BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — There’s a little known Kentucky mystery that is preparing to celebrate an anniversary. A local author was so intrigued he wrote a story about it.

Author Mick Sullivan said, “It was a mystery then, and it kind of is a mystery today.”

Sullivan has written a children’s book, “The Meat Shower.” It’s his version of what could have happened on March 3, 1876, in Bath County, for several minutes between 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

The Great Kentucky Meat Shower was written up in the New York Times. A “shower of meat” fell from the sky onto a family farm. According to the article, the fresh meat fell from a clear sky and two men who ate the meat said they thought it was mutton or venison.

Sullivan said, “He asserted that it was a bear, but other people asserted other things. Someone said it was human, it was absolutely mysterious.”

But Sullivan, and scientists who have studied the notorious event, claim otherwise after seeing remnants of the meat that are still around today. A piece of what fell from the sky in 1876 sits in a jar at Transylvania University in Lexington.

Sullivan said, “I had a conversation with someone, an expert in the field, not just in Meat Shower, but also in science. And he said, ‘It’s clearly lung tissue’ What it’s from, we’re not sure.”

During the time the event happened, there were no helicopters or planes in the sky. So, many were intrigued by how the meat fell from the sky, or how it got up there. But in his book, Sullivan discusses it was a pack of flying vultures that coughed up their food.

Sullivan said, “They have a defense mechanism, where if there’s a flock of them, and one of them barfs, the rest of them do it too because they ate the same thing.”

These answers, however, are not 100% full proof since the event happened so long ago and there is limited evidence. For Sullivan, that is his favorite part.

Sullivan said, “It’s a mystery, great! We don’t need to know the answer.”