In southwest China, doctors have documented numerous cases involving people who ate a wild mushroom and later reported seeing tiny human figures.

Patients described miniature people walking across tables, climbing furniture, and moving through rooms. Many reports were strikingly similar, despite coming from different individuals.

Scientists eventually linked the unusual hallucinations to a mushroom called Lanmaoa asiatica. Although researchers have identified the species, they still do not know exactly which compound causes the effect.

The phenomenon is an example of what's known as Lilliputian hallucinations, named after the tiny people described in Jonathan Swift's 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels.

Most mushrooms cause no such effects, but this unusual species remains one of the strangest examples of how chemicals found in nature can influence human perception.