– "Meat. They're made out of meat."
– "Meat?"
– "There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat..."

They're Made Out of Meat is a short story from Terry Bisson regarding a pair of extraterrestrials baffled by the idea of thinking, talking meat that appears to live in this far-away corner of the universe. Utterly dumbfounded, they ponder over the finding and debate whether some situations are best left alone.

Terry Bisson (1942-) is an American science fiction and fantasy author best known for his short stories, including Bears Discover Fire (1990), which which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, as well as They're Made Out of Meat (1991), among others.