19 Unbelievable Lies People Could Not Believe They Were Hearing With Their Own Ears
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us the wildest lie they've ever heard someone tell. There were some reaaaal doozies. Here's what people shared:
1."A friend of mine was seeing a correctional sergeant, and he told her a story about his dog dying of parvovirus. He said that he was training the dog, and one day, the dog was just gone. We found out through some friends that the real story was that he was going through the investigative services K-9 training, and the dog was passed on to someone else. Essentially, he failed the course, but the dog didn't. For some reason, he decided to turn it into a sob story about how 'his dog' died. We still cringe about how he decided to kill off a dog in a story when the reality was that he couldn't cut it in the K-9 academy."
2."A friend of mine, who was a wonderful guy but a bit prone to tall tales, once told me that he had been in a 15-year postal and email pen pal relationship with Pope John Paul. We're just a couple middle-aged guys in the middle of Appalachia (there isn't even a Catholic Church in town), but he claimed that one day he wrote the Pope to commiserate about the state of the world, and he actually got a lengthy, handwritten response. Thus, their pen pal communications grew from there. I love the guy, but of course, I didn't buy it."
"Here's the plot twist: My friend did send regular messages to the Pope over that 15-year period, but was absolutely not receiving any regular replies from him. But, shortly before my friend died, I asked him to finally 'fess up. 'Come on, man! We're friends. You don't need to impress me. Just admit you made the whole thing up.' He sighs and walked over to his desk, pulled out a lockbox, and handed me a faded letter postmarked from the Vatican, handwritten and signed by who else? The Pope. Turns out it was the one and only response to his original letter. He was so amazed he got a response that he grew to believe that they were besties. When I asked, 'Well, did the fact that you never got any further replies not tell you something?' He shrugged and said, 'Well, he was a pretty busy guy.'"
—Anonymous
3.“'Britney Spears signed my cast!' said a girl referencing a poorly written 'Britney' on her arm cast, which she obviously wrote herself. She had the cast on her dominate arm, hence the poor and shaky handwriting. It was middle school in the 2000s, so I’m not even surprised. We all did something like that."
—Anonymous
4."When a random woman found me on Facebook to tell me she had been talking to my boyfriend on Tinder (she looked him up and saw our relationship plastered all over his page and decided to reach out), my now-ex said that clearly he was being framed because he was definitely not on Tinder. He tried to convince me that someone was catfishing using his pictures, either as some sort of revenge ploy or as a wild coincidence. I was very young and had never used Tinder and had no idea how it even worked. I asked the woman if they'd talked off the app, and if so, what number was she texting. She said they had been snapchatting (of course, she was able to tell me his username), and he was obviously the guy in the photos from the Tinder account. He sobbed and told me he was being set up. Yeah, sure. Gotta love when the trash takes itself out."
—Anonymous
5."I once had an employee who seemed like he was going to be a good bet. He worked there for over two years before he got caught buying a specialized product from a manufacturer overseas and telling us he had made it himself. We believed him because he was really smart. It all blew up when the manufacturer tracked him down for nonpayment. The manufacturer called our company for the hell of it because we were one of the few companies who sold this product. The employee denied this, but he was busted. All the lies he had told us began to unravel. He told us he was a doctoral candidate at a local university. We called. Big lie. He told us he was student-teaching at another university. We called. They had never heard of him."
"We looked up his name online and found he had served time for screwing people out of money at a phony countertop business. He was still on probation! Lesson learned. Always do a background check. Liars are everywhere!"
6."I grew up outside of NYC and went to college in upstate NY. I was driving back to school after a break and took some classmates, who happened to live in NYC, back with me. I drove the first half of the five-hour trip, until at a gas stop, a friend offered to drive. We all got in after refueling, and she pulled out of the station, narrowly missing the pump. Then, as we took the circular ramp to get back onto the highway, she was ping-ponging back and forth, almost hitting the guard rail each time. Turns out, being born and raised in NYC, not only did she not have a driver’s license, she'd never even driven a car. She was finally able to pull over and stop once we all started screaming for our lives."
7."When I was a kid, I met another kid who told me their teacher was named 'Mr. Bubcapenis.' Even at 10, I could tell that kid was a pathological liar, lmao."
8."While my husband's buddy was going through a divorce, he asked us to watch his dog Daisy occasionally while he looked for a new place. We were watching Daisy more and seeing him less, but she was no trouble. One day, a mutual friend came over for a BBQ, put down his six-pack, pointed at the dog, and gasped, 'Is that Daisy? I thought she was dead!' Turns out our friend had lied to many people, including his ex-wife, that his dog was dead, and he was using us to cover it up."
—Anonymous
9."This girl in high school lied about having cancer. She tried to use having cancer as a way to gain friends? We were friends and I was at her house one day and I said something to her mom about how my friend's treatments must be hard for her. The mom loses it! She says to her daughter, 'Stop telling people that stupid cancer story. It's not true!' I noped out of there so fast, and then called her out on it at school later. She then changed schools and continued it at her other school."
—Anonymous
10."I was hanging out with this guy in the military. He kept wanting to be exclusive, but I got weird vibes that I couldn’t put my finger on. Over a few weeks' time, I heard the most bizarre lies that he swore were true. He was riding a motorcycle and thrown off on a gravel road, landed on his back, and had to be life-flighted because all the skin was ripped off. He ended up needing a full back skin graft. I’m not one to question people’s traumatic events, and he was really talking up this accident like it was the coolest thing ever, so I asked to see how his back healed. There was not a single scar or skin texture change or anything to suggest he had any type of surgery. He kept going on to say how his wife left him because of it, and blah blah blah. I found out he was still married and stepping out on her repeatedly. It was the most bizarre, overly-detailed lie I’ve ever heard."
—Anonymous
11."My ex-girlfriend claimed her bestie was a Greek royal. Her best friend, once we met, was obviously Scottish or Irish, but I didn't want to say anything. Fast forward three months: We hang out, and when we're alone, I ask if she's from Greece like my girlfriend. She laughed and said, 'No, silly. I was born in Galway and raised for two years in Edinburgh. Then, I moved to the US for college. That's how I met [my girlfriend's named].' I asked my girlfriend why she said her bestie was a Greek princess, and she said, 'It's my truth.' She also tried to make me feel bad for asking. Why on earth would someone lie about that?"
—Anonymous
12."I knew this girl and she had told a couple of lies, but it kept escalating to ones where she was basically begging to be told she was lying. Her biggest lie was that she had met a famous man and they started dating. We lived in an area that was nowhere near any place a celebrity would be. She would text me updates on them as a couple, and the last one was that he proposed. I never even responded with a congratulations. I mean, I didn't believe it to begin with, but then the famous man came out as gay a few month after their 'proposal.'"
—Anonymous
13."In fifth grade, one of my classmates told me he had an alien spider living in his chest and it would grow bigger if he ever got bumped there. When I asked how that even happened, he said he’d been in the hospital while his mom was getting surgery and it jumped out of her mouth into his. I’ve never forgotten it because it was so bizarre."
14."I have one friend who constantly tells outrageous stories for absolutely no reason. There are two stories that stick out when I immediately think of how wild his imagination is. The first one is that he was pulled over by CHP while driving from Las Vegas to San Diego very late at night. He claimed to be going over 100 MPH and was also drunk. When the officer approached the vehicle, my friend claims he rolled down his window, cursed at the cop for inconveniencing him, then sped off. The officer apparently did not pursue my friend because he was so intimidated from the verbal lashing."
"The second story is that he was on a vacation in Costa Rica and his appendix burst, which required emergency surgery. He was helicoptered in to the closest hospital because he was in a remote part of the jungle while participating in a group activity. But, because it's not a first-world country, he claims the doctors used rusty tools in an unsanitary environment. They also gave him enough pain medication to kill him, but he was so tough, he lived through it. I try to avoid that friend when I can, for obvious reasons."
—Anonymous
15."When I was in middle school, one of my classmates faked her own death. She posed as her mom and wrote a Facebook post saying she'd tragically passed away and would be sharing updates soon. Classmates all started messaging each other and freaking out. Everyone was posting heartfelt messages to her Facebook wall. The next day, her actual mother shared that she'd made the entire thing up and forced her to write a public apology. She didn't return to our school after the incident. Looking back, I can see it was an extreme cry for help and I feel really bad, but man, people were mad and confused when they found out she'd lied."
—Anonymous
16."I was in the next room over hearing my friend tell a story about some wild incident when I realized that what she was saying actually happened to ME, and I had told her this story recently. She just inserted herself into in and told it as her own."
17."I went on a first (and last) date with a guy who was 29. In addition to telling me he was a wildly successful investor, he claimed that the prior year, he had adopted two little girls, ages 4 and 6, who had been orphaned after their parents died. He claimed that he just wanted to give them a good life, so he bought them lots of toys because he’s so wealthy. Thinking that no adoption agency in the world would give two young girls to a random, single, 29-year-old man, I asked if he had wanted kids for a while and what the adoption process was like. He claimed that he just did it on a whim. Sir, it takes at least a year of intensive interviews and applications and red tape to even be considered as an adoptive parent, and you’re making it sound like you went to the animal shelter and just picked up a couple little humans. Absolutely not."
—Anonymous
18."About 10 years ago, a huge unit of a man came into the clothing store I worked in and told several of us staff that he was a defensive lineman for the Oakland Raiders. He forgot that with this internet thingy, you can look up stuff, like a team roster complete with pictures of any NFL team, past or present. Yeah, he was a liar."
19.And: "I had a coworker, K, who, for years, would tell the most obvious lies. I never called him out, although I was dying to, since we were just coworkers and it wouldn’t have been worth it. Where do I start? He said one time he was going house hunting with his fiancée, who fell in love with a house. During the open house, he heard a man express interest in purchasing. So, according to K, he followed the man outside, wrote down his license plate number, went to his local police station, and used their system to look up the man’s information. K then went on Facebook to find him, messaged the man, and said he was not allowed to put an offer on the house because K was going to. And, the man agreed to bow out."
"Also while house hunting, K spoke directly to the owner of the house, and the owner was so charmed, they knocked the price down $100k, just for him! It was weird because he never ended up getting the house…almost as if it never happened!
I think my favorite lie, however, was when he 'applied to work for the FBI,' and his story behind that. He went through the whole process to be an agent, reaching a round of panel interviews. He said the people who interviewed him were just so impressed by his resume and his interviewing skills. At one point, I guess they asked about illegal activities, and per K, he made a 'joke' that he considered every first date with a woman illegal because it was basically sex work since he would pay for the date and well, after, there would be intimacy. The joke was apparently a huge hit, and they guaranteed him a job. I followed up, and he never got the job. Almost as if…it never happened.
Okay, wait, one more. This might be the most obvious lie. When he and his fiancée took their newborn daughter to her 30-day pediatrician appointment, I kid you not, he tried to convince me that his daughter not only took her first steps, but walked across the entire exam room. And their pediatrician was exclaiming that they’ve never seen anything like it in their lives!!!!"
—Anonymous
Man, oh man! What's the wildest lie you've ever heard someone tell? 👀
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
