The story comes from a BBC report about a mushroom called Lanmaoa asiatica — native to parts of China and the Philippines — that causes remarkably consistent hallucinations of “lilliputian figures”: tiny humans marching on tabletops, climbing up walls, even clinging to your soup spoon.

These hallucinations only seem to happen when the mushroom is undercooked, and they’ve been reported across different cultures and time periods. So far, no one’s been able to identify the active compound, and researchers are still trying to explain why the visions are so consistent — both in content and duration.

Some scientists suggest that the mushroom contains a unique hallucinogen. Others point to historical accounts of “mushroom madness” in Papua New Guinea that may involve the same species. And the assumption lurking underneath much of the coverage is this:

The mushroom causes people to hallucinate tiny people.