Equally likely is that your friends were trying to make themselves sound more important and made unverifiable statements and let your existing trust relationship do the lifting.

That kid in middle school didn't have a girlfriend in Canada, and the FBI (documented on multiple occasions to have fabricated and entrapped people into "terror plots") didn't quietly stop a ton of terrorist plots.

That'd be a no that they both would say that for those reasons. One might, but not both.