Despite the Internet’s best intentions to have you think otherwise, Argentina’s president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner did not recently adopt a young Jewish man to stop him from turning into a werewolf.

According to the Washington Post, the story begins with a local Argentine legend:

"A tradition holds that the seventh son of a family is doomed to turn into a werewolf — known as "el lobison" in Argentina — after his 13th birthday and will stalk the night in its beastly form, feeding on the dead and murdering all before it.... The fear of this werewolf-child was so pronounced that many seventh sons were killed after they were born, which started the practice in 1907 of Argentine leaders taking these children symbolically under their wing."

Yair Tawil became the first Jewish person to receive this honour, when he was ‘adopted’ by Argentina’s president, after he wrote a letter to the president asking her to become his godmother, despite the fact he is not a Catholic.

Tenía razón. Me trajeron de regalo un candelabro de Israel. Me pidieron que encendiera las velas… pic.twitter.com/DVWewmZera

— Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) December 23, 2014

Mr Tawil will now receive a gold medal and a full educational scholarship. As well viral stardom, after headlines around the world announced he has been adopted to stave off his lupine tendencies.

After the story made headlines around the world, an Argentine historian contacted The Guardian newspaper to say that the local lobison myth and the president’s adoption of seventh godchildren are not connected, and that the media’s preference for eye-grabbing headlines probably got the better of fact-checking due diligence.