Enter the man with the best explanation for the “shower of quivering flesh” that we’re probably ever going to get – Dr L. D Kastenbine, who wrote in a 1876 edition of the Louisville Medical News that it was, quite literally, a coordinated bout of projectile vulture vomit.
Having obtained a sample of his own, Kastenbine set fire to it and observed that it smelt distinctly of rancid mutton. “The only plausible theory explanatory of this anomalous shower appears to me to be that suggested by the old Ohio farmer – the disgorgement of some vultures that were sailing over the spot, from their immense height, the particles were scattered by the prevailing wind over the ground,” he wrote. “The variety of tissue discovered – muscular, connective, fatty, structureless etc – can be explained only by this theory.”

Two species of vulture are found in Kentucky – the black vulture (Coragyps atratus) and the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) - both of which are known to projectile vomit their stomach contents away as either a defence mechanism or to make themselves light enough for flight. So maybe?

Or, you know, it was this guy: