disposed to us that nature herself turns against
this pretender king. In the mid nineteenth century, when Shakespeare's
(30:00):
as became more popular, Shropshire began what would become an
annual tradition, a festival day celebrating the rain of worms.
It happens every year on the second Saturday of April.
And your arbitrary rule is you must quote Shakespeare, any Shakespeare,
before asking me a question. Begin the time. I'm taking
(30:22):
a run for it. And we are okay, we're good.
You've made worms meat of me. You have a question? No,
I do, I do um, I don't know. I just
wanted to quote some Shakespeare. Don't really have any questions.
This is a good it's a good quote. Very well.
I bite my thumb at you. Romeo and Juliet reference
(30:44):
go ah, okay, so this festival. What's the name of
it again? It is known as the Rain of Worms Festival,
and it is second Saturday of every April. In your story,
it's ongoing. It is ongoing in your story, it is ongoing, Casey,
what do you think? Oh? Just for so wait, wait,
we're letting Casey come into this as earlier and you
(31:07):
ignored me and said I had no friends for everything.
For everybody listening, what happened when you heard that dead
air and those pauses between the quister and myself? I
was staring at him to read body language somewhat unsuccessfully.
All right, Casey, what's what's your take? Man? Oh boy? See,
I hate this because whenever you and nol are not
(31:28):
an agreement on something, I'm going to be the tiebreaker.
And I'm probably gonna get it wrong with this. I
don't know. We usually tend to be on the same
page pretty quickly. You do rock paper scissors every time,
so we've got to We've got a stick that works, man.
But that means that you're at opposition with one another.
If you were an agreement, you wouldn't have to do
rock paper scissors. That's what you can only really do.
Rock paper scissors with friends. I don't know if you
(31:52):
have a lot of friends, Jonathan, but if you have
friends and you play rock paper scissors. Okay, look, we're
in a minute twenty. I kind to think this is true,
but I could be completely wrong, or it could be
from a different shape. But I'm just say or that's
kind of how this works, you know. I'm just skeptical
that they're of the Initially, I'm skeptical of a festival
(32:13):
built on worms, because people in general aren't wild about works. Wow,
this is this one's taken the longest because usually we
we've nailed something down by now we're at fifty seconds.
I'm gonna say not feel you know what. I'm tempted
to say the same thing, just because it was so detailed.
(32:35):
You want to lock it in. Let's lock it in
and you'll come back if we're okay, alright, three to
one false false. You're correct, Yea. There was no reign
of words to instructure England. I made up the line
(32:57):
from the fourth part one. There's there is a line
that does say that that fortune is disposed to us,
but Hotspur says it in a completely different context. There's
no festival of the rain of worms. I would think
I would have heard of this. It's a little love
crafty and just from England. You probably wouldn't have heard
(33:17):
that I had. I had prepared an explanation or description
of the festival, but you you, you had sussed it
out so early that I didn't have a chance to
Where does this further? Where is the count? Now? Where
does this put us? Oh, you're getting a little closer.
I want to say that maybe I'm one or two headed. Honestly,
it's been so long that I just declared myself supreme
winner of Old things world. Hey, I've got an idea.
(33:39):
You should. You should come back. So you want to
have you have another matching of wits? Oh that's that's
a strong word. I just I thought I would give
you another chance to do a little better. Next time.
I'll go and count them up if you want me to.
I'm pretty sure I'm at least one or two ahead.
But it is on like the key Kong, Mr Bolan, fantastic, fantastic. Well, no,
(34:04):
we gotta win. We did get away. Sometimes you just
need a win. And thanks Casey, thanks for thanks for
intervening in there too. That was really cool. I I
appreciate that you believe in me, Casey. So this concludes
our episode, but not our show. Stay tuned next time
when we explore the strange, hilarious, somewhat disgusting, definitely ridiculous
(34:27):
method that scientists use to trace the path of the
Lewis and Clark expedition. It's the smell test.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.