Meet Dave Alexander, a 52-year-old farmer from Ontario, Canada.
About six years ago – 7 June 2012 to be more exact – Alexander decided to investigate the urban legend that McDonald's cheeseburgers don't go bad, so he asked his daughter to buy a plain cheeseburger and fries.
Alexander said the cheeseburger was plain to avoid acid from any sauce tainting the experiment.
"I unwrapped them, placed the top bun to the side, set the whole thing on a shelf and waited," he said.
To compare, Alexander also stored a 6-year-old homemade burger and fries, which ended up looking like this:
And this.
He said the difference between the two is that the homemade fries turned into a charcoal-like substance.
"The restaurant fries look like I bought them this morning. The buns both survived with the restaurant ones looking perfect and the homemade ones looking a bit rough, but still hanging in there," he said.
However, he said the cheese is a different story. "The restaurant 'cheese' slice just turned a weird brown colour," he said.
He said: "The cheddar that I used basically crumbled and turned to a super fragile brittle substance. The meat on the homemade one has gone into an unknown state. It appears rock hard, but I’m afraid to touch it.
"The meat from the restaurant burger is clearly dehydrated and as such has gone very thin, but otherwise looks just like a thin meat patty.
"The super crazy thing is that we live on a farm. Flies are a part of life. In over six years, we have never once observed a fly or anything else, land on the cheeseburger or the fries. Strange."
Alexander and his wife decided to downsize and sold off the cabinet the burger was on, so he wanted to get rid of the burger and fries by listing them on eBay.
When the burger and fries went on eBay, people quickly started bidding on it. Alexander says was "absolutely blown away" by the interest.
"Twitter has blown up, people are finding me in the weirdest ways possible. Here, I thought I would be famous for doing something stupid. Turns out all I had to do was buy a cheeseburger and wait," he said.
He said he removed the dust with a cloth: "I have been so incredibly reluctant to contaminate my experiment, that I haven’t touched it with my bare hands, thinking that the oils from my skin may have an affect on it."
Alexander said that he hasn't kept any other foods and that he was contacted by someone who has a 2-year-old donut.
eBay has since removed the listing and told BuzzFeed News in a statement: "Regarding that listing, it was removed as it is against eBay policy to list or sell unpackaged or expired food."
On the company's decision, Alexander said: "eBay has forcefully removed the listing, citing the fact that the ad was a food item that did not include an expiry/best before date on it. Seriously.
"I would dearly love to ask eBay publicly, what kind of moron would consider this an edible food item?"
He added: "If I had a trophy fish, shellacked and mounted on a board for sale, would it need a 'best before' date on it just because someone may try and eat it? If not, why not?"
BuzzFeed News has reached out to McDonald's Canada for comment.
CORRECTION
The burger and fries were purchased six years ago. A previous version of this article said it was 10 years ago.
Ikran is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in London.
Contact Ikran Dahir at ikran.dahir@buzzfeed.com.
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