Originally published 2021-10-03.
Rescue volunteers in Bursa province during the search; the circle marks the man they were looking for. Illustration: Greek Reporter.
Yes, it really happened. In late September 2021, a 50-year-old man named Beyhan Mutlu spent several hours walking with volunteers and emergency workers through a forest near İnegöl, in Turkey’s Bursa province, helping them look for a missing person. The missing person was him. He only understood the mix-up when the searchers started calling out his name, and he answered.
The story travelled around the world within days because it is funny, harmless and strangely relatable. It also turns out not to be unique. Below is what was reported, a similar case from Iceland, why people can miss the obvious when they are tired, drunk or part of a crowd, and what the episode quietly teaches about reporting someone missing.
What happened in the forest near İnegöl
According to Greek Reporter, Mutlu had been drinking with friends one evening that week. At some point he wandered off into dense woodland on the edge of town and his companions lost sight of him. When his wife could not reach him for a few hours and he did not come home, she reported him missing, and his friends backed up the report.
A search was organised with emergency responders and local volunteers. Somewhere along the way, Mutlu met the group and fell in with them. Nobody seems to have asked who he was, and he does not seem to have asked who they were looking for. He walked with them for hours.
The penny finally dropped when the team shouted his name into the trees. Mutlu reportedly called back “I’m here!” and then explained to the officers beside him that the man they wanted was standing right there. Police took a short statement and drove him home. Turkish reports added a touching detail: he was worried that his family would be angry with him for causing so much fuss.
No one was hurt, no charges were reported, and the article noted that he had not been in danger at any point. That combination is a big part of why the story became a global talking point rather than a tragedy.
Where it happened: a forested district of Bursa
İnegöl is a busy district of Bursa province in north-western Turkey, home to about 300,000 people. It is best known inside the country for two things: furniture, which dominates local industry, and İnegöl köftesi, a style of grilled meatball with Balkan roots that has its own restaurants across Turkey.
The district sits close to Uludağ, the mountain that hosts one of Turkey’s best-known ski resorts, and much of the surrounding land is thick forest. That landscape matters to the story. In dense woods at night, groups break up easily, phone signal can be patchy, and a person who has had a lot to drink can lose their sense of direction in minutes. A search party is the normal response, and in Turkey such teams often combine official responders with volunteer rescue groups.
He was not the first: the Iceland case of 2012
A near-identical story came out of Iceland in August 2012. A tour bus stopped at Eldgjá, a long volcanic canyon in the south of the country. When the coach was ready to leave, the guides believed one passenger had not come back. The driver waited about an hour, then alerted rescue services, and roughly 50 people searched the area on foot and by vehicle through the night.
The “missing” woman had been on the bus the whole time. During the stop she had changed her clothes and freshened up, and fellow passengers did not match her new look to the description being passed around: an Asian woman about 160 cm tall, dressed in dark clothing, who spoke good English. She even joined the search. The operation was called off early on Sunday morning, once it became clear that the headcount had simply been wrong.
NBC News, relaying Iceland Review and the Icelandic outlet mbl.is, quoted local police chief Sveinn K. Rúnarsson as saying she “had no idea that she was missing.” Police were clear that she had done nothing wrong; the error lay in how the passengers had been counted.
How can someone not realise they are the missing person?
It sounds impossible until you think about how searches actually unfold. A few ordinary factors stack up:
- People rarely hear their own description. In Iceland the woman heard a physical description, not a name, and she no longer looked like it. In Turkey, by the reported account, nobody used Mutlu’s name until hours later.
- Alcohol narrows attention. Heavy drinking slows reasoning and makes it harder to step back and ask the obvious question. Someone who has drifted away from friends at night may also not realise that hours have passed or that anyone is worried.
- Crowds discourage questions. Psychologists have long described how people in a group take cues from each other. When everyone around you is calmly searching, joining in feels natural, and pausing to ask “who exactly are we looking for?” can feel awkward.
- Searchers trust the briefing. Rescue teams work from a description and a last-known location. A friendly local who turns up and offers to help is a welcome extra pair of eyes, not a suspect.
None of this makes the people involved foolish. It shows how much a search depends on clear information, and how easily one small gap in it can send dozens of people looking for someone who is right beside them.
The serious lesson: report early, and the 24-hour rule is a myth
Reports about Mutlu often ended with a reminder that the first day or two after someone disappears are the most important. That is right, and it is worth being precise about it.
Many people still believe that police will not act until a person has been gone for 24 hours. That is rarely true. Police forces in many countries stress that a disappearance should be reported as soon as you are genuinely worried, especially when the person is a child, elderly, unwell, vulnerable, or, as in this case, has been drinking in a dangerous place. Reporting early means officers can talk to witnesses while memories are fresh and start looking while the person is still likely to be nearby. The first 48 hours are often described as the most valuable window.
The İnegöl case shows the system working as intended. A worried spouse reported a husband who had vanished into a forest at night after drinking. Responders acted quickly. The ending happened to be comic, but nobody could have known that at the start, and a false alarm with a happy outcome is far better than a delayed search.
Practical takeaways if someone goes missing after a night out
- Agree on a plan before you go. A meeting point, a time to check in and shared live location on phones make it far easier to regroup in unfamiliar places.
- Count heads properly. The Iceland search began with a miscount. Tour guides, teachers and group organisers can avoid a lot of trouble with a name check rather than a quick glance.
- Call for help early. If someone has been drinking and has wandered toward water, woodland, cliffs or roads, contact emergency services rather than waiting to see whether they turn up.
- Give searchers good details. A recent photo, what the person is wearing, where they were last seen and their phone number all speed things up.
- If you get lost, stay put and make noise. Answering when people call, as Mutlu eventually did, ends a search fastest.
- Let people know the moment someone is found. Calling off a search quickly frees volunteers and emergency crews for other jobs.
Why stories like this go viral
A man helping to search for himself is the kind of plot twist a comedy writer would invent, which is exactly why readers share it. It is also gentle: there is no villain, nobody is harmed and the main character is embarrassed rather than disgraced. That makes it easy to laugh with him rather than at him.
It is worth remembering, though, that the details of viral stories shift as they are retold. Some versions add hours to the search, invent quotes or turn the wife’s understandable worry into a punchline. The core facts above are those reported at the time: a 50-year-old man, a night of drinking near İnegöl, a search of several hours, and a moment of recognition when his own name rang out through the trees.
Sources: Greek Reporter: drunk Turkish man joins search party for himself (Anna Wichmann, 2021); NBC News: missing tourist in Iceland joins search for herself (2012); Wikipedia: İnegöl; Wikipedia: Missing person. Lead illustration: Greek Reporter.
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