Horrifying video of uncooked meat crawling off a table will ruin you

A viral video of uncooked flesh making a run for it could be pulling your leg.

The video, which was originally posted in a Facebook group and on the Chinese social media platform Weibo in June before making its way to YouTube and American media, shows a plate of raw meat at what appears to be a hot pot restaurant. Dubbed the "zombie chicken," one of the pieces still moves in the video, and manages to pull itself off the plate and convulses to the floor while the person recording shrieked.

It's pretty freaking unsettling.

While many have been referring to the undead flesh as a piece of chicken, Snopes theorizes that the meat is actually a freshly-skinned frog. Before the video went viral in English speaking media, Hong Kong News also reported that the dish shown was originally a frog.

For one, dead chicken doesn't move or really look like that. While it's possible that very recently killed chicken can still move, farmers doubt that restaurants serve meat immediately after the animal's death.

Travis Malloy, the founder of TrailBale Farm in Florida, told local news station WTSP that "they don't sell them that fresh," and added that chickens "might kick" for 10 to 15 seconds after their heads are removed.

Instead, the runaway meal could be live sashimi from a restaurant that practices "ikizukuri," a traditional Japanese method of preparing seafood for consumption. The dish often incorporates fish, octopus, and yes, sometimes even frog. The animal is prepared live and dipped in alcohols and sauces, and then swiftly killed. The dish's ability to still move indicates its freshness, which makes it a delicacy. Other East Asian countries have similar delicacies: In Chinese cuisine, it's the live, deep-fried Yin Yang fish, and in Korean cuisine, it's "sannakji," which involves seasoning freshly cut octopus tentacles in sesame oil. Although the octopus is dead, its nerve endings are still active and can cause the animal's parts to move.

Here's a video that shows how freshly skinned frog legs still twitch and "dance" when its nerves react to salt.

That being said, some experts still aren't convinced that it's a real animal, much less a frog.

In a comment to USA Today, Dr. John Wiens, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at the University of Arizona, was appalled by the video.

"I don't see how a frog could do that," he said. "I'm definitely not going to commit to it being a frog. Maybe a piece of fish or something?"

While freshly killed meat may twitch and spasm, managing to pull itself off its plate and "escape" raises eyebrows. The fact that the video starts with it moving and ends when it hits the floor is a bit too convenient, so it could absolutely be fake. Whether it's a horrifying animatronic chunk of flesh or a clever edit, we may never know.

One thing's for sure, though: There's no way in hell that thing is chicken.