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Turn on the TV or the radio, or scroll any news site online and

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you'll no doubt be inundated with stories
about crazy weather anomalies happening all around the

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globe, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, earthquakes, tornadoes, and so much

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more. But none of us,
thankfully, have ever lived through one of

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the strangest events in history, when
something a lot more dense than rain began

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falling from the skies onto some unsuspecting
farmers in the small town of Olympia Springs,

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Kentucky. These are the bizarre but
true stories from history and in some

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way involved food. I'm Nick Charlie
Key, and this is the fantastic history

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of food. I wanted to say
a huge thank you to all of my

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supporters on Patreon. You help me
out immensely in getting this show made,

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and today I want to send a
special shout out to the following supporters,

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Ryan Kokuizovich, Oleg Chaichuk, Cameron
Paddy Ian Fox, Claudio Richard, Maria

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Lesota, and Matt Atienza. If
you would like to support the show in

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the same way as these fine folks
have, it costs just two dollars a

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month and when you sign up,
you'll have your name mentioned in an episode

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just like you've heard today. But
please, this is absolutely pressure free.

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More than anything, I just love
that you listen to the podcast and get

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some enjoyment out of it, and
that is the reason why I keep making

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this show. Now back to the
episode, Strange Things falling from the sky

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is apparently not limited to the main
part or excuse the pun meat of today's

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story. There have been numerous stories
throughout history of various types of flightless animals

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raining down from the heavens, with
varying degrees of intrigue from those caught underneathodore

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As far back as the first century
AD, we have reports from the Roman

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historian Pliny the Elder about storms bringing
with them downpours of frogs and fish.

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More recently, in seventeen ninety four, French military soldiers watched in amazement as

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toads fell from the sky during a
particularly heavy rainstorm near the French city of

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Lille. And they are not alone, not by a long shot. There

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are more than twenty examples alone of
fish falling from the sky in places far

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removed from one another, from Singapore
to Nigeria, India to Ethiopia, as

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well as a variety of US states. In what would be considered my literal

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nightmare, there are at least three
recorded incidents of spiders raining down from the

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sky, and, in a turn
of events that will surprise absolutely no one,

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two of them just happen to occur
in Australia, where even the weather

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is trying to actively maim or kill
you. There have been reports of frogs,

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toads, jellyfish, worms, octopi, starfish, and even snakes all

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raining down from the heavens in one
part of the world or another. Now,

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there are many theories out there as
to what the cause of these strange

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occurrences could be, and some of
them are very reminiscent of that all time

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classic movie Sharknado. Just like in
the movie, one of the theories is

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that a tornado forms over a body
of water, creating a water spout that

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sucks up a variety of unsuspecting marine
life high into the atmosphere and carries them

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with it as it begins traveling over
the land, whereby, as the tornado

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begins losing energy, the poor creatures
are released from the death spiral to rain

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down upon the surrounding areas. Other's
theory is, for the second of the

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day, not exactly water tight,
as it fails to account for certain characteristics

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of these animal showers, which generally
seemed to involve one specific species of animal

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each time, instead of a variety
of animals or marine life, as you

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would expect if a water spout was
just sucking up animals indiscriminately. An alternate

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theory comes from a French naturalist named
Francis de la Porte de castle Now,

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who, after reports of fish raining
down in Singapore in eighteen sixty one,

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theorized that instead of actually witnessing the
fish falling from the sky after a heavy

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storm, people had simply found hundreds
of fish flopping about the countryside. He

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speculated that what the Singaporean people had
in fact experienced was nothing more than a

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migration of walking catfish, who had
simply dragged themselves across the land from puddle

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to puddle as they followed the storm. Now, this too has its own

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theoretical flaws, but at the very
least it's interesting as a thought experiment.

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Of all of these cases, there
is one that stands out above the rest.

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Where all of these stories were once
off occurrences there is one that has

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been reoccurring, reportedly up to four
times a year. In fact, in

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the rural department of Yoro in Honduras. It has become such a big part

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of life there that in nineteen ninety
eight they began holding an annual festival to

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celebrate Aguacharro de Pascado, otherwise known
as the downpour of Fish. Each year,

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the festival starts on a different date, waiting until the first major rainfall

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in either May or June. Parades
and a carnival accompany this festival that has

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a fascinating and potentially supernatural origin story. The boring explanation is similar to the

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water spark theory of fish being sucked
up over water and then deposited over the

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land. However, this is somewhat
difficult to believe in that the region is

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landlocked and the tornado would have to
travel more than seventy kilometers from the Atlantic

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Ocean, which is the nearest source
of fish, and then why would it

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happen so regularly here, depositing the
fish consistently in Yorrow and not anywhere else

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along the route. The only other
natural explanation, which is by far the

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more plausible of the two is that
there is a vast network of underground lakes

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and rivers surrounding and beneath yarrow.
This theory hypothesizes that the fish migrate from

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above ground rivers and somehow end up
in these subterranean water systems. Then,

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when the heavy rainfalls come, these
below ground systems flood, forcing water and

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fish up through natural springs, geysers, and other openings in the earth above,

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leaving thousands of fish stranded when the
waters once again recede. However,

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it is the third explanation for this
consistent occurrence that is by far the most

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spectacular of them all, and this
story involves a Spanish priest named Father Jose

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Manuel de Jesus Suberana, who worked
in euro from eighteen fifty five until his

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death in eighteen sixty four. As
the legend goes, father Subirana saw how

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poor the people of Honduras were,
and so did what any good spiritual intercessor

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would do and prayed to God for
their relief. He locked himself in his

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room and for three days and three
nights he prayed non stop, asking God

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for a miracle to help provide the
poor people with food. At the end

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of the third night of the Father's
praying, a dark cloud fell across the

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land. As God above answered his
humble servant's prayers, a torrential downpour of

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rain began to fall, and with
it came an abundance of delicious fish falling

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from the sky, enough to feed
all of the people. And since then,

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this miracle has been repeated every single
year, often multiple times a year,

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as a reminder of God's goodness to
his people. But let's pivot now

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to our main story of the episode, and let's fast forward just ten years

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after the Father Suberana miracle to March
third, eighteen seventy six, as we

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find ourselves in rural Kentucky in a
small town named Olympia Springs. It was

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here in this town on this day
that the strangest shower of all occurred,

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which had no accompanying rainfall, no
particularly abnormal wind, in fact, nothing

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at all to mark this day as
anything out of the ordinary for this part

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of the world, which is why
it was so surprising to Missus Crouch as

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she watched a large piece of meat
fall from the sky and land directly in

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front of her porch. Now,
at this very moment, Missus Crouch just

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happened to be on that porch of
hers, idling the hours away as she

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worked to produce some home made soap. Soon the sound of meat slapping the

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ground all around her became almost deafening, as her husband ran outside to see

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what was causing the strange noise.
Almost as soon as it had started,

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the meat shower was all of a
sudden over the alarmed couple, initially believing

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it to be some kind of sign
from God, began inspecting the fallen pieces

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of meat. Most of the pieces
were around two inches by two inches,

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with a few pieces being roughly double
that. Word quickly spread throughout the area

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of what had occurred on the Crouch
farm, and the next day a man

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named Harrison Gill arrived at the farm
to see for himself. He reported seeing

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pieces of meat all across the farm
as he had ventured towards the farmhouse,

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with pieces strewn across the fields and
even hanging from the fences along the perimeter.

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There was reportedly so much meat it
could have filled more than an entire

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horse wagon. Upon first glance,
the meat appeared to be beef, but

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as these stories always seemed to go, it wasn't long before one of the

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visiting neighbors decided to sample a piece
or two for themselves and declared rather loudly

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that it tasted more like venison or
mutton. Another declared it tasted like bear

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meat, all of them failing to
realize that, by the strangest occurrence of

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all, they were now willingly putting
mystery sky meat into their mouths. All

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this went some way towards ex explaining
what of the problem, without at all

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answering the questions of how or why. It would take another three months before

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the first explanation would come to light. A scientist named Leopold Brandeis had received

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some of the meat specimens that had
been preserved in glycerine and had begun conducting

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his own experiments on it. He
soon reached the conclusion that this was not

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in fact meat at all. He
was wrong, of course, but let's

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continue on with this theory for a
moment. He proudly announced that this was,

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in fact a substance called nostoc.
Now, nostoc is a type of

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cyanobacteria that clumps together in a rubbery, gelatinous group, and whenever it rains,

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it is known to swallow up into
a translucent jelly like substance. Because

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in its dry form it is so
inconspicuous, most people don't notice it until

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after a heavy rainfall, whereby people
believed it had been carried on the breeze

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and fallen from the sky like hail. It had a variety of names such

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as star jelly or even witch's butter, and was well known in certain regions.

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Or brand Ice believed that this particular
nostoc was a flesh colored variety that

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could sometimes taste like frog's legs or
spring chicken. But one of the glaring

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holes in this theory was that it
required a heavy rainfall to occur, and

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as I mentioned earlier, it was
a blue sky day with nothing out of

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the ordinary weatherwise. Fortunately, brand
Ice was just one of seven scientists who

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managed to get their hands on some
mystery meat samples to study. Doctor Mead

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Edwards returned to the verdict that it
was most likely the lung tissue of a

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horse, or more disturbingly, that
of a human infant. Doctor J.

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W. S. Arnold agreed in
part that it was a mixture of animal

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cartilage and lung tissue. At the
end of the day, the overwhelming majority

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managed to agree that of the seven
samples sent to them, two were lung

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tissue, three were muscular tissue,
and two were made of cartilage. Armed

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with this information, the best and
most plausible theory then emerged from doctor L.

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D. Castenbein, who wrote in
an eighteen seventy six edition of the

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Louisville Medical News that this mysterious meat
shower had been nothing more than a large,

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coordinated bout of projectile vulture vomit.
In his report, he said,

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the only plausible theory explanation of this
anomalous shower appears to me to be that

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suggested by an old Ohio farmer,
the disgorgement of some vultures that were sailing

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over the spot. From their immense
height, the particles were scattered by the

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prevailing wind over the ground. The
variety of tissue discovered, muscular, connective,

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fatty, and structureless, can only
be explained by this theory. What

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does lend weight to this theory is
that the only two vulture species that are

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found in Kentucky are both known to
projectile vomit their entire stomach contents, either

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as a defense mechanism or to make
themselves light enough for flight if they need

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to get airborne in a hurry.
The vice president for Field Programs at the

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Wildlife Conservation Society, Jar Wolston said, the following meat is heavy. If

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you want to take off quickly,
or if you startle as a group and

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you're carrying a huge amount of weight, the first thing you're going to do

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is vomit. Now, the reason
this vomiting tends to be a habit amongst

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vultures is that their meals are very
infrequent, and so when they do find

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something to eat, they tend to
gorge themselves on it and afterwards need a

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fair amount of time to sit and
digest it. All. So if something

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startles them, vomiting is really their
only way of getting away quickly enough,

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which is quite disgusting in and of
itself, but in fact only comes second

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to the grossest part of this episode, which is that if you remember,

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there were a whole bunch of people
arriving at the Crouch's farm and essentially taking

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turns to taste and then critique vulture
vomit. This show is made entirely by

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00:14:11,559 --> 00:14:16,720
me Nick Charlie Key, with our
theme music having been made by the Enigma

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that is the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder.
If you'd like to support the show,

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the simplest way to do that is
over on our Patreon account. There's just

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one option, so for just two
bucks a month, you'll help me keep

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producing this show, and in return, you'll get your name forever etched onto

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our supporter's Wall of Fame over on
our website and then maybe listen out for

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your name in an upcoming episode.
So until next time, bon apetite ye,