The week’s most epic news story has been debunked just hours after it was published, leaving many members of the British public absolutely gutted.
In claims printed in the Mirror and widely circulated on social media this morning, three British men said they ended up in Syria after boarding the wrong boat from the resort town of Ayia Napa.
British lads on a boat party trip to Cyprus checked-in on FB & found themselves in SYRIA https://t.co/MAILAsu5C9
— Ahmed Maher (@AhmedMaherBBC) 8 June 2016
The top lads, as they would be termed in British parlance, claimed they had boarded what they thought was a dolphin watching cruise before discovering, 100km out to sea, that they were on the wrong boat.
They claimed they were then rescued by Russian military personnel in Tartus, Syria, and were sent on a boat back to Ayia Napa. The Daily Express, The Daily Mail and Al Bawaba all published the story.
But it turned out that the truth about the trip on the “Devil Ship” was hiding in plain sight. Specifically on Facebook, where one of the boys boasted that the entire thing had been a lie.
No, British lads did not go on a night out in Ayia Napa and end up in Syria. pic.twitter.com/Gg3R57DzC6
— Jack Moore (@JFXM) 8 June 2016
Quizzed by friends as to whether he’d actually boarded the wrong boat, Lewis Ellis required little in the way of interrogation before confessing the truth.
“Naaa we just made it up for fun,” he said, apparently expressing no remorse for the moment of slight amusement he had caused the British media-consuming public.
“Hahaha you are still the man” Leanne Stevens, a Facebook friend, said, while Terry Ellis added “you knob haha”.
On hearing that the story was fake, many commentators expressed disappointment that we do not live in a world where it's possible to accidently travel to a military port in the middle of a devastating civil war, even following a massive lashfest in a resort popular for UK Garage. Others reserved criticism for newspapers that covered the story, apparently with little to no fact checking.
While saddened at the veracity of the story, the majority of those who had praised the lads maintained that their prank was peak bantz.
