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* In an episode of ''[[Slayers]] Next'', the team infiltrates a kingdom dedicated to training priestesses, and takes it so seriously it's supposedly a [[Lady Land]] which will execute any man found near its borders, never mind in the city. As it turns out, it's actually full of [[Wholesome Crossdresser|Wholesome Crossdressers]] -- even the ''princess'' is actually the ''prince'', forced to pretend to be a girl because his crazy mother didn't want to annul the rule, yet didn't want to execute her son either.
** In another episode in ''Slayers Revolution,'' {{spoiler|every employee and guest on the cruise ship they take turns out to have been hired by their enemies to get the [[Cool Sword|Sword]] [[MacGuffin|of]] [[Laser Blade|Light]].}}
* In one of the ''[[Project a KoA-ko]]'' OVAs, every single customer at the Lepton-mothership-turned-restaurant turns out to be a disguised spy... all for different organizations. Cue [[Blast Out]].
* One episode of the ''[[Patlabor]]'' TV show had them helping the Japanese intelligence service pick up a Soviet defector & his experimental [[Humongous Mecha]] in a seaside resort town. Every single person there was said to be a spy of some sort. The one that really takes the biscuit being:
{{quote| "You see that dog crossing the road there? It's a Mossad spy dog!"}}
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== Film ==
* Early in ''[[Monty PythonsPython's Life of Brian]]'', Brian's mother disguises herself as a man to attend a stoning. Every other 'man' there was also a woman wearing a beard.
** Compounded by the fact that, this being a Monty Python film, the 'women' are actually being played by male actors. So we had Terry Jones [[Recursive Crossdressing|pretending to be a woman who was pretending to be a man.]]
* In ''[[Fight Club]]'', the Narrator attends support groups, despite the fact that he's not suffering from anything fatal (except insomnia). He finds Marla Singer doing the same thing, which ruins his ability to sleep.
* In the movie ''[[Traitor (Film)|Traitor]]'', {{spoiler|[[Deep-Cover Agent]] Samir is tasked to place thirty suicide bombers on buses as part of a terror attack. He puts them all on the ''same'' bus...}}
* ''[[My Blue Heaven]]'', a mafioso turned protected witness is accused of a crime by the local police. In order to avoid being convicted, he offers the police a deal: he knows of some mafia in the area who are looking to buy stolen goods. He gives them the information, they drop the charges. The police burst in, only to find the buyers are actually undercover FBI agents doing a stakeout.
 
 
== Literature ==
* In the ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]'', the main character [[Sweet Polly Oliver|disguises herself as a man to join the army,]] only to find that nearly every single member of her squad is also a woman in disguise. {{spoiler|Even the ''very'' masculine [[Boisterous Bruiser|Sergeant Jack Jackrum]]. In fact, the only male is the decidedly effeminate Lt. Blouse.}} Their disguises, including that of the ''pregnant'' Shufti, are so effective that when they opt to try the old "pretend to be the washerwomen" trick, Blouse deems himself the only one sufficiently capable of acting female to pass muster. (And he's ''right'' -- he makes past the guards just fine, while the rest of them have rather more difficulty. The real washerwomen, who are mostly the indentured wives of the soldiers on their side, aren't fooled by Blouse's antics, but play along anyway.)
** {{spoiler|And when the girls are put on trial for impersonating men by the [[Straw Misogynist]] army, Jackrum sends about half of the officers out of the room, and reveals to the other half he knows they're all women. Roughly a third of the army's high command turns out to be female.}}
** Also, one of [[Discworld]]'s [[Footnote Fever|many, many footnotes]] relates how aliens have had to stop abducting people from the Earth, because so many different extraterrestrial species have been doing so, or monitoring each others' attempts to do so, that they've only succeeded in abducting other aliens. And [[Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti|one native with large feet]].
** ''The Discworld Companion'' describes how the [[La Résistance|Turtle Movement]] in [[Discworld (Literature)/Small Gods|Omnia]] protects itself from the [[Corrupt Church]] by only meeting in small cells, in which everyone wears masks. Which is why the senior churchmen who are members don't know that every other senior churchman is a member as well.
* ''[[The Man Who Was Thursday]]'' by [[GKG. K. Chesterton]] is about a {{spoiler|police officer who infiltrates a group of anarchists only to discover that all of the anarchists are also policemen. The President of the anarchists turns out to be the officer who recruited all of them. [[Gainax Ending|He may or may not also be God]].}}
* ''Let's Go to Golgotha'' by Garry Kilworth is about time travel tourism where one of the most popular trips is Christians travelling back in time to witness the Crucifixion. The tourists are disguised as Jewish citizens. In the end, the protagonist suddenly realizes that the crowd condemning Jesus to the cross is composed entirely of tourists from the future, and that no actual Jewish Jerusalemites of 33 A.D. are present at all.
* [[Philip K. Dick]] wrote a story called ''The Eyes Have It'' where an [[Inspector Javert]] character who hunts aliens (indistinguishable from humans except for glow-in-the-dark eyes) and dissects them informs his superiors that there is an [[The Mole|alien spy]] among them. {{spoiler|It turns out they are all aliens except him}}.
* [[Harry Harrison]]'s ''[[Bill the Galactic Hero (Literature)|Bill the Galactic Hero]]'' had Bill getting recruited by an insurgency and then by military intelligence; eventually a bust occurs and every insurgent turns out to be (or at least says they're) working for the military.
* One of [[Stanislaw Lem]]'s Ijon Tichy stories from ''[[The Star Diaries (Literature)|The Star Diaries]]'' has a planet full of agents disguised as robots trying to infiltrate an evil computer's {{spoiler|nonexistent}} robotic army.
* In ''[[Good Omens (Literature)|Good Omens]]'':
{{quote| "The park was deserted except for a member of MI9 trying to recruit someone who, to their later mutual embarrassment, would turn out to be also a member of MI9."}}
* The novel ''Beach Music'' contains a dark take or two on this. In one case, Capers, a member of the main character's [[True Companions]], joins an anti-[[Vietnam War]] student group with Shyla (another member of the nakama, and becoming her lover along the way) only to betray both the anti-war group and the nakama by having been an undercover agent the whole time. He tries to minimize the damage by saying that Shyla and the others were just innocent dupes, and the leader of the group was the real trouble. Turns out the group leader was also an agent.
** Another case is something of an inversion. An undercover police officer tries to turn a peaceful student rally into a riot, but is caught and kicked out immediately because they realize he's much too zealous and dressed like too much of a stereotype to possibly be real.
* In the [[Time Wars]] novel ''The Pimpernel Plot'' there's a scene where, apart from [[The Scarlet Pimpernel (Literaturenovel)|The Scarlet Pimpernel]] and his nemesis, everybody in the room turns out to be an undercover time traveller, with about half of them working for the villain and the other half there as backup for the heroes. ([[Mythology Gag|Possibly a bonus in-joke for readers familiar with the source novel]]: in the original version of the scene, apart from the Pimpernel and his nemesis, the room is empty.)
* Friedrich Dürrenmatt's comedy/tragedy/drama ''The Physicists'' takes place in an asylum for [[Mad Scientist|Mad Scientists]]. As it turns out, however, none of the three eponymous physicists is actually insane: {{spoiler|one of them is [[Obfuscating Insanity]] to prevent worldly authorities from exploiting his scientific breakthrough, and the other two are undercover agents from CIA and GRU planted there to convince him to cooperate with their respective governments}}.
** {{spoiler|And ''then'' it turns out that the female head of department of the asylum is the only one who ''really is'' insane.}}
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== Live Action TV ==
* In an episode of ''[[Cybill]]'', Cybill dressed up as a prostitute to research an acting role she'd accepted. She asked another lady of the night what it was like being a prostitute, but it turned out she was also an actress. They asked a third woman, but she turned out to be a journalist. The three asked a fourth woman, but 'she' turned out to be a male vice squad officer.
* In a really funny season opener of the short lived show ''[[The Agency (TV)|The Agency]]'', there was a bust of suspected terrorists, and it turned out it was all undercover cops from different agencies.
* ''[[Saturday Night Live (TV)|Saturday Night Live]]'' had a sketch called "Narc School" about a [[High School]] where every single student was really an undercover narcotics agent.
* ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]'' had an episode where Mary and Rhoda join a dating club for divorced people despite being single rather than divorced. At the end of the episode, it turned out that everyone there was single and not divorced except for the club founder.
* ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'' had the team attempt to infiltrate a pedophile "club" of sorts...only to discover that some other organization (FBI, most likely) was also setting up a sting operation. An exasperated Captain Cragen wonders aloud if this inability of the Good Guys to work together is why the Bad Guys keep staying ahead.
* The Original Flavour ''[[Law and& Order (TV)|Law and Order]]'' had a ([[Always Murder|lethal, naturally, considering this series]]) fallout from such an event during the 60s, where it turned out several supposed Communists/Hippie Protesters were actually cops and other agents spying on each other, and being purposely kept in the dark.
* More [[Hilarity Ensues|hilariously]], ''[[Reno 911]]'' did this with a drug sting.
* ''[[CSI (TV)|CSI]]'' also did this with gun runners.
* ''[[NCIS (TV)|NCIS]]'', too, when Tony and Ziva acted as an assassin couple.
* In an episode of ''[[Frasier (TV)|Frasier]]'', the son of a wealthy woman is trying to prevent Frasier from hitting her up for a donation (to save his old school, which is on the verge of bankruptcy). Niles distracts the son by saying one of the caterers at the party is trying to get her to finance a play. When the son asks out loud if any of the caterers are trying to get a play financed, they surprisingly all raise their hands.
* There was an episode of ''[[Get Smart (TV)|Get Smart]]'' where Max becomes a [[Double Agent]] to infiltrate a KAOS cell, but it turned out everyone in the cell was from another agency (FBI, CIA, Naval Intelligence, & Scotland Yard).
* An ep of ''[[Night Court]]'' had the FBI run a sting on a visiting judge using Dan as a shill, attempting to get Dan to catch the judge on tape trying to bribe Dan; turned out a different group of FBI agents was running a sting on Dan using the judge, trying to get Dan to take a bribe. Both groups of agents burst in, and recognize each other...
{{quote| "BERT?"<br />
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* One sketch in ''[[Do Not Adjust Your Set]]'' has a very blatant policeman trying to infiltrate a criminal gang while they're planning a robbery. Eventually it turns that everyone there is a undercover agent of some sort. They decide to go along with the robbery anyway.
* In the ''[[MacGyver]]'' episode "Honest Abe", Mac gets shanghaied by his CIA agent friend Abe to take down a South American dictator and a corrupt Army Major (played by Ben Stein) supplying the former with weapons. Eventually, one of the Major's lackeys reveals to the other he's a Federal agent seeking to bring down the Major... and the other lackey reveals he's one as well. And via background checks they discover that Abe is a CIA agent (they thought he had retired) and Mac is with the Phoenix Foundation. Naturally they are dumbfounded at the revelation that they are involved in an operation involving ''four'' secret agents of different agencies while they previously thought they were acting alone.
* In a ''[[The Daily Show (TV)|The Daily Show]]'' episode spoofing [[Chat Roulette]]'s recent media attention, Jon decides to try it out. Besides the usual perverts, everybody Jon encounters is either a reporter or another Daily Show correspondent. When he gets to Katie Couric, she even complains that she is trying to do a piece on Chatroulette but so far she only got reporters.
* Parodied on ''[[The Office (TV)|The Office]]'', where ''every single'' member of a gun standoff turns out to be a double agent.
 
 
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== Webcomics ==
* Happened in the first ''[[Spying With Lana]]'' storyline when [http://harrington-artwerkes.com/Lana2.htm the good guys kept getting meaningless assignments.] ([[NSFW]]). The one in the story was actually a plot by the chief to fish out the double agent behind it.
* [http://adventurers-comic.com/d/20011120.html One of Khrima's plans] in ''[[Adventurers (Webcomic)|Adventurers]]!''
* [http://www.oglaf.com/kingshaped/1/ One strip] of ''[[Oglaf]]'' (warning, rest of comic is '''''very''''' [[NSFW]].)
{{quote| '''Shapeshifter:''' Well, now I just feel like an idiot.}}
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== Western Animation ==
* In an episode of ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]'', Bart went to an auction to mess with the bids. When he won, he snickered and bolted for the door. At which point the auctioneer awarded it to the second highest bidder... who also snickered and bolted for the door. It is revealed that ''no one'' placed a serious bid for that item.
** Another episode had Lisa pretend to be part Native American. When she confesses her fraud during a Native American conference, almost everyone there reveals they were faking their ancestry as well, including one guy who was [[Totem Pole Trench|two dwarfs in a raincoat for some reason]]. Except that {{spoiler|Lisa ''wasn't'' faking, because she did have Native ancestry but Homer hadn't told her.}}
* In ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'' episode "Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel" Brock is sneaking into a building through the [[Air Vent Passageway|air ducts]] when he sees another guy doing the same thing.
* The ''[[Dog City]]'' episode "Disobedience School" had Bugsy Vile taking over the school and trying to turn the students into delinquents. After the climax, all students in his class turned out to be infiltrators from various police agencies.
* On ''[[Duckman]]'', a televangelist hosted a forum of other religious figures, who at the end were revealed to be fakes - except for the Ayatollah, who just wanted to improve his image in the states.
* In ''[[SpongebobSpongeBob SquarePants]]'', Squidward and SpongeBob enter a dance contest together, with Squidward inside SpongeBob doing all the dancing. When they are found out and disqualified, all the other contestants reveal that they too had help. The prize went to the only one who danced on his own: Patrick, who was actually rolling on the floor because of a cramp.
** Similarly, Spongebob once tried to disguise as Mister Krabs when he molted his shell so he wouldn't look like a sissy in front of his old buddies; once Mister Krabs makes his confession, the others all reveal that they, too, had something to hide.
* In an episode of ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron]]'', a picnic is accompanied by a series of parent-child games. Jimmy, who naturally despairs of [[Bumbling Dad|Hugh]] winning anything unassisted, invents something that more or less instills hypercompetence in athletics. When [[The Rival|Cindy]] wins after the device malfunctions, it's revealed that her "mother" is actually her bodybuilding aunt, which would mean the prize went to the Neutrons - except that they fess up to cheating as well, at which point the presenter runs through every team present until near-terminally unathletic Carl and his father are revealed to be the only ones who haven't cheated in at least one of the events.
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** The saddest thing about this? It seems that many of these planted moles are using their immunity and the paycheck from the Verfassungsschutz to actually help the party to survive. In one case, a high member of the NPD stated openly that without being paid from the Verfassungsschutz, he wouldn't have been able to build up the party's branch in his state.
* In the former [[East Germany]], the [[State Sec|Stasi]] made generous use of informers in the population to spy on antigovernment forces. So many, in fact, that the BBC reported that as many as one in seven East Germans were on the Stasi's payroll.
* In late 2013, it was revealed by Edward Snowden that the NSA has infiltrated a number of [[MMORPG]]s including [[World of Warcraft (Video Game)|World of Warcraft]] and [[Second Life]] -- and had deployed ''so'' many agents to look for terrorists hiding as orcs that they had to create a "clearinghouse" of sorts to make sure they weren't spying on each other.
 
{{reflist}}
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