A story circulated on social media in September 2025 about members of Hells Angels biker gang supposedly rescuing 23 children from a school bus sinking in floodwaters, with photos supposedly showing the incident. Artificial-intelligence (AI) software helped create the posts.
For example, a Sept. 19 Facebook post (archived) claimed floodwaters trapped "a school bus full of kindergartens" and their "terrified teacher" screamed for help. Then, according to the post, "a group of heavily tattooed bikers skidded to a stop, threw down their bikes, and without hesitation rushed into the flood."
(Md Osman/Facebook)
Other Facebook users also shared the story, including a post that received more than 120,000 reactions and 15,000 shares. Some posts featured links in comments that lead to articles that further detail the alleged incident and are hosted by advertisement-filled blogs.
However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no credible news reports about a group of Hells Angels bikers saving 23 children from a school bus trapped in floodwaters. Prominent outlets would have widely reported on the event, if it had really occurred.
Rather, the story was fictional. It is one of potentially thousands of similar tales circulating on social media that intend to stir up engagement by depicting people performing inspiring acts of bravery and kindness. The posts aim to funnel readers to the aforementioned linked websites, where site administrators can earn advertising revenue.
These sorts of stories resemble glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as stories "that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental."
AI tools helped create the rumor
In one Facebook post with the story — the example displayed above by user Md Osman — the caption ended much like similar stories that use AI technology to generate text: with forward-thinking, inspirational phrasing. The caption read:
Without a moment of hesitation, a biker known only as Tank dove back into the bus. Minutes felt like hours as the water threatened to swallow the vehicle whole. And then—through the raging flood—Tank emerged, holding the little boy tightly in his arms. Cheers erupted, and tears flowed freely.
That day, every stereotype about appearances was shattered. True heroes weren't the ones standing on the sidelines. They weren't the ones with badges, uniforms, or perfect reputations. They were bikers with tattoos, grit, and the courage to act when it mattered most.
💙 Heroes aren't defined by how they look. They're defined by what they do.
The Facebook post lacked details about the alleged incident, including full names and when or where it supposedly occurred.
Additionally, the image in Md Osman's post featured signs of generative AI technology. For example, text on the bikers' badges did not legibly display and their faces had a shiny, smoothed appearance . Further, heads of a biker and child in the background, in the center-left of the frame, displayed in-focus heads with mostly out-of-focus bodies.
We attempted to contact Md Osman to ask about the post, and we will update this article if we receive a response.
Search engines' AI-generated answers misled
All four search engines mentioned above — Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo — wrongly confirmed the tale as true in AI-generated answers appearing above links to websites, at the time of this writing.
Google's AI overview cited Facebook posts from random users to supposedly corroborate the rumor, while Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo's AI-generated answers cited untrustworthy blogs and irrelevant websites.
(Google)
For further reading, we previously reported on Vietnam-managed Facebook pages that promoted similar fabricated tales about the July 2025 Texas floods to get people to click on ad-filled blogs.