The program "Xi'an Up Close" aired a report on June 17 on a "mystery mushroom" found by residents of Liucunbu village in Shaanxi province.
Villagers said they found the strange object after they hit bedrock while drilling a new well, Shanghaiist.com reported.
"When we dug down to about 80m deep, we fished out this long, fleshy object. It's got a nose and an eye, but we have no idea what it is!" said a villager.
He added even their 80-year-old neighbor claimed he had "never seen anything like this before."
Unable to figure out what it was, they called up a local TV station, which sent a crew led by reporter Ye Yunfeng.
At the scene, Ye described the object as the camera panned in on it.
"As we can all see, this looks like a type of fungus, on both ends of which you'll find mushroom heads ... On this side, you can see what looks like a pair of lips," she said.
On the other side was a tiny hole which extends all the way back to this side, she said.
She then described the object as looking very shiny, and "it feels really fleshy and meaty too."
A villager who claimed surfing the Internet said the object was a type of lingzhi mushroom, called the "taisui."
Ye then reported the lingzhi is generally found in the Shaanxi region deep underground and is rarely seen.
But then, viewers who saw the report identified the object not as a mushroom but as a double-headed masturbation toy with an artificial vagina on one side and an artificial anus on the other.
The video went viral on the Internet, gaining millions of views across video-sharing sites.
It prompted the TV show to issue an apology on its Sina Weibo profile.
"As our reporter was still very young and unwise to the ways of the world, this report has brought great inconvenience to everyone. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts for your criticism and correction. Please forgive our oversight!" it said.
For their part, the villagers heaved a sigh of relief that they resisted their instinctual temptation to stir-fry the "mushroom" and put it in their mouth, the Shanghaiist report said.
