At 12:23pm on Saturday 3 November 2011 the reigning champion of the world’s longest game of hide and seek was accidentally discovered by his friend Fred through the use of the world’s most popular social media platform.

Timothy, a 28 year old man from Minnesota, challenged his friend to the game in the summer of 1992, but after failing to find Tim after about a half hour or so Fred gave up on his search and returned home to lead a normal life, never to see Timothy again. Until a few weeks ago, that is.

“I was just checking my Facebook, when a new person popped up in my ‘People You May Know’ suggestions box. I was sure I didn’t know this guy, but something about his face seemed really familiar.”

And then he remembered, and Fred knew what he had to do. After sending a friend request to Timothy with a fake Facebook account, Fred infiltrated Timothy’s circle of Facebook friends under the guise of his distant aunt Martha – who did not have an account yet. Fred then wrote down the company where Timothy worked, and the next day he ended a game that had lasted nearly two decades.

Hide and seek officials have declared this the longest running hiding streak in the history of the game, but have yet to confirm the validity of the find amidst recent allegations of cheating.

International representative James Moriarty explains, “It’s a tricky call to make. Fred did find Timothy, but the fact that he gathered intelligence on his whereabouts from an external source, well… That’s a bit iffy. However, what’s been seen cannot be unseen, as they say, so this one’s officially game over.”