give more context. faulty references are virtually everywhere in every paper but that’s different from a hallucinated citation (fake doi, fake authors, completely fake title or journal, the marks of an ai usually). what committee was it referred to? your institution? most journals would not go this far ever, they desk reject and maybe put a temporal ban on further submissions.
Authors are real, conference name page numbers everything are real the only thing was i entered the title from my rough notes.
They are? Do you not use reference managers in your field?