In what is almost exactly the plot of the pilot episode of "Bob's Burgers," a Dairy Queen location in Greenwood, South Carolina, had to dispel rumors that its hamburgers were made with human meat.
Wait...what happened?
It all started with an internet rumor, as so many viral but fictitious stories do.
The story gained traction after locals saw this Dairy Queen franchise location being raided by federal agents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as South Carolina law enforcement. However, it appears that this raid was related to two men who were arrested for using that location to transfer money illegally.
Franchise manager Saif Momin denied that his restaurant had anything to do with this criminal activity. Momin has not been charged.
When Matthew Hensley, an assistant editor at the Index-Journal, tweeted at Dairy Queen asking "do y'all use human meat at your Greenwood, S.C. location?" the company's corporate Twitter account responded "Hi Matthew! At DAIRY QUEEN, we are very proud of our 100% beef hamburgers. We serve a high-quality hamburger with no additives or fillers."
@IJMattHensley Hi Matthew! At DAIRY QUEEN, we are very proud of our 100% beef hamburgers. We serve a high-quality… https://t.co/BSbVQW8nj3— Dairy Queen (@Dairy Queen) 1566588720.0
According to a tweet from Hensley, the manager of this particular Dairy Queen location had reached out to the news outlet "hoping he could help squash the #CannibalCombo rumor." Readers of the paper had also posted about it.
@raysalsa @DairyQueen We at @ijindexjournal found out about this morbid allegation from the local DQ manager, who w… https://t.co/K56DV1LFvR— Matthew Hensley (@Matthew Hensley) 1566859132.0
According to the Index-Journal, an unnamed person had "lodged a complaint about 'human meat being inside a burger.'"
"If that was the case, they already would have shut me down," Momin told the Index-Journal.
What else?
Local officials also dismissed the rumors.
"I promise you, I've never had anything of that nature asked of me. I've never suspected anything like that. I can honestly say that's the first I've heard of it, and I don't see any validity in that at all," Greenwood County Coroner Sonny Cox told the Index-Journal on Aug. 23. "There's little to no chance of anything like that ever being able to happen."