Airpods Lost In Kerala, Found In Goa, Returned To Mumbai: How 'X Sleuths' Helped Man To Recover Earphones

This is a story of how a pair of Airpods travelled states to reach its owner. Misplaced in Kerala, found in Goa, homecoming in Mumbai, social media marketing professional, Nikhil Jain's Airpod was found by Twitter sleuths. During his Kerala holiday, Jain had left his earphones on a bus and later realised that somebody had taken them when he could not find them in the vehicle after it came back.

Here's when X came to play, formerly known as Twitter, netizens here jumped to help. As Jain perfectly describes, it evoked a "community-like feeling". In just a day, the Mumbaikar was able to locate his pair of expensive Airpods and two weeks later they were in his hands.

"The incident happened inside a national park in Kerala, I left my Airpod on a bus there. I waited for the bus to come back and realised that someone had taken them. There was no signal inside, so I had to leave the area to track the device. And when I finally did, it was already on the move and was in another national park about 40km from where I was. But the next day I could track it to a hotel nearby," Jain narrated, reported news agency PTI.

Jain said he then approached the hotel along with the Kerala police, but they could not do much as the location did not pinpoint to any exact room and the hotel authorities refused to help further citing client privilege.

"So, I watched my device travel through Mangalore to Goa. When it stayed put in Goa, I figured the person is from there," the co-founder of Stonks Studio, a social media content agency said.

ALSO READ: Who Are MARCOS? What Makes Them One Of India's Most Elite Commandos | All You Need To Know About Navy Marines

On December 21, 2023, Jain (@niquotein) posted on X along with location coordinates: "I recently lost my new Airpods in Kerala and this person is travelling with it. The person has been in South Goa for 2 days, so I'm guessing they live there. does anyone here live around Dr. Alvaro de Loyola furtado road in South Goa? rt for reach, etc."

The sleuths from X took over. Within minutes, user @ItsMeAshwin12 posted a picture of the house with the help of Google Street Map along with the message, "Airpods are in this house, Twitter, do ur thing and go get them (sic)." While most jumped into the conversation to discuss technical details of tracking Airpods, a day later, the X post reached a target close enough – the neighbour's relative.

Edward Mascarenhas (@Kooledd) posted on December 22, 2023: "My relatives stay exactly there and I sent them the deets. They mentioned their neighbors did go to Kerala recently (sic)." He then followed it up with another post: "So they got in touch with them and they mentioned they'll drop it off at Margoa police station."

"By December 22 evening, the device was at Margoa police station," he said.

Now, the only thing remaining for him was to collect it. "Many from X, of course, volunteered. But my friend and former colleague, Sanket (@iamsexified) chipped in, saying he would be going to Goa in a few days, so I decided to wait for him to collect the device," said Jain.

Finally, last night, Mr Jain posted in X, with a picture of Sanket triumphantly holding the device: "CAN U BELIEVE!!? thank u to Angel Sanket, goa police, Kerala police, Twitter, find my feature, Twitter and everyone who replied to this tweet! what a beautiful story. what a community-like feeling. The world is so big and yet small."

The original post, which saw 1.2 million views, became a target for some new-age guerrilla marketing too.

"It made me feel good about the entire incident. Although initially I was pissed off with the person who walked away with my Airpod, I am grateful that they went to the police station and handed over the device. They could have easily chucked it somewhere and that would have made it a lot more complicated," said Jain.

(With agency inputs)