Okay, Chelsea, no pick this time around. I think
this is interesting enough. I don't think we're
going to get through the whole article, but I'll
leave a link for anybody who's curious about
this. This comes from the BBC on January 22nd,
2026, written by Rachel Neuer. Article title,
they saw them on their dishes when eating. The
mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of
tiny humans. Oh, who did they see on their plate?
The mushrooms are the little people. They see
little people, I think. I don't know. Let's learn
together. Only recently described by science,
the mysterious mushrooms are found in different
parts of the world, but they give people the
same exact visions. Every year, doctors at the
hospital in the Yunnan province of China brace
themselves for an influx of people with an unusual
complaint. The patients come in with a strikingly
odd symptom, visions of pint -sized elf -like
figures marching under doors, crawling up walls,
and clinging to furniture. Oh, that's cool. The
hospital treats hundreds of these cases every
year. All share a common culprit, Lanmaua asiatica,
a type of mushroom that forms symbiotic relationships
with pine trees in nearby forests and is a local
popular food. known for its savory umami -packed
flavor. In Yunnan, this mushroom is sold in markets.
It appears on restaurant menus and is served
at home during peak mushroom season between June
and August. One must be careful to cook it thoroughly,
though, otherwise hallucinations will set in.
Quote, at a mushroom hot pot restaurant there,
the server set a timer for 15 minutes and warned
us, don't eat it until the timer goes off or
you might see little people. End quote, says
Colin Domnauer, a doctoral candidate in biology
at the University of Utah and the Natural History
Museum of Utah, who is studying this mushroom.
Quote. It seems like very common knowledge in
the culture there, end quote. But outside of
Yunnan and a couple of other places, the strange
mushroom is largely an enigma. Quote, there are
many accounts of the existence of this psychedelic
mushroom and many people who looked for it, but
they never found the species, end quote, says
Giuliani Forci, mycologist and the founder and
executive director of the Fungi Foundation, a
non -profit group dedicated to discovering, documenting,
and conserving fungi. domnauer is on a quest
to solve the decades -old mysteries about this
fungi species and identify the unknown compound
responsible for its unusually similar hallucinations
as well as what it can potentially teach us about
the human brain domnauer first heard of this
mushroom as an undergraduate from his mycology
professor quote sounded so bizarre that there
could be a mushroom out there causing fairy tale
-like visions reported across cultures and time
end quote domnauer says quote i was perplexed
and driven by curiosity to find out more, end
quote. The academic literature provided a few
breadcrumbs. In a 1991 paper, two researchers
of the Chinese Academy of Sciences described
cases of people in Yunnan province who had eaten
a certain mushroom and experienced Lilliputian
hallucinations. The psychiatric term for the
perception of tiny human animals or fantasy figures.
It is so named after the small people who inhabit
the fictional Lilliput Islands in the novel Gulliver's
Travels. The patients saw these figures, quote,
moving about everywhere, end quote, the researcher
wrote. Usually there were more than 10 tiny beings
on the scene, quote. They saw them on their clothes
when they were dressing and saw them on their
dishes when eating, end quote, the researcher
added. The visions, quote, were even more vivid
when their eyes were closed, end quote. already
in the 60s gordon watson and roger hame the american
author and french botanist who brought the existence
of psilocybin mushrooms to the attention of the
western audiences came across something similar
in papua new guinea They were searching for a
mushroom that a team of missionaries who visited
30 years earlier had said caused the locals to,
quote, go insane, end quote, a condition that
anthropologists later dubbed mushroom madness.
Unbeknownst to them, what they encountered actually
sounds strikingly similar to the current reports
from China. They collected specimens of the suspected
species and sent them back to Albert Hoffman,
the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD for testing.
but Hoffman failed to identify any molecules
of interest. The team concluded that the stories
they heard from the field must have been cultural
tales rather than having any pharmacological
basis, and no further research was done. It was
not until 2015 that researchers finally formally
described and named L. asiatica, this mushroom,
still without much detail about its psychoactive
properties. so domnauer's first goal has been
to pin down the species true identity in 2023
he traveled to unan during the peak summertime
mushroom season he surveyed the province's sprawling
fungi markets and asked sellers which of these
mushrooms make you see little people he purchased
the ones that the giggling venters pointed to
and then brought the specimens back to the laboratory
to sequence their genomes This confirmed the
mushroom with identity. He says, in research
he is preparing for publication, chemical extracts
from the lab specimens produce behavioral changes
in mice similar to those reported in humans.
After being administered the mushroom, how would
they know that the mice are seeing little people?
That's true. And do they see them as little to
mice or the same size as them? They would be
such small. people what would mice see though
or would they see tiny mice or would it be little
mice how do they know they oh man so many questions
yeah after being administered the mushroom extracts
the mice experienced a period of hyperactivity
followed by a long stupor where the rodents did
not move much oh my god domnauer also visited
the philippines where he had rumors of a mushroom
causing similar symptoms as those from the historical
records from china and papua new guinea The specimens
he collected there looked slightly different
from the Chinese ones. They were smaller and
light pink compared to the larger red or Chinese
mushrooms, he says. But his genetic testing revealed
that they were indeed the same species. That's
probably far enough for what we're going to be,
the point we're looking at the story for. Yeah,
I think this stuff is so interesting. And I know
we potentially, it's on our idea list for future
episodes, is machine elves. The question of like,
does a forest make a sound in the woods if there's
no one around to hear it? Like, are there actually
little people running around that we can't see
without these mushrooms? That's my question.
They may scientifically prove that it's not,
but that's my question that I have. Is it just
opening your brain up to be able to see these?
And do I need to be worried about the little
people that are currently running around where
I'm recording? Yeah. Well, they don't seem to
do anything, even if you can see them. My question
would be kind of on the opposite end of it is,
is there a like historical mushroom or fungi
that existed in, let's say the, the, uk way back
in the day where the fairy stories come from
exactly and it very well could and that doesn't
mean that they don't exist in my head because
this might just be opening a realm where we see
that they're you know holding reality together
is what i'd like to think of it it might be it
also might just be that it's opening up a part
of your brain that um is generally not like connected
to your eyes so you're actually seeing hallucinations
of very specific things that open up like i don't
know maybe something in your head where it only
stores like ideas of little people for some reason
that was my other point it's so strange that
it specifically makes everybody hallucinate the
same thing and i guess you can tie it in with
um the machine elves as well and the mantis beings
a lot of people witness mantis beings when they're
like um on a mind altering hallucinatory. It's
weird how like a lot of drugs have very specific
hallucinations attached to them. super weird
which is also pretty intriguing and i know that
there is someone that did the electric kool -aid
acid test i think is what it was i've never read
it it's always been on my list i wonder if they
look at something anyhow this is more something
for the future episode we may get to eventually
i'd hope to yeah it's so interesting but you
guys got 48 hours do drugs and see what you hallucinate
and tell us yeah do it but don't tell anybody
we told you to do that yeah If they ask, you
came up with that idea yourself. Exactly. Don't
tell anyone. Anyhow, bye. Bye.