Drunk Turkish man reported missing joins search party and ‘finds himself’ in forest

Man reported missing after failing to return home after session with friends

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A drunk Turkish man who was reported missing “found himself” after inadvertently joining the search party sent out to look for him

Beyhan Mutlu, who is living in Inegol in the northwestern province of Bursa, was reported missing on Tuesday.

His family alerted authorities after he failed to return home from a drinking session with friends and didn’t return phone calls.

Officials said Mr Mutlu, 50, wandered into a forest and could not be found by his friends, Turkish media outlet Daily Sabah reported.

A search party was dispatched to the area and Mr Mutlu ended up meeting them in the woods, according to the report.

Officials reportedly had no idea that Mr Mutlu was the man they had been looking for and he joined the search party for several hours before “finding himself”.

Reports say Mr Mutlu became aware that he was the one the search party was looking for after they began shouting his name.

Authorities reportedly took a statement from Mr Mutlu before taking home to his loved ones.

In 2012, an Asian woman on a visit to Iceland got mixed up in a similar incident.

She was reported missing after failing to return to her tour bus while on a trip to Iceland’s southern volcanic region near the island’s Eidgja canyon, a remote but popular walking area for visiting tourists.

The tour company driver waited for an hour. When the woman failed to turn up, he alerted police and search teams were dispatched to the area shortly afterwards.

They started combing the barren treeless hillsides looking for an Asian woman described as 5ft 2in and wearing dark clothing.

The expedition was only called off at 3am after it emerged that the woman had been on the bus all along and had even participated in the search, having had no idea that she had been reported missing.