History Main / FictionAsCoverUp

* This is revealed to be the "truth" of ''Literature/JamesBond'', with a touch of LiteraryAgentHypothesis, in the novel ''Literature/YouOnlyLiveTwice'': the obituary of Commander James Bond, RNVR, states that a series of popular novels have been implicitly approved (or tolerated) by Her Majesty's Secret Service to obfuscate the truth of his missions, although they've hewed dangerously close to "actual events" once or twice.

[[folder:Film - Animated]]

[[folder:Film]]

* Several ''Series/TheSentinel'' fanfics have Blair writing up his Sentinel thesis as a novel or series of novels.

* ''Film/TheFaculty'' provides the page quote, in which two characters speculate on the possibility of AlienInvasion movies serving this purpose. Never confirmed either way, though.
* In ''Film/{{Paul}}'', the alien Paul explains that the government commissioned movies about aliens not to make people skeptical about their existence, but in order to prepare society for FirstContact. Paul himself was responsible for, among other works, ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind'' and ''Series/TheXFiles''.
* In Film/TheAdventuresOfBuckarooBanzaiAcrossThe8thDimension, we are told that the Orson Welles Radio/TheWarOfTheWorlds broadcast and the ensuing hysteria were to distract attention from the REAL arrival of the Lectroids.
* A particularly sinister one in ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}'': One of Ernesto de la Cruz's films has a villain attempt to poison his character when he wants out of their partnership. [[spoiler: The entire scene plays out exactly the way it did when he killed his former partner Hector, right down to the lines the villain says. If anyone tried to accuse de la Cruz of doing the same to Hector, then it could be reasonably stated they got the idea from fiction.]]

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "[[Literature/PateDeFoieGras Paté de foie gras]]": A group of scientists has found a goose who lays golden eggs; after testing every theory they could think of to figure out why, they decided to write about the exploit in hopes of getting advice from outside sources. Due to the need for secrecy, they published it as a fictional short story, safe in the knowledge that no one would believe it...
* In Creator/AlanDeanFoster's ''{{Literature/Quozl}}'', a human friend of the rabbit-like aliens stranded on Earth produces a kiddie cartoon show about rabbit-like aliens stranded on Earth. Her brother confronts her about it, but she waves him off when she makes him realize that anyone claiming that cartoon characters actually live in a national park would never be taken seriously. As for the real Quozl, they discover the broadcasts and while they are insulted and feel used by her, they realize that trying to interfere with the broadcasts would do far more harm than good and instead insist on being secret creative consultants in order to make the situation more bearable and perhaps use it to their advantage when they [[TheUnmasquedWorld come out of hiding]].

* ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse''
** In Creator/StevenMoffat's first foray into ''Doctor Who'' lit, ''Literature/ContinuityErrors'', the Doctor himself is said to insert himself into the narratives of the worlds he helps. As a result it is impossible to convince the people of these worlds that a dangerous alien is among them (the guy explaining this has some issues) when they're to busy laughing at how cheap the effects are.
** In the unofficial book ''I am the Doctor'' presented as the Doctor's autobiography, the last chapter is about how Ian and Barbara were involved in hushing up the [[DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks Shoreditch Incident]] by helping to make [[Film/DrWhoAndTheDaleks two]] [[Film/DaleksInvasionEarth2150AD films]] about the Daleks, starring Creator/PeterCushing.

* In ''[[Literature/ZonesOfThought A Deepness in the Sky]]'', humans are hiding in orbit around a planet with a developing alien society, studying the aliens. At one point, the humans take a ship down to the planet's surface, and need to run their very bright afterburners for several thousand seconds in order to decelerate safely, but they don't want the planetary society to immediately realize a spaceship is landing, so they spam the planetary network with outlandish reports of yetis and nuclear explosions and, indeed, alien spacecraft, to discredit the few legitimate reports from official sources that realize a spacecraft has been sighted. (By the time they are ready to visit the planet, the humans have broken virtually all the aliens' cryptologic communication, and they can send messages over secure networks as well as public, which explains why government facilities can't just communicate on private, trusted networks.)

* The "[[ShowWithinAShow Wormhole X-Treme!]]" show on ''Series/StargateSG1''. It was written by a guy who had knowledge of the real Stargate program. The Pentagon acknowledged that it would prevent any future leaks of information about the program from ever being taken seriously. Subverting the popularity part, the show was apparently canceled after something like two episodes. [[Film/{{Serenity}} But got a movie. Based on its DVD sales.]]

*** There's also apparently a door in the real life Cheyenne Mountain labeled "Stargate Command". It leads to a broom closet.
* The "Jose Chung's ''From Outer Space''" episode of ''Series/TheXFiles''
** This also happened in one of the tie-in comics produced by Topps. A man going on the talk show circuit claiming to be John Lawrence, one of the pilots of the famous Flight 19 that got lost in TheBermudaTriangle is eventually revealed to be an actor playing an elaborate hoax. However, Mulder correctly deduces that the real reason behind the hoax is that the aliens really have sent Flight 19 back to Earth and The Conspiracy set the whole thing up so if any more of them turned up nobody would believe them.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer:'' Dracula got Stoker to write his book to pump up his street cred. Other vampires thought it was a really dick move, because it let the normal humans in on a lot of their secrets.

* The basic premise of ''TabletopGame/TheDraculaDossier'' (a campaign setting for ''TabletopGame/NightsBlackAgents'') is that British Intelligence tried to recruit Dracula in the 1890s, he double-crossed them, and the novel ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'' is actually a heavily edited version of the after-action report, released as disinformation. Pelgrane has published ''Dracula Unredacted'', which in-game is Stoker's original manuscript with notes made by three prior Intelligence analysts, which the [=PCs=] can read for clues.

* Something similar is hinted at in VideoGame/DeusEx. The conspiracy makes artifical life-forms called Grays that resemble the popular idea of aliens (round heads, gray skin) and is implied to let rumours about them circulate as a smokescreen for what they are really up to in the Area 51 facility. Some sources also claim that the Grays are clones grown from genetic material from the Roswell UFO, but nothing conclusive is given.
** This is actually the purpose of the Midnight Sun tabloid. [[spoiler: Joe Greene]], agent of Majestic 12, writes sensational articles about the gray death virus that aren't quite the truth, but just close enough to discredit anyone trying to tell the public the real story.

* Inverted in the ''{{WebOriginal/Paradise}}'' setting. In the years leading up to the dawning of TheUnmasquedWorld, when the fact that some people were being transformed into {{Funny Animal}}s stopped being InvisibleToNormals, a greater-than-normal number of shows and stories featuring anthropomorphic animals were featured in popular entertainment-�apparently to get the general public acclimated to seeing them around.
* Slightly different take on the subject in the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse''. Famous horror writer Michael Waite's best known book, "Incongruity", was a huge success. Michael Waite died. Sort of. He became 'Carmilla' who is prophesied to evolve into The Kellith and sweep humanity off the planet and replace humanity with its spawn. It turns out that "Incongruity" is really The First Book of The Kellith.
* In a number of Creator/JohnCWright's online short stories, it is stated that all science fiction is records of actual events from the past, present and future, disguised as speculative fiction, and the annual meetings of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America [[http://www.scifiwright.com/2011/10/the-eve-of-all-saints-day/comment-page-1/#comment-67616 is when authors are assigned authentic manuscripts and diaries to turn into publishable stories.]]
* ''Series/WarpZoneProject'' runs with the idea of all fiction not being only cover-up, but the true stories of super-powered individuals. They conntribute to an exploited WeirdnessCensor in such a way that if someone actually runs into super-heroes or super-villains doing their usual super-hero and super-villain activities, the memories change into the impression of remembering a scene from a comic book or movie featuring the characters.
* Website/CollegeHumor: The conspiracy theory spoof video "Deceptive Deceptions" claims that ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind'' was made on the orders of Dick Cheney (at the time Congressman of Wyoming, where the movie was filmed) and his co-conspirators to cover up previous UFO landings.

* The "[[ShowWithinAShow Wormhole X-Treme!]]" show on ''Series/StargateSG1''. It was written by an average joe who had unknowingly been receiving visions of the real Stargate program. The Pentagon acknowledged that it would prevent any future leaks of information about the program from ever being taken seriously. Subverting the popularity part, the show was apparently canceled after something like two episodes. [[Film/{{Serenity}} But got a movie. Based on its DVD sales.]]

* One rather literal example of fiction as literal cover-up is revealed in Gerard Jones' book ''Men of Tomorrow'' who pointed out that American pulp genre fiction, science-fiction and comic books originated as front companies for gangsters distributing bootleg liquor during the Prohibition and it later expanded to a front for other mafia activity. The founders of DC Comics, Harry Donnenfeld and Jack Liebowitz in particular were former associates of gangsters such as Legs Diamond and Lucky Luciano and the presses used to print comics by Timely Comics (later Marvel) and Fawcett Comics were all used by gangsters as fronts. Most notably the author suggests that superhero comics were published with the most preachy moral virtues precisely so that nobody would suspect something as innocuous as Captain Marvel, Batman or Superman could possibly be connected to something evil, which adds a disturbing meta subtext that the superheroes have been working for the real-life supervillains the whole time.

* The basic premise of ''TabletopGame/TheDraculaDossier'' (a campaign setting for ''Night's Black Agents'') is that British Intelligence tried to recruit Dracula in the 1890s, he double-crossed them, and the novel ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'' is actually a heavily edited version of the after-action report, released as disinformation. Pelgrane has published ''Dracula Unredacted'', which in-game is Stoker's original manuscript with notes made by three prior Intelligence analysts, which the [=PCs=] can read for clues.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story ''Paté de foie gras'' describes a group of scientists who found a goose who laid golden eggs; after testing every theory they could think of to figure out why, they decided to write about the exploit in hopes of getting advice from outside sources. Due to the need for secrecy, they of course published it as a fictional short story, safe in the knowledge that no one would believe it...

* Inverted by the White Court of vampires in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', which arranged for the publication of ''{{Literature/Dracula}}'' in order to expose the rival Black Court vampires' secrets and vulnerabilities.

->'''Stokely:''' So they've just been setting us up over the years with their ''[[Film/ETTheExtraterrestrial E.T.]]'''s and their ''Film/MenInBlack'' movies, just so [[CassandraGambit no one would believe it if it ever happened]]?\\
'''Casey:''' I think so.

->'''Stokely''': So they've just been setting us up over the years with their ''[[Film/ETTheExtraterrestrial E.T.]]'''s and their ''Film/MenInBlack'' movies, just so [[CassandraGambit no one would believe it if it ever happened]]?
->'''Casey''': I think so.

* In the original ''ComicBook/MenInBlack'' comic, Kay lets slip that ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951'' was a documentary about Earth's first treaty with a extraterrestrials, and ''VideoGame/SpaceInvaders'' was made as a simulator in the event of interplanetary war. [[note]]This was years after ''Film/TheLastStarfighter'', incidentally.[[/note]]

** In the same episode, there's a subplot about [[PluckyComicRelief the Worms]] trying to pitch a film about the MIB, which stars [[CelebrityParadox the actors]] Creator/TommyLeeJones and Creator/WillSmith; apparently, the ''Film/MenInBlack'' movie is an ''in-universe'' example of this trope!

* ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlackTheSeries'', completing the trifecta started under Film and Comics, reveals that the MIB run a covert talent agency in LA that helps alien actors with getting roles in Hollywood movies. They saved cash for the make-up department by simply taking their {{human disguise}}s off and [[HiddenInPlainSight playing themselves]]. Sort of subverted; although the aliens in movies are real, the events of the movies aren't necessarily (J meets a XenomorphXerox who's bitter at being out of work, [[spoiler:but is not actually a bad guy]]).

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* In the original ''Comicbook/{{Men In Black}}'' comic, Kay lets slip that ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951'' was a documentary about Earth's first treaty with a extraterrestrials, and "Space Invaders" was made as a simulator in the event of interplanetary war. [[note]] This was years after ''Film/TheLastStarfighter'', incidentally [[/note]]

[[folder: Fan Fiction ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* ''Film/MenInBlack'' reveals that tabloids serve a double purpose: They do this while acting as a legitimate source of news for those in the know. An episode in the animated series also had several aliens that worked in the movie industry and saved cash for the make-up department by simply taking their human costumes off.

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

[[folder: Role Playing Game ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

[[folder: Web Original ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack'', completing the trifecta started under Film and Comics, reveals that the MIB keep an employment agency in LA that helps aliens get a start in show businesses. Sort of subverted; although the aliens in movies are real, the events of the movies aren't, necessarily (J meets a Xenomorph {{Expy}} who's bitter at being out of work but [[spoiler: not actually a bad guy.]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* The "[[ShowWithinAShow Wormhole X-Treme!]]" show on ''Series/StargateSG1''. The Pentagon acknowledged that it would prevent any future leaks of information about the Stargate program from ever being taken seriously. Subverting the popularity part, the show was apparently canceled after something like two episodes. [[Film/{{Serenity}} But got a movie. Based on its DVD sales.]]

* ''Film/TheFaculty'' provides the page quote, in which two characters speculate on the possibility of AlienInvasion movies serving this purpose.

* Many Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei fans take ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'''s mention of a [[RaidouKuzunohaVsTheSoullessArmy Raidou Kuzunoha]] movie as this. It would make it the only indication of any games in the series (beyond the direct sequels and Persona sub-series) to take place in the same ([[{{Multiverse}} exact]]) universe.

Subtrope of CassandraGambit. See also PlausibleDeniability, LiteraryAgentHypothesis, and AllPartOfTheShow. When the "fake fake show" is a direct part of the main plot, it's a ShowWithinAShow.

** Apparently, this was a {{defictionalization}} of [[EpilepticTrees a fan theory]] claiming that the Franchise/StargateVerse itself is an example of this trope, with the shows being used to [[ConspiracyTheory cover up a real-life Stargate program]]. There was actually a real (and now-declassified) [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project "Stargate" program]], only it [[NamesTheSame involved research into remote viewing]], and was ended in 1995 due to a failure to produce results. (Or so they say...) It was the inspiration for the book and film ''Film/TheMenWhoStareAtGoats''.

* In A. Bertram Chandler's "The Proper Gander", the Aliens, finding that their ships have been spotted by Earth dwellers, proceed to "contact" gullible flying saucer believers, knowing that the rest of the people will not believe THEIR stories. At the end, the one who made the "proper gander" pun is assigned to be a comedian making fun of the contact stories, anticipating that he will "make 'saucer' the dirtiest word in the English language."

** Incidentally, in real-life, the USSR cottoned on to the existence of a US plan to build atomic weapons when articles on atomic research disappeared form science journals, as noted by Georgy Flyorov, who noted that it had been a popular topic in TheForties but overnight seemed to have disappeared. So most likely, if they had simply continued spinning disinformation in the science-journals and phased out the science-fiction, they might have succeeded for a while longer in hiding the secret.

* ''Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead'' starts with the premise that ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' was a fictionalized account of actual events, with certain elements changed for security reasons.

* ''Film/TheFaculty'' provides the page quote, in which two GenreSavvy characters speculate on the possibility of AlienInvasion movies serving this purpose.

* In UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, in the eyes of their enemies did this when during his time as dictator, Caesar ostentatiously participated in public ceremonies where Antony would present diadems to Caesar only for Caesar to turn it down. Most observers at the time, and later historians don't know what to make of this. The optimates often invoked the fear of "return of Kings" to justify brutally purging popularii reformers (such as the Gracchi) and Caesar and Antony might have been mocking and parodying that concept. Others however see this as Caesar testing the waters to see how the public would react to him claiming the Crown, as a way of testing whether he should make a play for the Crown, but using the guise of mockery and jest as a form of plausible deniability.

* Some conspiracy theorists believe that films (especially ''Film/{{ET|The Extraterrestrial}}'') and other media featuring aliens are secretly meant to acclimate the public with extraterrestrials to ensure they will be welcomed enthusiastically when the government reveals their existence.
** [[AliensAreBastards Results]] [[SuperiorSpecies thus]] [[InnocentAliens far]] [[AlienInvasion have]] [[AbusiveAlienParents been]] [[ToServeMan mixed]].
* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the FBI considered censoring American science fiction stories about atomic (or to use a popular term of the time "uranium") bombs and similar stories about nuclear physics. They decided to let the stories get published because [[RevealingCoverup the sudden absence of them after years of them would alert other nations that they were being censored because of real life research]].

* Something similar to this concerns politically-charged writing. It's often been said that 'genre' writers are often allowed to get away with a lot more social, economic, and political commentary in their books, especially in authoritarian regimes that seek to censor dissenting views, partly due to the SciFiGhetto causing science fiction and fantasy to be frequently dismissed out of hand, and partly because such themes are harder to spot against the backdrop of a setting that isn't the 'real world'. Creator/StanislawLem mentioned this in [[http://solaris.lem.pl/ksiazki/eseje/moloch/174-fragment-moloch-eksformacja one of his essays]]:

** [[FridgeBrilliance Which explains why]] science fiction was so popular in the USSR.