The story of a citizen from the non-existent country ‘Torenaza’ arriving at a US airport is fake

23 October, 2025 1:36 pm

Recently, a claim has been circulated on social media, along with several photos of a woman and other images, asserting, ‘A strange incident occurred at America’s JFK Airport. An elderly woman got off a plane arriving from Japan. The airport staff were stunned to see her passport. Her country’s name was TORENAZA, a country that does not exist on the world map. Yet, her passport had stamps from over a dozen country visits, which also do not exist in the world. Even more surprising, the biometric, stamps, and everything on her passport were original. When she was told everything, she said, I think I have come to another planet. She seemed like a completely normal traveler. So, the airport staff took her to an observation room. She sat there for 30 minutes, and suddenly the CCTV cameras went offline. She was no longer seen there.’

See posts circulated on Facebook with this claim here (archive), here (archive), here (archive), here (archive), and here (archive).

See the post circulated on TikTok with this claim here (archive).

See the post circulated on YouTube with this claim here (archive).

See the post circulated on Instagram with this claim here (archive).

Fact-Check

An investigation by the Rumor Scanner team found that no female passenger from a non-existent country called ‘Torenaza’ arrived at New York’s JFK airport as claimed. In reality, the photos/scenes of the woman in question were taken from an episode of a reality show called ‘Airline’, which aired in 2004. Furthermore, the incident of suddenly disappearing in such a manner bears resemblance not to a real event, but to a Japanese urban legend.

Upon investigation, a video titled ‘Airline: Best Full Episodes of 2024 MARATHON | A&E’ was found, posted on November 8, 2024, on the YouTube channel of the US-based TV network ‘A&E’. Scenes of the woman in question can be seen at various points after the 22-minute mark of the video.

The description of the YouTube video indicates that it is a scene from an episode of the series ‘Airline’ titled ‘Lost in Translation’. In the scene, the woman in question is seen arriving in Los Angeles from Baltimore, USA. Notably, there is no mention of New York’s JFK airport as claimed. The woman appears unable to understand the English spoken by the airline staff, and upon reviewing her documents, the staff presume she is an Arabic-speaking woman. Later, the staff has the woman speak to a different interpreter/multilingual person and learns that someone named Abdullah is supposed to pick her up, who arrives later. The video never mentions a non-existent country called ‘Torenaza’; rather, Saudi Arabia is mentioned.

Further investigation into the episode led to webpages on the movie/series platforms IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. It is stated that this is Season 2, Episode 11 of a reality show called ‘Airline’, where a character named ‘Yolanda’ handles the situation with a woman from Saudi Arabia who does not understand English. The episode was broadcast on September 13, 2004. The show’s description states that it shows the difficult daily experiences of a team of airline workers keeping a large airport running smoothly.

In other words, the photo of the woman being circulated is actually a scene from a reality show. Additionally, one of the photos in the circulated post is of a United States passport.

Subsequently, a relevant keyword search yielded no evidence from reliable sources to support the claim that a citizen from such a non-existent country had actually arrived at JFK airport.

Furthermore, an investigation found a fact-check report on this topic published on October 17 by the France-based fact-checking platform AFP Factcheck, which debunked the claim. The report adds that the claim appears to be a reimagined version of a decades-old urban legend known as the “Man from Taured.” According to that legend, in the 1950s, a mysterious passenger landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in Japan, whose passport was from a non-existent country called Taured. Similar to the recent online posts, the Man from Taured story alleges that he was detained overnight for investigation about his origin. But by morning, the man and all his belongings had vanished, leading to claims that he had crossed over from a parallel universe. There is no credible evidence for this story. However, researchers later linked this myth to a real incident involving a fraudster named John Zegras, who was arrested in Tokyo with a fake passport from an imaginary country.

Therefore, a photo from a reality show scene is being shared, claiming to depict a citizen from the non-existent country Torenaza arriving at a US airport, which is false.