In August 2026, Yellowstone National Park rangers issued a public warning that ravens had figured out how to open car doors.
An online rumor circulated in August 2026 claiming that Yellowstone National Park rangers had cautioned visitors about clever ravens learning to unlock and open vehicles.
The claim gained traction when the Facebook page Casper Planet published a post on August 24:
Yellowstone Rangers Warn Visitors After Ravens Learn to Open Vehicle Doors
Yellowstone officials are warning visitors to secure and lock vehicle doors after ravens reportedly learned how to open several different types of vehicles and push button hatch backs.
Rangers say the birds have mostly taken snacks and small objects, although one visitor reported returning to find a raven sitting inside the car on the steering wheel.
Park officials recommend locking cars whenever possible and absolutely do not recommend attempting to negotiate with the ravens.
Similar versions of the story also made their way onto LinkedIn. Because many social media users took the warning at face value, several readers reached out to fact-checking organizations looking for verification.
To check the validity of the story, searches were conducted across multiple search engines like DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Yahoo. If park officials had actually issued such a notice, official press releases or news coverage would have appeared in the search results.
Instead, no legitimate news reports substantiated the claim about car-unlocking ravens at Yellowstone. The original social media post by Casper Planet dominated the search results entirely.
Tracing the origin of the post led directly to Casper Planet, a known satirical account that explicitly labels its content as fictional “Snews that doesn’t matter.”
Along with a fictional address on “Satire Street,” the page’s official bio states:
Delivering the Snews that doesn’t matter directly to your Snews feed. Did we say this is satire? Well it is, names/locations are made up
The page administrator, Justin Hathaway, has previously spoken about the intent behind the satirical posts, explaining that it serves as a creative outlet and a way to encourage audiences to read articles thoroughly rather than just reacting to sensational headlines.
While ravens are widely recognized as exceptionally intelligent birds and multiple species inhabit Yellowstone National Park, park rangers never released any advisory regarding birds opening car doors.
Other fictional stories from the same satirical source previously evaluated by fact-checkers include a completely fabricated report about a Wyoming mountain collapsing and a satirical tale of a man getting arrested for riding a bear while intoxicated.
Because the effectiveness of satire is subjective, ratings like “originated as satire” or “labeled satire” are assigned based on how creators categorize their own material. Readers can decide for themselves how they view the content.