Update: Food Network says 'subliminal message'

I posted Sunday night about a McDonald's ad flashing for a few seconds during Iron Chef America. The AP reports that the McDonald's logo that flashed on the screen was:

a technical error on our part and not a subliminal message as suggested by a Web site running the slow-motion playback," said Food Network spokesman Mark O'Connor.

This is being discussed all over the web!

Do you buy it? Do you think it was a technical glitch or subliminal advertising?

And the Iron Chef winner is...McDonalds?!

Tonight was an otherwise ordinary edition of Iron Chef until the last few minutes. While they were going over the contestants' entries, there was a spilt-second flash of...something on the screen. I backed up the TiVo and watched it frame by frame, only to see this for one frame:



Um, what?

I checked out YouTube and someone has already uploaded the clip. Check it out; it is truly bizarre. Was it an employee prank? Is McDonald's into subliminal advertising? Was it a viral marketing ploy?