Top 10 Recent News Headlines That Sound Fake But Are REAL

WatchMojo

Truth is stranger than fiction in today's news cycle! Join us as we examine headlines so bizarre you'd swear they were satire. From government officials accidentally texting war plans to journalists, to a musical about an accused murderer selling out theaters, these stories prove reality often outshines the most creative fiction!

Transcript

00:00The idea that you would do a reality show to have people compete for citizenship,

00:04it's just a sick, it's a sick idea.

00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most

00:10unbelievable media reports that are so shocking you'd think they were made up.

00:14What's in the public interest is that they were running a war plan on a messaging app

00:19and didn't even know who was invited into the conversation.

00:25Number 10. Now you can turn your boarding pass into the bald J.D. Vance meme.

00:29In July 2025, Rolling Stone published this story about an app designed by James Steinberg.

00:34The app reportedly allowed users to change the backgrounds of their digital airline boarding

00:38passes to the viral J.D. Vance bald baby meme. This didn't come out of left field though.

00:42This and hundreds like it are all over the internet, as some of our viewers may have seen.

00:47Earlier in 2025, a young Norwegian tourist named Mads Mikkelsen, not the actor,

00:52claimed he was denied entry into the U.S. after border control agents found the same J.D. Vance

00:57meme in his phone. Although the claim was denied by officials, the incident prompted discussions

01:01about censorship. James' attempt at pushing back against the suspected repression of free

01:06expression through tongue-in-cheek satire was hilarious, to say the least.

01:10I strongly recommend that you do not try to cross the border with this meme on your phone. Or this

01:17meme. Or this meme. Or this one.

01:21Number 9. Author of Texas bill to ban furries in schools cannot come up with examples of it

01:26happening. This is the type of headline that makes you do a double take, just to make sure

01:30you're not reading the onion. A bill filed in the Texas house would stop students from acting like

01:34any other than a human being at school. Unfortunately, it is a real headline by KDFW Fox 4 News from May

01:412025. It discusses a bill filed by State Representative Stan Gerdes of Smithville, Texas,

01:47to prevent kids from exhibiting, quote, non-human behaviors in public schools. He called it the

01:52forbidden unlawful representation of role-playing in Education Act, or the Furries Act.

01:56Can you name a school where it's been confirmed that there are litter boxes being provided to

02:01students? For this purpose? No, I cannot on the litter box side, but I can on the furry side.

02:08Gerdes claimed furry-related incidents were rampant, but reportedly had no solid evidence to back his

02:12claims. The bill was absurd to begin with, but the representative's inability to cite actual

02:17instances of disruptive furries on campus made it baseless. We have to give him credit for the

02:22background, though. Now, the forbidding, unlawful representation of role-playing in Education

02:26of Furries Act was filed by an Austin-area Republican state representative, Stan Gerdes.

02:33Number eight, she's attending college but can't read or write. Now she's suing her high school district.

02:37This is not an SNL parody about the education system. It's reportedly the true story of Alicia

02:42Ortiz, a young woman who graduated from Connecticut's Hartford Public High School with honors.

02:46Struggling to spell her own name, 19-year-old Alicia Ortiz tells us the school district she

02:52entrusted with her education failed her. Despite the achievement, she admitted to being illiterate

02:58and sued the Hartford Board of Education alongside the city of Hartford. CNN, which authored the

03:03headline in question, reported that Alicia had specific learning needs that were not met.

03:06I cried knowing that the people who has big titles know that this is happening and no one has stepped

03:17up to do something about it. What's worse, she was allegedly harassed by her special education

03:21teacher, Tilda Santiago. Nevertheless, with the help of apps that convert text-to-speech and vice versa,

03:27she completed her schoolwork, got accepted to the University of Connecticut on a scholarship,

03:31and aspires to be a writer. Education is so important,

03:35and I believe we have forgotten the meaning of it.

03:39Number 7. Teacher drank in class, swore pupils in Titmacarena.

03:43This BBC report from July 2025 gets increasingly ridiculous with every word. The teacher in question,

03:49Alice Ashton, worked at Escolbro Caranion in Wales. Her students alleged at an Education Workforce

03:55Council hearing that Ashton had appeared to be intoxicated and used inappropriate language in

04:00class one day. Ashton claimed her behavior was a result of her prescription meds. However,

04:04reportedly panel had no evidence to support this claim and so decided to remove her from the EWC

04:09register. Her previous DUI conviction didn't help her case either. Funnily enough, the headline makes

04:14it seem like her Macarena dance was as offensive as her drunkenly swearing at kids, which is why it

04:20sounds so unserious. Number 6. Woman sues company after they paid her for 20 years but didn't give

04:25her anything to do. Your first instinct after hearing this August 2025 Daily Mail headline might be to wonder

04:30what she's complaining about. Being paid to do nothing sounds fantastic in theory. However,

04:34it left Laurence Van Wassenhove depressed after she was seemingly rendered invisible at work.

04:47While employed at the French telecommunications corporation Orange, she reportedly had epilepsy

04:51and hemiplegia, which limited her professional scope. The company apparently made her a secretary

04:56when she was originally an HR assistant. In her new role, Laurence was allegedly assigned no real

05:01work. Speaking to FTV, she recalled feeling like an outcast. This forced inactivity, which her lawyer

05:15says counts as discrimination, supposedly continued for two decades, taking a toll on her mental health.

05:20That is why she is suing Orange. Number 5. Supermarket gunmen who targeted black people

05:25wants charges dropped says grand jury was too white. This headline from ABC News is so infuriating,

05:30we wish it were fake. Payton Gendron's attorneys argue that about a third of the black and Hispanic

05:36people who should have been included in that grand jury pool were not included in it. In August 2025,

05:43the outlet reported that Payton Gendron, the perpetrator of the 2022 Buffalo shooting,

05:48was trying to get his federal charges dropped. The mass shooting reportedly claimed the lives of 10 black

05:52people for which Gendron is serving a life sentence. He is already serving multiple life

05:57sentences after pleading guilty to state charges of murder and domestic terrorism. Ironically,

06:04his lawyers are now seemingly arguing that the predominantly white grand jury that indicted him

06:08violated his legal right to an impartial jury due to a lack of minority representation.

06:13The U.S. Attorney's Office reportedly emphasized in a statement that Gendron's lawyers could not prove

06:18their claim. Well, his lawyer argues that the grand jury lacked diversity, violating his constitutional

06:24rights. The judge hasn't ruled on this case just yet. Number four, her mental health treatment was

06:29helping. That's why insurance cut off her coverage. This heartbreaking ProPublica story by Maya Miller and

06:35Dua Eldeb was nominated for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. That is to say, it is painfully

06:41real. Through the story of Geneva Moore, the piece explores how insurers deny mental health care to those in

06:47need by citing progress or the lack thereof. Moore's mental health coverage was reportedly cut off

06:52after she was judged to have improved through her treatment. Although her therapist insisted that she

06:56needed intensive treatment, the insurer allegedly denied the claim. This seemingly halted her recovery

07:01right when she was starting to believe she could get better. Many patients like Geneva are negatively

07:05affected by such denials, which is what Miller and Eldeb hoped to highlight with their report.

07:10Number three, DHS is considering reality show where immigrants compete for citizenship.

07:14Published in the Wall Street Journal, this has to be one of the most dystopian headlines we've seen in

07:20recent years. DHS is considering a reality show where immigrants compete for expedited citizenship.

07:27In May 2025, it was widely reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

07:31was allegedly backing a TV show where immigrants could compete for American citizenship.

07:36The idea was reportedly pitched to Trump officials by Rob Warsaw of Duck Dynasty fame,

07:41who claimed to have received a positive response. Worst off says the show is meant to be hopeful that

07:46the contestants would be legal immigrants and that losing would not result in deportation.

07:51The Daily Mail specifically named the Secretary of Homeland Security,

07:54Kristi Noem, as a supporter. However, the DHS later clarified that it had not approved or

07:59rejected any such pitch. Noem also denied having any knowledge of the proposed show.

08:03And if Kristi Noem really wants to go to Hollywood, then she should quit the cabinet

08:07and pitch a show to Hollywood and leave. Number two, Luigi Mangione musical sells out.

08:12Is this Newsweek headline shocking? Yes. Did the internet predict something like this would

08:16happen sooner rather than later? Absolutely. It is opening night in San Francisco for a

08:20controversial new show. Luigi the Musical places fictionalized versions of Sam Bankman freed,

08:27Sean Diddy Combs, and the titular accused murderer in the same prison for a Chicago-esque satire.

08:32It's being harshly criticized both for being ill-timed and for not living up to its height.

08:36The producers want audience members to walk away with a good laugh, but they want to use comedy

08:41to bring deeper questions to the surface. However, the musical's popularity is speaking

08:46for itself. From June to August 2025, several shows were reportedly sold out in San Francisco.

08:52Later in August, it had a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, too.

08:56Clearly, the real Mangione's folk hero status is alive and well, and this musical has no qualms

09:01about riding the wave of his relevance.

09:03The most important thing is just knowing how many people support him even if he did do it

09:07is really fascinating because it really just shows how dire the situation actually is that

09:12the healthcare system is broken. Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel

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09:26and switch on notifications.

09:30Number 1. The Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans.

09:34An ordinary civilian ends up on a super-secret group chat and accidentally finds out about

09:38the U.S. government's military operations.

09:40This text message is clearly classified information.

09:45That sounds like the premise of an action comedy film starring Ryan Reynolds, except it's reality.

09:49The civilian in question was Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.

09:53The signal chat room he was reportedly added to contained information about Operation Roughrider.

09:57It was a mistake that a reporter was inadvertently added to a signal chat

10:01with high-level national security principles.

10:04This was the codename given to the United States' attack against

10:07Houthi rebels in Yemen from March to May 2025.

10:11The Atlantic story broke in March and the blunder came to be known as Signal Gate,

10:15raising major questions about national security.

10:17Yet its severity was downplayed by Trump officials, just like Goldberg's headline

10:21and farcically makes the leak sound like an oopsie.

10:23Democrats want Pete Hegseth fired, but the White House is fully standing by

10:28everyone invited onto that group chat.

10:30Which of these headlines shocked you the most?

10:32Tell us in the comments.

10:34I know we can do better, and I know we have a powerful community

10:37that want to do better.

10:38I want to be the voice for them.

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