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''The ghost is here,''
''Oh, give him the boot-''
''He's fake!''
The characters investigate a site with reported paranormal activity. By the end of the episode, they discover that the supposed supernatural activity is nothing but an elaborate hoax taking advantage of [[Haunted House Historian|local lore]] to frighten off the curious from discovering and interfering with their [[Evil Plan|main criminal activity.]]
In the old days, this apparently really worked. Smugglers could scare away intruders by dressing as ghosts. Nowadays, however, this would be a really stupid ploy, as many alleged real life haunted houses and areas of "paranormal activity" are tourist attractions. The criminals wouldn't be able to move for New Agers, UFOlogists, people from shows like ''[[
The most common subversion is for
This can be a real source of frustration to fans of [[Speculative Fiction]], who tend to be drawn to certain works specifically ''because'' of the paranormal elements.
One of the major exceptions to [[Skepticism Failure]]. See also [[Monster Protection Racket]], where the monsters are real but they're being set up. The Inversion of a
'''Because the existence of a
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Kirby:
** When this trope is played out, the real surprise was that in the end, in addition to the kids playing pranks, there was an actual ghost. It was a mostly harmless one, though.
** Another episode features a different variation. An irreverent chef comes to judge Chef Kawasaki's cooking skills, but it turns out he was in a costume and working for N.M.E. What's under the costume was worse.
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*** Except in one story where the person who believed in the monster was actually the killer.
* ''[[Tantei Gakuen Q]]'' does this repeatedly, most notably in Kamikakushi Village. The arc with the seances takes a [[Tear Jerker|rather unusual]] angle on the trope.
* In one arc in ''[[Black Butler]]'', the village of witches in a supposedly cursed fored is an elaborate front for the German government's chemical facility. The "werewolves" are men in suits, and so on. [[Complexity Addiction]] is evident, as well as design by committee. In a break from the norm, the ones with actual supernatural power are the investigators.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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** Another [[Carl Barks]] example comes from the story "Terror of the River", where Donald and his nephews investigate a giant serpent-monster terrorizing a waterway. The "monster" turns out a realistic inflatable model controlled by a guy in a submarine. As opposed to some of the other examples on this page, the perp had no ulterior motive-he was just a [[Jerkass]] who [[For the Evulz|liked scaring people for the heck of it.]]
** Less notable ''Donald Duck'' and ''Mickey Mouse'' stories have done this over and over again in various forms. An inverted version where the heroes scare away the villains from something being protected is about as common. The twist where some of it is shown to be real after all appears frequently in both versions. One [[Show Within a Show|story-within-a-story]], written by Goofy, was a parody; in the end, the answer to how the villain was able to create the appearance of all those supernatural monsters is explained by saying that, well, he was a magician, and magicians do all kinds of tricks we can't explain, so why should the story do that?
* The [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] ''[[Captain America (comics)]]'', strangely enough, was written (at least in most stories available in reprints) as a non-supernatural horror comic. It was thus full of this sort of hoax (sometimes with fake supernatural creatures that are real murderers) as well as monsters created by science, ordinary killers with horror themes, etc.
* The ''Antarctic Press'' comic ''[[Bad Kids Go to Hell]]'' reveals all the supposed supernatural scares were nothing more then illusions to off the detention kids and make money from their deaths.
* Despite stereotypes to the contrary, a large number of the aliens that [[Batman]] fought during the [[Silver Age]] (especially in his own books) were actually ordinary crooks dressed up like aliens. In one case, a gang of crooks actually made up an entire planet, built fake alien technology, and pretended to be invading Earth simply to cover up their scheme.
* Variation: [[Superman]] and the Iranian superhero Sirocco once took down an apparent terrorist squad, only for Sirocco to reveal that they are just people who pretend to be terrorists. By scaring people into evacuating places with phony bomb-threats and such, they can rob places at their leisure.
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== [[Film]] ==
* [[James Bond]]:
** In ''[[Dr. No]]''
** In ''[[Live and Let Die (film)|Live and Let Die]]'', as in the novel, the villain uses Voodoo, as his mistress / servant Solitaire, who has "the power of the Obeah" which supposedly lets her see the future), to maintain an iron grip over his island nation and drug empire. He even has someone pretending to be Baron Samedi on his side, plus a host of traps and tricks. Subverted in that Solitaire seems like she really ''does'' have the power to see the future, and the ending has Samedi riding the front of a train, laughing, implying he was [[Real After All]]. Most of the other stuff really is just an elaborate hoax, like scarecrows promising death to anyone who trespasses on the poppy fields (and hidden cameras and guns in case you don't take the hint).
* The movie ''[[Volver]]'': The whole population of a superstitious village is convinced that the spirit of a woman who died in a fire has come back to take care of her sister in her old age. When the sister dies, the ghost moves in with her daughter. It turns out that she never died in the first place; she burned the house where her husband and his lover were sleeping to the ground, and the lover's charred body was thought to be hers. She pretended to be a ghost to escape a murder investigation.
* The
* Parodied in [[Multiple Endings|one of the endings]] of ''[[Wayne's World]]''
* ''[[Captain Clegg]]'' is about a circle of rumrunners, led by [[Peter Cushing]], who use this to try to scare away or distract the law.
* ''[[Trick 'r Treat]]'': As part of a [[Deadly Prank]], a group of kids pretend to be [[Undead Child
* The 2009 ''[[Sherlock Holmes (film)|Sherlock Holmes]]'' movie uses this, with apparent [[Big Bad]] Lord Blackwood deliberately cultivating a reputation as a fearsome [[Evil Sorcerer]], culminating in rising from his grave following a hanging, all as part of his [[Evil Plan]] to seize control of England. He's really "just" a [[Magnificent Bastard]] with good connections and an eye for the theatrical, and Holmes figures this out and explains it at the climax before exposing Blackwood for a fraud. Holmes does mention, though, that Blackwood performed all his spells and rituals perfectly and therefore he'd better ''hope'' it was all fake, or else [[Satan]]'s due a soul...
* Famously subverted in the ''[[Sleepy Hollow (Film)|Sleepy Hollow]]'' movie. In the original story by Washington Irving, the [[Headless Horseman]] was an elaborate prank to scare an aloof schoolteacher. In the film, it really exists.
** In a nod to the original story though, the first run-in Ichabod has with the Horseman is a fraud - a jealous Brom Bones was disguised as the being as a prank. He also initially believes the Horseman really is a fraud, and sets out to "expose" him.
* ''[[The Village]]''
* Played with in the French supernatural thriller ''[[Vidocq]]'': powerful men die one after another from a lightning strike, bursting into flames in the process. It turns out that they were narcissistic perverts with a desire for young virgins. A sophisticated lightning rod mechanism along with a piece of gold in each of the men's hats, and gunpowder dust on their coats resolves that somebody simply wants to make a demonstration of divine retribution on these horrible people. Then it turns out that the killer ''was'' a supernatural creature all along, and used this method to hide his true nature, and the true motivation for the murders.
== [[Literature]] ==
* [[Rafael Sabatini]]'s 1907 short story ''The Plague of Ghosts''.
* Washington Irving's 1819 short story ''[[The Legend of Sleepy Hollow]]'' strongly implies that Brom Bones eliminates Ichabod Crane as a rival for his lover's hand by dressing up as the [[Headless Horseman]] and scaring him out of town.
* Literary example: Most of the Leaphorn/Chee mysteries by Tony Hillerman, with the supernatural elements in this case coming from the myths of the Navajo or other Native American tribes of the American Southwest.
* ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]]''{{context}}
* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[
** Who also was a member of the opera house.
** Note that the Opera Ghost almost never pretends to be actually a ghost. He's perfectly happy to be a guy in a mask
** Although those scented rose stems actually ''do'' bloom into ghostly roses when in darkness. At the end, Agnes laments that she'll probably never know how the "Ghost" managed that. But Discworld runs on [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]], so it might have been enough that people ''thought'' the Ghost was supernatural.
* The ''Hound of the Baskervilles'', a [[Sherlock Holmes]] story by Sir [[Arthur Conan Doyle]], includes a similar plot twist. The story came out in 1902, making this [[Older Than Radio]].
* The [[Simon Ark]] short stories by Edward D. Hoch.
* In the [[James Bond]] novel ''[[Live and Let Die (novel)|Live and Let Die]]'', Mr. Big cultivates an air of voodoo around himself to deter investigation into his operations. Take a look at the entry in Films.
* Virtually every single
* A common
* In ''Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars'' by [[Daniel Pinkwater]], the Wozzle is an invisible monster employed by the Nafsulian bandits Manny, Moe and Jack to terrorize the citizens of Waka-Waka. It turns out to be no more than the three villains themselves.
* In ''[[Garrett P.I.|Bitter Gold Hearts]]'', Garrett recalls investigating one of these cases, in which a murder was rigged to look like a werewolf attack.
* These plots happen to [[Nancy Drew]] and the [[Hardy Boys]] all the time in their books, and have spilled over into the former's video game franchise.
* And speaking of kid detectives, this appears
* ''[[Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder]]'' has at least one case like this, with smugglers faking a haunting so they can use an abandoned building.
* In [[The Saint]] short story "The Convenient Monster", a murderer tries to make his killing look like the work of the Loch Ness Monster.
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* The first Calendar Mysteries book revolves around an alien hoax that the big kids pull on their younger siblings out of revenge.
== [[Live
* Many episodes of ''[[Banacek]]'' featured apparently supernatural events, debunked by the title character in the climax.
* Ditto, in the short-lived series, ''[[Blackest Magic]]''.
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** For example, Mulder is on the trail of murderers whose killings look like vampire attacks. The "vampire" angle is so obvious and unhidden that Mulder assumes that it's actually an example of this and that there are no vampires involved. Then he finds the killers, who seem pretty much human. Then he finds out that they actually are vampires, but that they play up the movie vampire act when they kill, so that anyone who arrests them will be laughed out of court.
* Either Inverted of Subverted trope in an episode of ''[[Psych]]''. The monster is attempting to attract people to his "haunted" camp.
** The titular investigation team of the show fits the trope, in that Sean feigns [[Psychic Powers]] to solve crimes.
** There's also an episode where Shawn and Gus are investigating a supposedly haunted house and the perpetrator of the Scooby Doo Hoax turns out to be Shawn himself.
** There was yet another episode when a local legend about a suicidal sorority girl was played with for revenge.
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** A slightly different version of this is used in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs". In an interesting subversion, the eponymous monsters are indeed real, brought forward in time from their own prehistoric period, but they are merely there to scare people away in order for the real evil plan to be enacted.
* The ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' episode "Girth" does this rather more violently, with people being ''killed'', apparently by a ghost. It turns out to be someone who is very much alive.
* In one episode of ''[[Friends]]'', Joey does not want Monica and Chandler to buy a new house. He meets a young girl, played by Dakota Fanning, and suggests that she tell Chandler a ghost lives in the house so that they will be scared away. Fanning replies, "What are you, like, eight?"
** When Joey confesses his plan to them, Chandler and Monica turn it around and tell him that the only little girl who lived in the house died twenty years ago. This scares Joey until they tell him that they're just messing with his head. Joey replies, "That's not funny! You know I'm afraid of little girl ghosts!"
* Done early on in the original ''[[Dark Shadows (TV series)|Dark Shadows]]'', before genuine supernatural elements were introduced to the program.
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* Happened in at least one episode of ''[[Far Out Space Nuts]]'' which involved a holographic disguise belt.
* An episode of ''[[iCarly]]'' has the group searching for Bigfoot and seemingly trapping him, only to discover it's a fake and that it's the Bigfoot expert they had on their webshow earlier in the episode creating hype for his new book. Freddie [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this by stating this is a "Scooby Doo Moment".
* ''[[The Invisible Man (TV series)|The Invisible Man]]'' had the heroes pulling off one of these: The Agency is ordered by government higher-ups to have Fawkes pose as a ghost in order to convince the superstitious dictator of a [[Banana Republic]] to get rid of a biological missile system that could potentially be used against American targets. However, it turns out that [[Nebulous Evil Organization|Chrysalis]] is also running a hoax of their own to convince the guy to keep the missiles. [[Hilarity Ensues]].
* In ''[[The Outer Limits]]'' episode "The Awakening", a rival company uses fake alien abductions to traumatize clients of a company and discredit their brain implants.
* The [[Kid Detective|Bloodhound Gang]] solved a few of these on the science-edutainment show ''[[3-2-1 Contact]]''.
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* In the White Wolf RPG ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'', there is an odd case of this. The genuinely supernatural Changelings of the Scarecrow Ministry have a tendency to create elaborate Scooby Doo hoaxes to keep people away from truly dangerous beings such as True Fae, werewolves and Spirits (either through fear of the hoax or through being attracted to it rather than the real monsters). Of course, sometimes they go a bit too far, and become the things they impersonate.
* ''[[Dungeons
** 1st Edition module U1 ''The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh''. A group of smugglers tries to make the house they're operating out of appear to be haunted to keep the townsfolk of Saltmarsh from investigating.
** Another band of smugglers from ''Dungeon'' magazine got their hands on a magical boat that could travel underwater, so used seaweed and ghoul costumes to perpetuate an "undead sailors from the deep"
== [[Video Games]] ==
* The ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]'' mod ''The Maimed God's Saga'' looks like it is setting up as one of these, then the actual nature of the villain's plot is revealed ({{spoiler|a Malarite experiment to breed invincible werewolves}}, as a matter of fact).
* ''[[Nancy Drew (video game)|The Captive Curse]]'' is a full-on [[Deconstruction]] of this trope, in which the monster sightings are variously suggested to be a
* ''[[Persona 4]]'' is basically modeled after this trope. Heck, even the characters resemble the good ol' Scooby Gang.
* ''[[Double Switch]]'': Roughly around the middle of the game, an Egyptian mummy runs around trying to trap and/or kill people. {{spoiler|It's Eddie in disguise, and he dressed up like one so that he could get an Egyptian statue without anyone figuring out it was him}}.
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'', on your pilgramage to visit the Greybeards (part of the main quest), you can talk to an innkeeper about a haunted barrow near the town. Turns out that it's just a guy who's invented a potion to make him look like a ghost to scare everyone away while he works out how to plunder the tomb... although he's apparently gone crazy and [[Becoming the Mask|actually thinks he's the tomb's guardian now.]] Then it turns out the deeper parts of the tomb really ''are'' infested with the undead.
* In ''[[Rise of the Tomb Raider]]'', Lara encounters what seems to be the mythic Slavic witch [[Baba Yaga]], along with other demonic beings and phantoms. In truth, this is a trick used by the elderly and mentally ill Russian biochemist Serafirma, who uses hallucinagenic pollen to make people believe she has supernatural powers.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* [[
* In ''[[Impure Blood]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20110820174248/http://www.impurebloodwebcomic.com/Pages/Chapter007/ib044.html Dara checks, but the circus's Ancients are fakes.]
* ''[[Bloody Urban]]'' [[Zig-Zagging Trope|Zig-Zags]] this trope rather confusingly by having one type of monster dressing up as another type of monster. Specifically, Shaun (a [[Vegetarian Vampire]] who feeds on livestock) dresses up as a [[Chupacabra]] in order to get free food and not get caught.
== [[Web Original]] ==
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* The Trope Maker might be "Felix the Ghost Breaker" (1923), an early [[Felix the Cat]] cartoon. In a direct anticipation of the later Scooby formula, the crook of the moment disguises himself as a ghost to scare an old farmer off of his land. Ironically, the cartoon didn't explain how the crook's disguise enabled him to do ''real'' ghostly things like fly, disappear, and walk through walls. Movie reviewers of the time complained about the cartoon's lack of logic.
* Virtually every episode of the original ''[[Scooby Doo]]'', [[Trope Namer|naming]] and [[Trope Codifier|codifying]] the trope. In the later shows and most of the movies, this would often be subverted, averted, lampshaded, and just all-around [[Playing with a Trope|played with]] as often as it was played
** ''Scooby-Doo Where Are You!'': Played straight throughout the entire run. The sole exception is the episode ''Foul Play in Funland''
** ''[[Scooby
** ''Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost'': Subversion - The entire town pulls a
** ''Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders'': Subversion - there are both fake aliens and real aliens, but the real ones are ''good''.
** ''Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase'': Subversion, with Justification: The monsters are the 'same' as those found in many of the [[Continuity Nod|early hoaxes]]. But because the cast were in a video game of their own adventures, the monsters weren't people in costumes. Cue scare when Scooby Doo tried to unmask one of them after [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshading]] the trope.
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** ''[[Scooby Doo Mystery Inc]]'': [[Playing with a Trope|Plays with it.]] Has a similar idea to ''Witch's Ghost'' of using the fake monster attacks as part of the tourism by ''pretending'' they're real. They even arrest Mystery Inc for trying to ''stop'' the criminal. One episode averted the trope by having the villain as an insane [[Trap Master]], who never tried to hide the fact that he just an ordinary man. However, in a subversion, his insanity is strongly implied to have been caused by an [[Artifact of Doom]].
* ''[[Max Steel]]'', "Sphinxes": The heroes investigate a pyramid and after discovering the hoax, [[Genre Savvy]] [[Ascended Fanboy]] Max reports that it's a "[[Scooby Doo]]" and explains what he means to his [[British Stuffiness|Stuffy British]] partner.
{{quote|'''Max''': Since when do [[Stock Monsters|ancient Egyptian death gods]] have jaws that [[Robotic Reveal|clank when you hit them?]] It's all classic Scooby-Doo.
'''Rachel''' (puzzled): Scooby-what?
'''Max''': (groan) [[Genre Blind|Your ignorance is frightening]]. When the bad guys are up to no good, they use local lore to scare away the curious. That's the Scooby Way.
'''Rachel''': I'll study his teachings later. }}
* One ep of ''[[Teamo Supremo]]'' doesn't just feature a
* The "Trick or Techrat" episode of ''[[Jem]]'' had Eric, Techrat, and a one-shot character attempting to pull off a "Scooby-Doo Hoax" to shut down a opera house.
* Parodied in the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "[[Korn]]'s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery". It turns out that all the paranormal occurrences were the result of Priest Maxi trying to stop the Halloween Haunt- but the "logical explanations" include such ridiculousness as Maxi using a flashlight to create a giant ghost ship and a dog apparently swallowing an entire corpse whole.
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** Played (painfully) straight in the first aired episode of ''[[Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures|The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest]]'', featuring a pirate's "ghost" rampaging in the Bermuda area.
* Naturally, this trope was parodied in an early episode of ''[[The Venture Bros]]''.
* ''[[DuckTales (1987)]]'' played with this sometimes (despite the presence of ''real'' supernatural elements in the show's setting). In one episode, Scrooge inherited an ancestor's manor in Scotland, only to find it was "haunted"
** These plots were adapted from [[Carl Barks]]'s ''Hound of the Whiskervilles'' and ''The Old Castle's Secret'' (see above).
* An episode of ''[[Invader Zim]]'' featured Dib actually unveiling a hoax about a man who thought he was part chicken, when he was just an insane man in a chicken costume. At the end, he says that paranormal investigators can also debunk hoaxes like this, but the reports misinterpret his message and think that all supernatural claims are hoaxes.
* ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' had a [[Darker and Edgier]] version of this premise: [http://robotchicken.wikia.com/wiki/A_Scooby_Friday A Scooby Friday]
* Bummer fakes a haunting of a unused luxury suite so he can keep it for his own personal use in an episode of ''[[Stoked]]!''.
* [[Double Subverted]] in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' when the gang meets a man who masquerades as a swamp monster to protect his home. The thing is, the man maintains the disguise through genuine magical powers: bending the water within the vines to make strong, self-healing plant armor. But in this setting, that's not too unusual and people are more concerned by the fact he doesn't wear pants.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Plots]]
▲[[Category:Scooby-Doo Hoax]]
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