Most of us have a fear of boarding the wrong transport while we are trying to reach our destination. What if you end up boarding the wrong flight somehow, only to end up in a completely different city where a painted banner is welcoming all the flight passengers from ground level? Well, something like this happened once but it was all part of an elaborate prank by an Australian prankster who caught the attention of media with his baffling stunt.

According to Mirror, flight passengers arriving at the Sydney Airport were left baffled in 2021 when they spotted a sign on a nearby rooftop that read ‘Welcome to Perth’ in bold white capitals. Assuming that they might have ended up in the wrong city, the passengers were left confused and pretty scared. After all, airfares aren’t cheap if you need to book another flight immediately to reach your actual destination. The roof of a building that falls below the flight path of Australia’s busiest airport managed to puzzle everyone including netizens out of their minds.

Many stunned travelers took pictures of this confusing rooftop sign and circulated it on social media before the prankster revealed himself to the media. Brad Heasman, the owner of the building admitted that he had this idea for a while before executing it. He was apparently thankful that his prank did not go unnoticed. In an interview with 7News, Heasman said that “just to give people a bit of a fright and have a laugh”.

The prankster also claimed that the inspiration behind this ‘Welcome to Perth’ joke came from a 1978 prank of similar nature when someone painted ‘Welcome to Cleaveland' on the roof of a building that was on the flight path of Milwaukee International Airport. Many people on Twitter and other social media sites showed their appreciation for this witty prank which gave people good laughs and a momentary scare when flight passengers were led to think that they might have boarded the wrong flight.

@CheekyFlakey on Twitter joked about getting inspired from this stunt and wrote: "I‘ve always been wanting to put up a 2030 calendar in the recovery room where people wake up after anesthesia." @hicksap10 tweeted: "Reminds me of a train announcer on the train from Paddington to Swindon announce as the train pulled out, 'Next stop Sheffield.' Panic all around." So it appears that there are many people out there who might have faced similar situations at least once in their life but well, at the end of the day, this hilariously harmless prank won over the internet.