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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|When you are interviewing the President of the United States, you push that as long as you can. You got a million questions. You keep him there, keep him there. It's like… a scene in a movie where they are tracing the phone call.|Chris Hayes|Late Night with Seth Meyers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}8Vfora4WyPY&t{{=}}32 (trimmed down)}}
A horror and police procedural trope where the police set up a phone trace to catch a criminal but they need them to stay on the line for a certain amount of time. The amount of time will vary, yet somehow the criminal will know the exact amount of time and [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|purposely hang up]] just before the police can get a trace. If it's a particularly high-tech setup, expect to see a computer generated map showing the tracing process.
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An essential part of [[The Calls Are Coming From Inside the House]].
As technology marches on, this trope has morphed into tracing the computer connection, but the essence remains the same. Is often a source of [[Did Not Do the Research]], since (unless the work is set in the 1960s or earlier) the phone company can use their computer records (at least supposedly) to tell the cops what numbers called a given phone, and when, even months after the call. Conversely, the relentless march of science has brought new problems – such as Caller ID spoofing, disposable "burner" handsets and widespread abuse of Voice over IP – which may well mean that the information is falsified in some manner or the call routed through multiple layers to misrepresent its origins.
{{examples}}
== Alternate Reality Games ==
* In ''[[The Lost Experience]]'' DJ Dan gets a call that turns out to be from Rachel Blake (using her hacker alias, Persephone). He tells his cohost Tanya to trace the call and she says "Trace it? With my pencil?"
== [[Comic
* ''[[Bookhunter]]'' has a variation where a perp is using a phone line to hack a computer. The cops are able to get the number the hacker is calling from easily enough, but it's a public phone booth, so they must race to physically apprehend the cracker and they don't have any way to keep the perp on the line longer.
== Film ==
* Vanko hangs up before Tony can finish tracing his call in ''[[Iron Man (
* Seen in ''[[Hackers]]'', where the heroes specifically set up the phones to mislead the FBI as to their location. They know it won't last, but they delay as long as they can.
* In ''[[Sneakers]]'', the heroes set up this elaborate multi-hub "fence" between their call location and the NSA before calling the government agency in order to negotiate for the [[MacGuffin]]. In the space of three minutes the NSA trackers are almost at their door, but they manage to disconnect before they are discovered... or so they think.
* The Federal Marshals tracing Richard Kimble's call in ''[[The Fugitive (
* Among the better known [[Horror Films|horror flicks]] to use the [[The Calls Are Coming From Inside the House]] twist, the original ''[[Black Christmas]]'' features quite a lot of effort on the part of the police force trying to get [[Ax Crazy|the lunatic killer]] who likes obscene phone calls to stay on the line so they can get a trace.
* In ''[[Air Force One (
* In the ''[[Mission: Impossible (
* Used in ''[[
* In ''[[The Bourne Supremacy]]'', Jason Bourne speaks to Pamela Landy on the phone, and hangs up before they can trace his location. However, what he says before hanging up makes them realize he's directly in the area.
* Subverted in ''[[In the Line of Fire]]'', in that the bad guy stays on the line for quite a long time. The trace goes through, but to the wrong location.
* ''[[Hopscotch (
* Set up in ''[[
* ''[[Three Days of the Condor]]''. The CIA thinks they've traced Turner's whereabouts, but Turner has stolen a phone linesmen's kit and wired fifty phones together.
* ''Juggernaut''. The police are shown racing to where the call from the bomber is coming from, only to find a bunch of public phones wired together.
* Memorably happens at [[Book Ends|the beginning and end of]] ''[[
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* In one episode of ''[[
* Happens all the time in ''[[Law
* Played straight in a number of episodes of ''[[The X
** "Pusher" comes to mind, where Mulder and Scully try numerous times to trace Modell's call, but cannot. The "countdown" aspect is even more sinister in this case, because in one instance, Modell induces a heart attack in the lead detective and hangs up seconds before the call is traced.
* Happens in ''[[The Muppet Show|Muppets Tonight]]'' where a pair of crewman trace the call... by methodically ripping the phone cable out of the walls.
* In an episode of the [[Britcom]] ''Nelson's Column'', [[The Ditz]] gets a call from the police telling her that she's about to get a [[Harassing Phone Call]], and she needs to keep him talking so they can trace the call. A few minutes in, Nelson asks how the police are supposed to have known this, and she looks blank for a second, then hangs up.
* In the ''[[NCIS: Los Angeles]]'' episode "Burned", the team attempt to trace a cell phone call to Callan. The guy on the other end is good enough to cut the call off when they triangulate it to within a block of his location.
* On an episode of ''[[Diagnosis
* Beautifully subverted on an episode of [[Wire in The Blood]]. The police are getting phone calls that the tech people can't trace to anywhere at all. Detective Jordan correctly deduces that the perp must be a phone engineer, and they find him all the faster for it.
* [[Lost]] had an episode in which Kate called the police from a phone booth, with a clock set to remind her of the seconds she had before they could track her.
* Attempted in one episode of ''[[Police Squad!]]''. The call is ended before the trace is completed, and when they show the phone that they had
* ''[[Hawaii Five
* Certainly seen at least once on ''[[
* On "Redacted" on ''[[The Mentalist]]'', the team acquired a dead man's cell phone, which one of their suspects was calling. They said it would take two minutes to triangulate the call. Patrick Jane took the phone, named a location and issued an ultimatum, then hung up. When everyone looked at him askance, he said that it would just be easier to bring the suspect to them. He was right.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* The aptly named Trace Tracker program in ''[[Uplink]]'' provides a very stereotypical depiction of this trope, as befits the game's [[Extreme Graphical Representation]] of [[Hollywood Hacking]].
* ''[[Batman: Arkham City]]'' has Batman using the bat-computer to trace the phone calls he gets from [[Serial Killer|Victor Zsasz]]. Bonus points since the missions actually involve racing as well - Batman has to race across the city to another public payphone each time in order to prevent Zsasz from killing a random person. Zsasz is actually careful enough to never stay on the phone long enough each time to be traced, either, but Batman can build up enough detail from his repeated calls to eventually find his lair.
== [[Web Original]] ==
* Invoked in the [[Real Trailer, Fake Movie]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg4ztJ32iPI The Waldo Ultimatum].
* [http://www.cracked.com/article_18385_7-bullshit-police-myths-everyone-believes-thanks-to-movies_p2.html Cracked's references to misconceptions about it].
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* The ''[[Archer]]'' episode "El Secuestro" has ISIS trying to keep Pam's kidnappers on the phone long enough to trace the call (and usually failing, due to Archer or Malory's tactics). The two minutes needed to trace the call is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] by Gillette, who says Malory cut money from the tracing program to pay for her new conference table.
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== [[Real Life]] ==
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[[Category:Phone Tropes]]
[[Category:Sublime Rhyme]]
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