Does a video of passengers on a plane screaming while an "unknown creature is loose" show a real incident? No, that's not true: The video clip of the passengers screaming and jumping up on their seats to avoid an unknown critter running around the plane was a skit with actors. The TikTok page where it was originally posted features dozens of other, similar videos often using the studio sets of a company called Network Media. No real news outlet reported such an incident.
The claim appeared in a February 20, 2026, video with TikTok watermarks that was posted on X.com account @V_Lady2024 (archived here). It opened:
🚨 AN UNKNOWN CREATURE IS LOOSE ON THIS FLIGHT 😱
Grown men climbing seats like kids, women screaming bloody murder, total PANIC in the cabin!!
No one knows what it is... no one claimed it... now it's locked up at Denver airport.
If nobody claims the poor thing soon, they might EUTHANIZE it?!? 😳
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot from X.)
You can watch the video here:
🚨 AN UNKNOWN CREATURE IS LOOSE ON THIS FLIGHT 😱
-- 𝐿𝒶𝒹𝓎 𝒱 🥀 (@V_Lady2024) February 20, 2026
Grown men climbing seats like kids, women screaming bloody murder, total PANIC in the cabin!!
No one knows what it is... no one claimed it... now it's locked up at Denver airport.
If nobody claims the poor thing soon, they... pic.twitter.com/AodhuUfNnH
This video shows a staged skit, not a real flight incident, and ends with a closeup of a live hedgehog. The TikTok account @tonyandangel (archived here) that originally posted the video creates fictional skits, many set on airplanes, often using a set that matches the cabin in this video.
The interior of the airplane looks like one of the sets from Network Media, a company that rents out film sets (archived here) to content producers who publish similar scripted scenes, as this screenshot shows:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot from networkmedia.com)
The design and layout of the seats with the headrests in the fake airplane shown in the video matches a set shown in the "Studios" section of Network Media's website, as shown below, which was also used by a different influencer for a skit about an FBI agent on a plane:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot from X)
Lead Stories previously debunked other videos filmed on an airplane sets here.
Using search terms Denver, flight, hedgehog and loose, Lead Stories searched the Google News index of the contents of thousands of websites. That search (archived here) no real news reports of a loose hedgehog captured in-flight and then held at Denver's airport, as the skit narrator intones, only re-posts of the skit video.
The other giveaway that it's a skit is the "flight attendant" uniform, which sports generic aviation wings, but no specific airline insignia and no nametag. The cap, a retro look for which Lead Stories could find no 2026 match in websites devoted to flight attendant fashions, is available on Amazon (archived here) for $14.99:
(Image source: Lead Stories montage of screenshots from @tonyandangel video and from https://www.amazon.com/BinaryABC-Stewardess-Attendant-Costume-Accessories.)
