The Blood Rain of Chatham County

Posted: 11.01.2025 | Updated: 11.01.2025

North Carolina is a state with just about every kind of weather you can imagine. In the spring, you might get caught in a heavy rain, thunderstorm, and quite gusty winds. On the coast, the fall is peak hurricane season. Up in the mountains, you might get snowed in for the winter.

Back in 1884, however, a very unique weather event occurred in Chatham County. Some call it “The Day It Rained Blood.” But what really happened that day? Keep reading to learn the strange truth behind this infamous incident.

And when you are ready to explore urban legends and ghost stories in person, book yourself a ghost tour with Charlotte Ghosts.

Did It Rain Blood in North Carolina?

According to legend, it rained blood in Chatham County, North Carolina, in 1884. A woman observed a liquid resembling “pure blood” following what she believed was a heavy rain, despite a clear sky overhead. 

Samples taken from the liquid were analyzed by a university chemist, who confirmed it was blood. However, no scientific explanation for the phenomenon has ever been discovered.

Raining Blood

It happened more than 140 years ago, but people still talk about it. The day it rained blood over New Hope Township, a quiet stretch of Chatham County, North Carolina.

It was February 25, 1884, just before sundown, when Mrs. Kit Lasater was walking the dirt path near her home. She was a woman known in town for her honesty and good Christian sensibility. The sky above was calm, and the air was still.

Then she heard it: a sudden patter on the earth, like the start of a violent rainstorm. But when she looked up, there were no clouds, no lightning, no sign of weather at all.

When she looked back down, she froze.

All around her — the earth, the grass, the trunks of nearby trees — dripped with red. A 60-foot circle around where she stood was soaked in a thick crimson liquid, spattered as though something had exploded overhead. But not one drop had touched her. She was standing in the center of it… untouched, but surrounded by what looked like fresh, warm blood.

Neighbors came running after hearing her screams. Every one of them would later swear that Mrs. Lasater told the truth. Samples were taken to the University of North Carolina and tested by Dr. F.P. Venable, a respected professor of chemistry.

His conclusion sent a chill through the whole town. In every test performed, except for one, the substance appeared to be blood. Yet no source or explanation was ever discovered. “The subject is quite a puzzle,” Dr. Venable said, “and offers a tempting field for the theorist blessed with a vivid imagination.”

Other Gory Weather Events

Believe it or not, this isn’t the only documented incident of such gory weather. Throughout the 19th century, newspapers across America reported bizarre incidents of meat falling from the sky.

These events are so strange, they seem torn from folklore rather than fact. Yet multiple eyewitness accounts and scientific inquiries of the time have insisted these “meat showers” truly happened.

Clinton Meat Shower

Even before it rained blood in Chatham County, a similar incident occurred in Sampson County, near Clinton. Farmer Thomas Clarkson wrote to the editor of the North Carolinian in February 1850 to report a grotesque phenomenon: a “shower of flesh and blood” had fallen from the sky. 

The strange rain, he claimed, covered a strip of land 50 feet wide and nearly 300 yards long. Clarkson even mailed a putrid chunk of the material to the newspaper along with his letter. Locals were baffled. There had been no storms, no animal slaughter nearby, and no explanation for meat-like tissue to suddenly appear from the heavens.

Editors of the newspaper confirmed: “The piece which was left with us has been examined with two of the best microscopes in the place… It has the smell, both in its dry state and when macerated in water, of putrid flesh; and there can be scarcely a doubt that it is such.”

“The pieces appeared to be flesh, liver, lights, brains, and blood,” the article stated. “Some of the blood ran on the leaves, apparently very fresh.”

San Francisco Meat Shower

A year later, on the opposite coast, Fort Benicia near San Francisco experienced a similar nightmare. Witnesses described chunks of rotting flesh “from the size of a pigeon’s egg to that of an orange” pelting the ground.

One unfortunate man, Major Robert Allen, was actually struck by a piece of the mysterious meat. Military officers examined the pieces but could not determine whether they came from cattle, game, or… something else entirely. The incident was filed away without explanation.

Kentucky Meat Shower

Probably the most famous such case occurred on March 3, 1876, near Olympia Springs, Kentucky. Mary Crouch was making soap in her yard when she heard a wet slapping sound. Looking up, she was horrified to see raw meat falling like snowflakes.

The sky shower continued for a full two minutes, covering the farm in what witnesses described as “giblets.” Pieces hung from fences and bushes and lay scattered across the ground. Some courageous (or foolish) locals even tasted the meat, declaring it to be mutton, venison, or even bear.

Samples were sent to chemists and biologists across the country, but no one could agree on what kind of flesh it was. The mystery baffled the public until Dr. A. Mead Edwards of the Newark Scientific Association offered a grisly explanation: vultures.

Vultures are known to regurgitate their food in mid-flight, either to lighten their load or when startled. Edwards believed a flock passing over Kentucky had simultaneously vomited, showering the land in half-digested carrion.

So, the mysterious rain of meat? Might be vulture vomit. But this is just a theory that has never been proven one way or the other.

Haunted Charlotte

From the Devil’s Tramping Ground to the Beast of Bladenboro, North Carolina, is full of mysterious legends and scary stories. Blood rain and meat showers are but a fraction of the eerie tales that the Tar Heel State has to offer.

Feeling brave enough to explore haunted places in North Carolina yourself? Book a ghost tour with Charlotte Ghosts today and prepare for a fun and frightening adventure!

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Sources:

• https://www.ncpedia.org/chatham-blood-shower-1884
• https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/state-pride/north-carolina/rained-blood-nc
• https://indyweek.com/culture/archives-culture/halloween-special-day-rained-blood-guts-north-carolina/
• https://vinepair.com/cocktail-chatter/kentucky-meat-shower-mystery/