A Chinese TV show is being roundly ridiculed by the savvy people of the internet because they failed to recognize that a "mystery mushroom" they reported on was actually a sex toy. Whoops! The object was discovered in the ground by some rural villagers who were digging a well, and they couldn't identify it. One of them said, "It's got a nose and an eye, but we have no idea what it is!" Something like that... Anyway, they called in a local TV reporter who did some internet investigating and concluded, "It's a type of lingzhi mushroom, called the taisui." She must have been looking at the wrong part of the internet, however, since it is clearly a sex toy—a fact which viewers picked up on right away. The TV station was forced to issue this rather sweet correction:
An open letter to all netizens and viewers: Hi everyone, one of our news reports which aired last night has made everyone laugh. This incident has been widely followed, shared and commented on. As our reporter was still very young and unwise to the ways of the world, this report has brought great inconvenience to everyone. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts for your criticism and correction. Please forgive our oversight!
Of course, there's still no explanation of how this sex toy ended up 80 meters underground. Though you can bet if it's original owner is still around, they're not going to be rushing forward to claim it now that it's become infamous.
"Mystery mushroom" which leaves Xi'an villagers befuddled turns out to be artificial vajayjay [Shanghaiist via VVV]