I saw my name in the local news report.
I was doing some research for an essay I’m writing for my course and I got a news pop-up. I don’t have notifications silenced but normally I don’t check them out because anything important enough for me to know about is the stuff I hear from my mom on the phone. But I always give the titles a short read before I delete the notification, the title for this one was “Teen in [location] County has been missing for 4 weeks – family of the victim is still on the search”.
Despite my habit of just clicking away from the tab, I opened it. Missing person cases don’t really happen here and I felt guilty for not giving it any attention. So I opened the news tab in my browser and there it was. My name.
I didn’t freak out at first because my name is pretty common, though the sharing last names part was kind of an odd coincidence. I just felt really sad for the girl. The whole story was that she attended a college party, probably drank too much, and then wandered off and hasn’t been seen since. I’ve read other missing cases like this in the past, or I’ve been told about them by my parents, and it seemed very typical. The victim is at a place they aren’t supposed to be, they get intoxicated, and they are either found dead or in really rough shape. It doesn’t make me any less sad, but I still wasn’t very surprised at the situation.
But then I kept scrolling. The article went on explaining the family’s side of things and how they have kept trying to find her, but the article broke in two to include pictures of the victim.
I’m not going to try and dramatize things because I’ll end up freaking myself out even more, so I’ll put it plainly: They were pictures of me.
The two pictures of me that were attached to the article were a lot of things:
The article didn’t say that they were the most recent pictures or anything, but it wouldn’t make sense to use them. Last year I gave myself a buzz cut that still hasn’t reached my shoulders, so I don’t know why they would use a photo from when my hair went to my lower back.
I talked to my mom about it on the phone and she kept acting very passive about it. I think she thought I was joking with her or trying to freak her out, so I sent her the link to the article to prove that it exists. She said it wasn’t loading at all on any of her devices. I sent her a photo of my computer screen showing the article to her, but it kept giving me error messages saying that it wasn’t going through to her.
I finally came to the conclusion that there was some massive mix-up with the news outlet (Even though most of the facts present show that this SHOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE. I’m still just trying not to freak myself out, bear with me). I tried using the attached email to tell them about the article and when they got back to me they asked me to call an attached number.
When I called I was put on the phone with a young lady who asked if I needed any online assistant with the website. I told her no, I did not need help, I just wanted the article to be removed. I told her the details and maybe emphasized a little too much the fact that I have literally never gone missing in my life. Thankfully she understood and asked for the article title so that it can be requested for removal. I told her, she typed it in, and she went silent. I asked her what was going on on her side and she responded (Very amused with my supposed “prank”) with “Ma’am the article name you gave me does not exist”.
I told her the article name again to make sure she got it right, she looked it up, and there was nothing. I asked her to read it back to me outloud just to make sure she actually typed it right, and that is when she started getting fed up. After a healthy amount of heated phone arguing, I hung up.
I don’t really know what to do now, because it seems that the universe is keeping everyone from believing me. Nobody can be sent links or photos of it, and the direct source is telling me that it has never existed. I’m not really sure what to do now, and I’m not really sure why I am sharing this with you all in the first place, but I guess it’s good to get it out of my system.
Also: I didn’t really know where to fit this in the post so I’m just making a little sidebar here – I did go to a college party when I was sixteen. I don’t remember a lot from it, except that I got my things and left when everyone started walking into the woods.
P.s. I’m not gonna dox myself by giving strangers on the internet my name and location because I’m not stupid.
Here is the link. If it works for you PLEASE message me: https://www.localreportnews.com