It can be a very scary experience for people if someone close to them goes missing. For this reason, they immediately file a complaint. Unfortunately, the search for a missing person doesn’t always end well, like in the case of Gabby Petito. Other times, the search continues for a long time, as in the case of Petito’s boyfriend, Brian Laundrie.
But this funny incident of finding a missing man will make you laugh. In Turkey, a 50-year-old man named Beyhan Mutlu went out drinking with some friends. His wife became concerned when she couldn’t reach him on his cell phone. His friends said that he wandered off into a nearby forest. The search began.
Volunteers searched the forest for Mutlu for hours. It was nighttime and dark out. One of the searchers called out Mutlu’s name, and it got the attention of another volunteer who had joined the search.
The volunteer asked, “Who are we looking for? I am here.” It turns out that Mutlu had seen the searchers looking for someone, but he didn’t know the name of the person they were looking for. He didn’t realize they were looking for him. He joined the search party and only realized he was the supposedly missing person when he heard one searcher call out his name.
Mutlu thinks this is a huge misunderstanding. He told Daily Sabah, “Basically, I’m paying for my friends’ mistakes. What happened is all like a joke.”
After everyone realized that Mutlu had been found, the police drove him home. Mr. Mutlu was taken aside by one of the rescuers to give a statement. “Don’t punish me too harshly, officer. My father will kill me,” he told them.
He was then given a lift home, NTV reported. It was unclear whether he faced any penalty.
In 2012, an Asian tourist joined a mountain search operation for a “lost” person in Iceland who turned out to be her. The mix-up happened when she broke off from her sight-seeing group and changed clothes.
When she returned, the rest of her tour group failed to recognize her and an official search was launched. The woman joined in when she failed to recognize the description of herself in the dark clothing she had changed out of.
It is unclear how Mutlu found himself in his own search party or how his friends didn’t realize that he was right under their noses the whole time. Police were able to safely escort Mutlu to his home.
Although a missing person joining their own search party is very rare, this is not the first time something like this has happened. In fact, something very similar happened in Iceland back in 2012. At that time there was a search party looking for a missing Asian tourist. She didn’t recognize the description of herself and ended up joining the search party for herself.
How would you react if you realized there was a search party out for you and you had been searching for yourself? How do you think Mutlu’s friends and family reacted when they found out what happened? Does it surprise you that someone would join a search party without knowing the name of the person they’re searching for?
