Description: A purportedly AI-generated fictional story falsely claimed that a Boy Scout named Eric Langford disappeared in New York in 1989 and reappeared in 2001 after being kidnapped. The reported hoax originated on the UNKNOWN Files YouTube channel and was repackaged into viral TikTok videos and AI-written blog posts promoted on Facebook, misleading millions of viewers and searchers about a fabricated missing-person case.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developers , Unknown image generator developers and Unknown generative AI developers developed an AI system deployed by UNKNOWN Files, which harmed Epistemic integrity , social media users , YouTube users , TikTok users and Facebook users.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown deepfake technology , Unknown image generator technology and Unknown generative AI systems
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1330
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-12-13
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Claim:
A 14-year-old Boy Scout named Eric Langford disappeared in New York's Adirondack Mountains in 1989, was declared dead and miraculously reappeared in 2001.
Rating:[
False
About this rating
](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rating/f…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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