A viral Reddit post showing something dangling from a ceiling sent the internet into a frenzy, leaving thousands of viewers laughing, cringing, and wildly speculating over the mysterious object that terrified netizens when it started to “wiggle and move.”

On April 15, an online user shared a photo on the popular subreddit, “What is it?” hoping to get some help in identifying a dark, stringy, hairless object that was poking through a narrow gap in the ceiling panel of his home.

Along with the image, the original poster (OP), who goes by the handle Takuraiii_, offered fellow Redditors the chillingly casual caption: “Noticed this sticking out from my ceiling – what is it?”

Within hours, the post racked up over 35,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments. Redditors from all walks of life, pest experts, and armchair comedians united for a round of shocked identification, wacky theories, and plenty of jokes.

Ceiling invader

As Reddit is known to do, the thread quickly took on a life of its own.

After the original poster (OP) explained that “It moves so it’s probably not dead,” people examined the details – color, texture, the slight taper – and offered their thoughts on the unsettling image of the cheeky ceiling invader.

“Rat expert here (no official degree, but I’ve seen An American Tail at least six times),” starts one wisecracking user, referring to the 1986 animated film that features a family of mice. “This could be a tail, yes…but it could also be a decoy. Call in backup. Infrared. Night vision. I want eyes on every crumb. We’re not just dealing with any rodent. We’re dealing with a professional.”

Citing another animated film that stars a rodent, a second offered, “Sir…. that’s a rat’s tail. Not the Ratatouille cute Remy rat. That’s a NYC kinda rat that will fight you over dinner.”

“Lick it. If it looks like a rat, tastes like a rat…” suggests another. Responding to that message, one Redditor says, “Poke it with a stick and lick the stick instead.”

Not everyone was convinced it was a rat.

“Opossum, or an armadillo,” writes another, or “a giant wall lizard.”

Push, pull or tickle

Others offered more absurd guesses and solutions to discovering its identity.

“Just a shadow. Nothing to be alarmed by,” writes one, while another told OP to “Just push it up and forget about it.”

A third shares, “Have you tried tickling it. Maybe it’ll pull it back up and out of sight out of mind.

Some recommended the poster “should definitely pull it.”

“How could you not pull it?” one netizen asked, prompting the OP to answer, “It’s got those [little] hairs sticking out of it, no way I’m touching it with my bare hands.”

‘Burn the house down’

Others were, understandably, deeply disturbed. “I would simply burn the house down,” one user quipped – a sentiment echoed by more than a few.

“Hopefully you can now move out, list [and] sell the house before that stank arrives in force,” another said about the object potentially belonging to a dead rat, stuck in the ceiling.

But it wasn’t stuck – it started to “wiggle and move.” Shortly after, OP wrote: “It’s gone now.”

“OP, are you not freaking out?! I have the heebie jeebies for you,” adds one netizen of the unidentified tenant.

Another Redditor warned, “It’s just out of sight, it’s definitely not gone.”

Mystery solved

Within 24 hours, the author shared an update, letting fellow Redditors know that by process of elimination, the tail-like object did not belong to a lizard, a possum, or an armadillo – nor was it a “tampon pull string.”