At one time, when we saw something unusual, we would do our best to describe it to our family and friends and hope that they would be able to solve the mystery of what it was. In these days, people use the Internet for the same purpose.

Somebody shared a photo on the ‘What is it?’ subreddit on April 15. They saw a stringy, hairless object hanging down from the ceiling and poking through a narrow gap in the ceiling panel. They didn’t know what this strange thing was at their home.

The person who posted it goes by the handle Takuraiii_ and offered a caption that introduced it. He said: ‘Noticed this sticking out from my ceiling – what is it?’

It wasn’t long before tens of thousands of people had upvoted the post, and it had hundreds of comments. Everybody seemed to have an opinion on the subject, whether they were an expert of some sort or not. Others just told jokes.

It wasn’t long before the thread was going viral, and it was growing quickly. The original poster had explained that the unknown object ‘moves so it’s probably not dead.’ They also talked about the color and texture and the slight taper of the object, presenting an image that was difficult to handle.

One person who called themselves an expert thought that they knew for sure what it was. They said: “Rat expert here (no official degree, but I’ve seen An American Tail at least six times).”

Another one said: “Lick it. If it looks like a rat, tastes like a rat…”

Somebody else suggested that he poke it with a stick and lick the stick instead.

Some suggestions of what it was included an opossum, armadillo, or ‘a giant wall lizard.’

Some said that it was a shadow and he should be alarmed and others were wondering if he had tickled or pulled it.

Some of the more radical suggestions involved in burning the house down or moving out and selling the house before it starts to stink.

When the OP wrote that it began to ‘wiggle and move’, that really opened things up for comments. He then said that it was gone, or as some person said it, ‘It’s just out of sight, it’s definitely not gone.’

Less than 24 hours later, they updated the thread to let people know that the object did not belong to a possum, lizard, or armadillo. They said:

“After a heck-ton of comments saying that it’s a rat’s tail, I can now confirm that it is a rat’s tail…I’ll be calling an exterminator soon to properly deal with the situation. Thank you everyone!”

This only led to people commenting that where there is one, there are hundreds.

Maybe burning the house down doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea after all.