On the morning of Feb. 9, 2026, a family in Singanpur village, in Uttar Pradesh’s Auraiya district, found their 20-year-old daughter, Reena, gone from her room. On her bed lay her clothes and jewelry, a few broken bangle pieces, and a shed snakeskin about five feet long.

The scene looked like it came straight out of folklore. Indian legend tells of the ichchadhari naagin, a serpent who can take human form, and the village was soon buzzing with rumors that Reena had turned back into one. Her frightened family called the police emergency line.

Investigators weren’t buying it. Within days they found Reena alive and well. She had been expected to go through with an arranged marriage she didn’t want, and had been secretly seeing Satnam, a man from her own village. The snakeskin was a decoy to buy time and send everyone looking in the wrong direction. Reena told police she had married Satnam willingly.

“The girl staged this drama to mislead people,” said Ajay Kumar, the local police station’s inspector. There was no transformation, he added, just a very determined exit, and he compared the whole thing to a movie plot.