A report released Tuesday by physicists at Stanford University has revealed that the entire known universe—including the whole of human civilization and the totality of all existing matter and energy—is actually the fictional setting of a police-procedural television series called Hard Case.

Scientists studying the properties of light from exploding supernovae confirmed their research has conclusively demonstrated that existence as we know it was created solely to provide the framework for a prime-time drama that airs in a parallel universe and is centered around a brash New York City police detective named Rick Case, his partner Michelle Crowley, and the other members of Hard Case’s fictitious Homicide Division.