History Main / BeethovenwasanAlienSpy

%%* Creator/GregBear's ''Songs of Earth and Power'' does this with numerous personages to good effect.

See also JuliusBeethovenDaVinci and, for one of a few particularly popular alien spies, see ElvisHasLeftThePlanet, ElvishPresley, UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk or -- in Japanese media -- DemonKingNobunaga.

* ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'' takes Internet hoaxer [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor "John Titor"]] and makes his claims of being a time-traveling soldier entirely true. [[spoiler:Her claims on her gender, on the other hand, are false.]]

* In the backstory of ''Literature/LostTime'' many figures from history are mentioned as being Christeners in nature or who once worked with people like the Gray Forum as allies who upkept TheMasquerade.
** Zvi Aharoni was actually a member of the Gray Forum's High Court, a Christener, and was actually born in Spain some time before 1492 when the Jews were expelled from the country. His exploits in taking down escaped Nazis after the war were during a time he took a momentary leave of absence from the High Court in order to not get them involved with mundane politics.
** Aleister Crowley was a member of the villainous Red Council, a group of Christeners who wish to enforce their magical will on the world, rather than be among the mundanes (non-powered humans).
** Jack Fiddler was a Wendigo working with his fellow were-beasts, but pretended to be fully human to dupe others until he was killed by the Gray Forum in a mission Blake participated in.
** Sam Houston gifted the Gray Forum with Corpus Christi as their new headquarters thanks to their aid in an unspecified event during the Texas Revolution.
** H. B. D. Woodcock was also a member of the High Court noted for his proficiency with plants, a HistoricalInJoke, as the real man was an amateur botanist.

* ''TabletopGame/NewVindicators'' features an immortal UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton as a recurring character, as an Esper (normal person with psionic powers) able to listen to spirits who drank an elixir to make him immortal. He's also a genius even beyond his real world self, having built sophisticated androids, and is part of the world's Illuminati along other immortal types. Ambrosius Aurelianus, a real life historic Romano-British warlord, is also the mythical Myth/KingArthur and his time's own Aurelius-which is to say, master mage.
* In ''Literature/TheSalvationWar'' Dante's ''[[Literature/TheDivineComedy Inferno]]'' is an accurate portrayal of Hell based on visions sent to him by demons.

* ''TableTopGame/TechInfantry'', due to its early history as an expansion pack for the TableTopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness, kept much of that backstory about people like UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla and UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison being rival mages. Modred, a recurring BigBad, also qualifies.
* In the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'', Creator/HPLovecraft was writing stories that were largely accurate, because he had psychic powers.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA George Washington]] "had a pocket full of horses, fucked the shit out of bears, threw a knife into heaven, and could kill with a stare!"
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7y2xPucnAo JFK]] was a telepathic, zebra healing, flying robot.

!!!'''By Author:'''
* Creator/DanBrown:
** The book ''Literature/TheDaVinciCode'' provides silly, entirely fictional, insights into Leonardo da Vinci's motivations in his artwork. Leonardo may have been insane.
** His earlier book, ''Literature/AngelsAndDemons'', includes similar fictional insights into the lives of Galileo and [[Art/TheRapeOfProserpinaBernini Bernini]].
* Creator/CliveCussler:
** In ''[[Literature/DirkPittAdventures Sahara]]'', UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln is captured by the South (a double is killed by Booth in the theatre) and is held captive on an ironclad, which runs the Union blockade and escapes to Africa, where it ends up trapped in the Sahara Desert after a river it followed dries up.
** ''Atlantis Found'' reveals that Hitler and Eva Braun were actually cremated and interred in the same urn [[spoiler:until Dirk flushes their ashes down the White House toilet]].
* Creator/TimPowers gives secret, supernatural histories to real-life figures in a lot of his works.
** ''Literature/LastCall'' has Bugsy Siegel serving as the uncrowned emperor of Las Vegas while channeling the archetype of the FisherKing.
** ''Literature/OnStrangerTides'' has Blackbeard following a voodoo ritual to claim power.
** ''Literature/ThreeDaysToNever'' has a truly unconventional [[TimeTravel time machine]] created by UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein as a result of his exploration into astral projection and the Sephirot, with Creator/CharlieChaplin lending a hand at some point.
** UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison appears (as a ghost) in ''Literature/ExpirationDate''.
** ''Literature/TheStressOfHerRegard'' and ''Literature/HideMeAmongTheGraves'' posit immortal creatures who act as muses to chosen humans, for a price. In the former book, the chosen humans include [[Creator/LordByron Byron]], [[Creator/JohnKeats Keats]], [[Creator/PercyByssheShelley Shelley]], and [[Literature/TheVampyre Polidori]]. The latter adds [[Literature/GoblinMarket Christina Rossetti]] (Polidori's niece), Lizzie Siddal Rossetti, and [[Creator/AlgernonCharlesSwinburne Swinburne]].
** Byron also appears in ''Literature/TheAnubisGates'', as does Coleridge.
** Film/LawrenceOfArabia and TheMole Kim Philby in ''Literature/{{Declare}}''.
** In ''Literature/MedusasWeb'', the art deco artist Aubrey Beardsley is said to have been responsible for reviving the Medusa in the modern world, creating a secret subculture revolving around the "spiders". It was big in 1920s Hollywood, involving Rudolph Valentino, the making of ''Film/Salome1923'', and the mysterious deaths of Thomas H. Ince and William Desmond Taylor.
** In ''Literature/ForcedPerspectives'', the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518 dancing plague of 1518]], the destruction of the standing sets for ''Film/TheTenCommandments1923'', and the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunken_City Sunken City catastrophe]] were all fallout from earlier failed attempts at the same kind of AssimilationPlot the villain is about to pull off.
* There is a series of novels by Michael Thomas that have Jane Austen as a vampire.

!!!'''By Work:'''

* The title premise of ''Literature/AbrahamLincolnVampireHunter''.

* In the ''Legions of Fire Trilogy'' (commonly known as the "Centauri Trilogy"), part of ''Series/BabylonFive'''s ExpandedUniverse, it is mentioned that there was a Drakh who once inhabited Earth--named [[{{Dracula}} Drak'hul]].

* ''Literature/SongsOfEarthAndPower'': Numerous historical figures turn out to be gifted at magic. Artists, in particular, as they are prone of suffusing all sorts of magical effects into their masterpieces.

* In the novels ''Heretic'' and ''Prophecy'' Giordano Bruno is a spy working for Lord Walsingham, head of Elizabeth I's secret service.

* In ''Literature/TheMasterOfRagnarokAndBlesserOfEinherjar'', it is outright stated that protagonist Yuuto Suou is the likely source of Norse mythology, as the world Yggdrasil is supposedly around 1500 B.C., Yuuto's name translates to Surtr in Norse, and several of his more high-profile battles match Norse oral lore quite well...

* ''[[Film/AssassinsCreed2016 Assassin's Creed]]'': The main historical figure behind UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition, UsefulNotes/TomasDeTorquemada, also happens to be a Templar seeking to eradicate the Assassins in Spain and trying to get his hands on an [[ArtifactOfDoom Apple of Eden]], which is guarded by the last Sultan of Granada, Muhammad XII "Boadbdil".

* Invoked in-universe in ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind''. When the returnees come home, one of the scientists notes that they haven't aged one bit even after being gone decades. He remarks that Einstein was right. Another scientist replies, "Einstein was probably one of them."

* Scholastic's ''Literature/The39Clues'' claims that every single influential person in the world is a member of the AncientConspiracy family, the Cahills. And that they're all part of four hou - er, ''branches'' reminiscent of Literature/HarryPotter. Well, not ''every single'' influential person in the world. Anyone born before the 16th century is out, for starters, and while the Cahills try to get people to marry into the family, it doesn't always work; Creator/{{Rembrandt|VanRijn}} is a canonical example.

* In ''Webcomic/MoringMarkTOHComics'', it's eventually revealed that Amelia Earhart's mysterious disappearance was actually a result of her ending up in the Demon Realm, where she would go on to be an ancestor of the Blight Family.

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': Colonel Sassacre raised [[spoiler: young Nanna Egbert]] and was killed by [[spoiler: a baby pistol-wielding Grandpa Harley]]. Oh, and [[spoiler: Betty Crocker, instead of being a brand image, is actually a ruthless alien empress]].

* ''Film/MenInBlackII'' has Music/MichaelJackson begging Z to let him be an Agent, ''please'' Z, come on, he'd be the best Alien agent ever! He could be Agent M! Unfortunate cameos ahoy... It also implies that Martha Stewart ([[CatsAreMean or possibly her cat]]) is actually an evil(?) alien overlord.

-->-- [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15014_11-movies-saved-by-historical-inaccuracy_p4.html "11 Movies Saved by Historical Inaccuracy"]], by Michael Swaim, on {{Website/Cracked}}.com[[note]]Actually, historians are fairly united, [[RuleOfFun but that won't stop us]][[/note]]

* ''Literature/Area51'': A ton of historical figures were actually aliens in disguise, such as Myth/KingArthur and UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper.

* In ''TabletopGame/UnknownArmies'', any number of celebrities past and present are listed as Avatars (people who channel archetypes to gain god-like powers). This list includes Joe [=McCarthy=] as The Demagogue, UsefulNotes/AmeliaEarhart as The Flying Woman, and Neil Armstrong as The Pilgrim, amongst others.

** The Genyosha is based on the real-life [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen%27yōsha Black Ocean Society]], Japanese secret society based on ultranationalism. In Delta Green they are an occultist organization that acts as the Japanese Empire's unofficial {{Ghostapo}} and had some encounters with Delta Green during [=WW2=].
** The historical Skoptsi were a underground heretical Christian sect in the Russian Empire which preached [[GroinAttack self-castration]] in order to prevent sexual lust, having as much 100,000 members in the early 20th century, but disappearing after heavy persecution from both Imperial and Soviet governments. In Delta Green however, they are still active and actually worship Shub-Niggurath.

* In the ''TabletopGame/FreedomCity'' setting's ''Atlas of Earth Prime'', it's revealed that the more ... unusual ... President of Turkmenistan [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saparmurat_Niyazov Saparmurat Niyazov]]'s edicts were the result of him being possessed by a prankster spirit.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Nephilim}}''. This French role-playing game's whole background was solely designed to allow game-masters to re-write History and incorporate it in their scenarios in any way they liked. They give you a basic backstory about the world; then you are supposed to study your region's various historical details to build up various conspiracy theories. Even if that's not your thing, the way they rewrote the entire history is absolutely overwhelming; evil secret societies trying to take over the world galore! Then they explain very seriously to you that the myth of modern Santa Claus was solely created to put back the actual Saint Claus in the collective imagination, in order to liberate him from the parallel dimension he had been put a millennium before. And don't get me started on Joan of Arc, {{Atlantis}} or the Dinosaurs... This game just defines the trope and has exploited it further than everything else.

** ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'', being a fan-made game, can get away with it. Only three of the world's great inventors were Geniuses: Creator/LeonardoDaVinci, UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla, and Enrico Fermi. Of them, the latter two were part of the Genius status quo while Leonardo rebelled against it. Notable in being justified however, as Tesla in particular fits the mad science nature of Geniuses to a tee.
*** ''Genius'' also downplays it, as it notes that most famous scientists ''couldn't'' be Inspired; the reason they ''became'' famous was because they were able to explain their ideas and integrate them with normal science- something incredibly difficult for the Inspired, who mostly work with MagicPoweredPseudoScience.

** The Halifax Explosion was caused by a battle between [[TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening Pentacle Mages]] and a ChurchMilitant branch of the [[AncientConspiracy Seers of the Throne]], and [[TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil Task Force VALKYRIE]] first came into existence when they hired the actor who'd stand in for Lincoln during the infamous night at the theater... to cover up for the fact that some ''thing'' had already eaten the president.

** ''TabletopGame/DemonTheDescent'' has Seattle's real life [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Damnable Mother Damnable]] as a Cover assumed by a demon - if off in one of Seattle's splinter timelines. The writers even included a sidebar saying that [[LampshadeHanging normally they wouldn't do this]], but they couldn't resist writing a figure named "Mother Damnable" into a game about demons.

** 3e's "A Diary of Deceivers" mentions UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan and several of his staffers were killed and resurrected by an Excrucian Deceiver.
* The ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' used this all the time. Most every sourcebook includes at least one, and typically more than one, historical figure, though not always a highly well-known one.

** The basic rulebook in TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade features a historical account of Vampire society through the ages, with annotations from a powerful Sabbat member. When World War II is addressed, in an interesting use of the "avoid awkwardness" rule, said Sabbat member muses upon the fact that the Camarilla always tends to underestimate the capacity of humans to perpetrate great evils upon themselves, and that with the Kindred's loss of humanity a certain flavor of evil seems to have been lost as well.

** ''TabletopGame/WraithTheOblivion'' plays with this; being about ghosts, it can have various historical figures continue on in the Underworld without rewriting their established histories. The second ed corebook even has in-character writings on the history of Stygia from Lord Byron, Ernest Hemingway, and Dante Alighieri. That said, historical importance is no guarantee of post-mortem importance. As with Vampire, above, it does address the Holocaust, but only in the context of what happened to the victims' souls after their deaths; the atrocities themselves were completely free of supernatural influence and the book that covers the Holocaust explicitly overrides anything that says otherwise, like the aforementioned "Himmler the vampire" idea from ''Berlin by Night''.

** One interesting twist: UsefulNotes/{{Rasputin|TheMadMonk}}. Several sourcebooks claim him as a supernatural, but each time a different sort of supernatural, suggesting...what? CanonDiscontinuity? That the World of Darkness is built on [[RashomonStyle multiple non-exclusive truths]]? {{Lampshad|eHanging}}ing the authors' own practices? That Rasputin is a NinjaPirateZombieRobot? The Malkavian source book has the insane clan claiming him as one of its members, and his slumbering place in Asia Minor being responsible for the turmoil in Russia ''and'' the Middle-East. Probably lampshades the tendency of all clans to claim a greater influence on human history than they actually have. The latest 'official' suggestion as of ''Beckett's Jyhad Diary'' is that [[spoiler: for some reason, there are ''multiple'' Rasputins extant across the supernatural realms, who see themselves as "brothers".]]

* ''{{TabletopGame/Warhammer 40000}}'''s major background character, the Emperor, is an immortal, incredibly powerful psyker who adopted various guises as he subtly guided mankind's evolution - it's known that he was Saint George. It was only when subtlety failed that he stepped out of the shadows and emerged as the founder of the Imperium.
* In ''TabletopGame/WitchGirlsAdventures'' Gilgamesh was not only genuinely the superhuman ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' paints him as, but was the only son of the first witch, Lilith (Not ''the'' Lilith, but almost certainly the inspiration for her in the game world); progenitor of a race of immortal superhumans which included King Arthur; and the father of Zephyr. Compared to that, the other examples are downright mundane -- Vlad Dracula is actually an evil vampire and was a major player in the now-secret supernatural portion of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and Lovecraft (not referred to by name, but described in terms that leave little doubt) was an acolyte of a race of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s -- the book only briefly covers his involvement and doesn't make it clear whether he outright worshipped them, or just formed a belief system that integrated his knowledge of them.

** This is almost written word for word in one of Adams' letters. (They scriptwriter added the horse.) Adams is talking about [[FutureImperfect what later people will tell]]. It's probably safe to say Ben Franklin could not actually conjure generals on their horses.

* One ''ComicBook/{{Spawn}}'' comic showed Creator/HarryHoudini as a powerful sorcerer who uses his stage act to cover himself. He teaches the title character a few more tricks he can do with his hell-born powers. He even got a mini-series [[{{Spinoff}} spin-off]] [[http://www.comicvine.com/daring-escapes/4050-10981/ Daring]] [[http://www.comicbookdb.com/title.php?ID=3861 Escapes]] and yes it is the same one as Spawn makes a cameo and the bust Spawn made is the {{MacGuffin}}. Houdini also figured prominently in a DC {{Elseworlds}} special, "Franchise/{{Batman}}: The Devil's Workshop", where a 1920s Batman teamed up with Houdini to fight vampires. Other Elseworlds books had historical appearances; "Dark Allegiences"(1930s) featured a plot [[spoiler: to assassinate both Hitler and Roosevelt, and install a fascist leader in the White House, who would ally the US with the Axis during WWII]], while "Detective 27" also featured FDR and Babe Ruth (talk about your Bat-Man!)

* The not-well-known ''VideoGame/HercsAdventure'' for the UsefulNotes/{{P|layStation}}S1 reveals that Hades (the BigBad) was... A giant robot piloted by aliens.

** ''VideoGame/TouhouEiyashouImperishableNight'' says that there was a war between Earth and the Moon sparked by the Apollo 11 lunar landing[[note]]Though the games are unclear on whether it was an actual war or if the Lunarians simply militarized after misinterpreting the landing as an invasion attempt[[/note]], with Neil Armstrong specifically getting name-dropped. MoonRabbit Reisen Udongein Inaba fled to Earth to get away from said war, and it's strongly implied that the Apollo 13 malfunction was caused by Reisen's future mentor Eirin Yagokoro [[ArcherArchetype shooting the oxygen tank with an arrow]].

** In the comic ''Comicbook/{{Necronauts}}'', Charles Fort, Creator/ArthurConanDoyle, Creator/HarryHoudini and Creator/HPLovecraft go up against the Franchise/CthulhuMythos.

* ''Comicbook/TheAvengersJasonAaron'' #50 reveals that UsefulNotes/WongFeiHung was an Comicbook/IronFist and UsefulNotes/MiyamotoMusashi was a [[Comicbook/GhostRider Spirit of Vengeance]].

* In the Marvel mini-series ''[[ComicBook/XMen Colossus: Bloodlines]]'', Rasputin was an ally of Mister Sinister, as well as an ancestor of Piotr "ComicBook/{{Colossus}}" Rasputin. Piotr is not proud of that fact.

* Uri Geller is implied to have superpowers in ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'' #133 (1976), and to have fought the villain Mind-Wave.

* The comic book series ''Comicbook/{{Lovecraft}}'' featured Creator/HPLovecraft as its main character, revealing his stories were all based on actual adventures involving monstrous god-like extraterrestrial horrors he encountered and personally did battle with.

* ''ComicBook/TheMagdalena'', from the same universe as ''Comicbook/{{Witchblade}}'', is descended from a long line of women warriors sworn to protect the Catholic Church (and supposedly descended from the offspring of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdelene). She also wields TheSpearOfDestiny as a weapon.

** ''Witch Hunter Comicbook/{{Angela|AsgardsAssassin}}'', James VI of Scotland and I of England turns out not to be [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfStuart James Stuart]] but [[ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} James Howlett]].

* The ''Comicbook/{{Thunderbolts}}'' committed UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper's murders in order to stop evil witch ghosts from claiming mortal hosts.

* In DC comics history, more than a few of history's conquerors and despots were actually personae used by the millennia-old immortal villain Comicbook/VandalSavage. At one point it was even suggested he was Cain, although that was later retconned to be that he'd ''taken'' the Mark of Cain at some point.

* ''Comicbook/{{Witchblade}}'' reveals UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc as one of the keepers of a mystical weapon (quite a few other historical warrior-women including Cleopatra and Mulan were wielders as well).
* Princess Diana almost became a member of the X-Men splinter group ''Comicbook/XStatix'', as depicted [[https://screenrant.com/marvel-weirdest-mutant-princess-diana/ here]].
* In another X-Men related example, this one InUniverse, Characters/MarvelComicsExodus has kit-bashed his Christian faith and belief in mutant sanctity into belief that Jesus was a mutant. He also much prefers Hope Summers as a messiah because she's willing to shoot people. There's no confirmation of this either way (though it wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen in the Marvel Universe), but Hope, along with pretty much everyone else, thinks he's completely nuts.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'' suggests that Creator/OscarWilde, Creator/AleisterCrowley, Samuel "Creator/MarkTwain" Clemens, Eugene Sandow & UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla (along with Fantomas and Dr Venture's ancestor) were members of a [[Comicbook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]-esque Guild that was meant to safeguard and research an artifact made by the greatest minds of the past (from Archimedes to Leonardo). The fracturing of this guild would give birth to the Guild Of Calamitous Intent (a name coined by Wilde), which would become a WeirdTradeUnion for {{Supervillain}}s.

** [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln Abraham Lincoln]] was another child of Hades, but unfortunately demigod historians have marked him as a child of Zeus, which bothers him immensely as he has stated that there were children of Zeus in the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Civil War]], but they were Confederate generals.
** And in World War Two, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were sons of Hades and Poseidon while Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were sons of Zeus.

** Two of the Guild's highest ranking members are implied to be Music/BuddyHolly and Music/TheBigBopper, with the plane crash that supposedly killed them both being a coverup. There is also Guild's leader, The Sovereign, who is a shapeshifter that everyone knows as Music/DavidBowie. [[spoiler:''Except it's not literally him'', since it's later revealed that The Sovereign is actually an anonymous shapeshifter impersonating Bowie, who is apparently a good friend of his.]]

* ''Literature/TheMissing'' series, by Creator/MargaretPetersonHaddix, involves a future where rich families pay a corporation to go back in time and kidnap certain famous children (usually famous missing children, such as Anastasia and Charles Lindbergh Jr.), while they are babies. The children are then taken back to the future for these families to raise as their own. [[spoiler:Except the ones that accidentally end up in our time.]]

* ''Film/MenInBlackII'' even had Music/MichaelJackson begging Z to let him be an Agent, ''please'' Z, come on, he'd be the best Alien agent ever! He could be Agent M! Unfortunate cameos ahoy... It also implies that Martha Stewart ([[CatsAreMean or possibly her cat]]) is actually an evil(?) alien overlord.