A man in Turkey joined a search party that was looking for him. He spent hours helping volunteers before finding out he was the missing person they were trying to find.
Beyhan Mutlu, a 50-year-old construction worker from Inegol in Turkey’s Bursa province, had been drinking with friends on Tuesday evening when he walked into a nearby forest. When Mutlu did not come home, his worried wife reported him missing to local police after she could not reach him on his phone.
A search and rescue team was quickly set up, with local police, emergency services, and volunteers joining to find the missing man. Mutlu, who had fallen asleep in a house in the forest, woke up the next morning and ran into members of the search party. He did not know he was the person they were looking for, so he decided to help them search. The confusion went on for several hours until volunteers began calling out his name. According to Turkish news channel NTV, Mutlu replied by saying “I am here,” and finally understood the search was for him.
How the search party did not recognize him
Turkish media outlet reported that Mutlu later talked about the moment he realized what was happening. “After a while, they said they were looking for Beyhan Mutlu,” he told the outlet. “I broke into a cold sweat when I heard my name.” He said that he told the search team he was Beyhan Mutlu, but they did not believe him at first. “They didn’t believe me. The truth came out when my friend Mesut saw me,” Mutlu said. He had been part of his own search team for more than half an hour before everything was cleared up.
After what happened, police took a statement from Mutlu before giving him a ride home. Speaking to Daily Sabah newspaper, Mutlu said the whole thing was like a joke. “When one of my friends couldn’t find me, he reported me missing. Then they called my name, Beyhan Mutlu. I said, oh, that’s me,” he explained. Mutlu also reportedly told officers at the scene, “Don’t punish me too harshly, officer. My father will kill me.” It is not clear if he was given any fine for what happened.
The strange story quickly spread across social media and news outlets around the world, with many people finding it funny. This is not the first time a missing person has joined their own search party. In 2012, an Asian tourist in Iceland was also found in her own search party after she did not recognize her own description. The incident happened when the woman visited Iceland’s volcanic region in the south, and she was reported missing after not returning to her tour bus on time. While bizarre missing person cases continue to puzzle investigators around the world, Mutlu’s case stands out because of how it happened and its happy ending.
The Turkish incident shows how mix-ups can happen during search operations, especially when the missing person does not know they have been reported missing. Similar to a New Jersey man who found out he had been missing since he was 4 years old, unusual missing person stories keep getting public attention and show us that not all cases happen the way we expect them to.
Published: Oct 6, 2025 11:35 am