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New Yorkers were left puzzled after a video was posted on X showing green sludge oozing from sewer grates in lower Manhattan.
"So there's literal green sludge bubbling up from the ground next to World Trade Center right now," Dan Pantelo wrote on X.
"Can anybody explain this or are we just living in full blown Gotham rn," Pantelo added in a follow-up post, which included a video.
While many people replied, joking the slime was related to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Batman, moderators added a "Readers added context" note to the original post explaining that the green slime was just "harmless, fluorescent green dye," which is commonly used by plumbers to detect leaks in plumbing and sewage systems.
Staff members who work at O'Hara's Restaurant and Pub told the Daily Mail that city workers were using a green foam to test and clean out a nearby hotel's sprinkler system. Once the foam was flushed through the system, it ended up in the sewer system and bubbled to the top of the grates.
Pantelo later replied to his tweet, joking that he disagreed with the assessment that it was just harmless dye.
"Contrary to the community note, I think the sludge is radioactive ooze. Source? Divine intuition," he wrote on X.