Lady Gaga amps up the mystery as the release date for "Applause" grows ever nearer.

Lady Gaga took Twitter by STORM last night, unleashing a veritable barrage of tweets promoting the Aug. 19 release of her lead ARTPOP single, "Applause." Among them was the above photo, featuring Gaga wearing what appears to be a welder's mask as she stares intently at a prosthetic arm -- which we have definitely seen before in a previous ARTPOP promo photo. Much like that video of Gaga practicing the Abramovic Method, we have NO CLUE what this means, but being a) mouthy and b) in possession of keyboards, we're gonna tell you our ideas anyway!

Check out more Lady Gaga photos and our prosthetic arm theories after the jump.

At first, we thought Lady Gaga was simply playing off the title of her upcoming single. If you can generate plenty of "A-P-P-L-A-U-S-E" with only two hands, imagine what THREE could do! (Not how hands work.) More likely, however, we wonder if Gaga has trained herself to add metalworking and and/or sculpture to her repertoire of artistry? But then that begs the question: What is she trying to weld? Is she attempting to stick that metallic arm onto a larger installation? Maybe she welded the arm herself! Maybe she's trying to weld it TO herself? (AHH!) No, wait! What if the arm is the welding tool, a custom Haus of Gaga tool crafted uniquely for Mother Monster? Hey, it wouldn't be the first time that she dabbled in body parts shooting fire.

There was that time Lady Gaga wore a pyro-bra, or, as she would call it: "Tuesday."

All of these theories are as plausible as they are ridiculous! But we think that a Gaga tweet from later that night might lend credence to an entirely different explanation:

i share these personal feelings because IF I HAD TO GO ANOTHER MONTH WITHOUT PLAYING THE NEW MUSIC I THINK ID CHEW MY ARM OFF #ARTPOP11DAYS— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) August 9, 2013

Ohhhhhh, so that's why Lady Gaga's always got that prosthetic arm handy lately! Maybe she's just worried her label will suddenly delay her album, and, like most people in her situation, we're sure she would naturally respond by chewing her arm off! #JustLikeUs Mother Monster does already have a taste for human flesh.

But seriously, folks, we've had a lot of laughs here today, but we'd just like to repeat: DON'T CHEW YOUR ARM OFF. We don't care how glamorous celebrities make it seem; it's not nearly as cool as recycling or minding your parents. Stay in school.

Photo credit: @ladygaga/ GIFs: PopCrush