History Main / HiddenInPlainSight

** Robert Smalls and all but one of the slaves aboard a Confederate naval vessel snuck their families on board and stole the ship. They knew the correct signals, and so were able to sail without question to Union controlled waters.

** Despite being a prolific SerialKiller, Yoshikage Kira doesn't bother to hide himself at all, due to him erasing every trace of his victims so that nobody even ''knows'' there's a serial killer in Morioh (the only reason anyone knows is because one of his victims returns as a ghost and warns the heroes); the victims are considered missing person cases by the Morioh Police since they have nothing else to go on. When his true identity is revealed, he [[spoiler:grabs a random person off the street, forces Aya to use her Stand so he can swap faces and fingerprints with them, kills both of them (erasing them as well) and then just returns to his ordinary life as a new person, with only the son of the man he replaced suspecting him.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Bullseye|MarvelComics}}'' tells the FBI agents interrogating him that he has hidden the plutonium he stole in a local park under a big X. [[SarcasticConfession They assume he's being uncooperative]]. Once he kills them and escapes, Bullseye goes to meet his contacts:

--->'''Barriss:''' How did you know he was hiding something?\\

* Franchise/TheFlash:

* Inside ComicBook/{{Galactus}}'s ship, one can find sitting on a plainly visible shelf the Ultimate Nullifier, the universe's most dangerous obliterator weapon. ComicBook/{{Thanos}} lampshades this.

* Invoked in ''ComicBook/SecretWar2004'' when Nick Fury assembled a team of heroes for a black ops mission in Latervia. When the assembled heroes met Fury in Latveria, Peter Parker asked if the entire team getting on the same plane was a bit too obvious for a supposedly secret mission. Fury counters that the team travelling under their secret identities are 'just' a teacher (Peter Parker), a lawyer (Matt Murdock), a kid on spring break (Daisy Johnson), a bodyguard (Luke Cage), whatever Logan is and Captain America, on a plane with over a hundred other random passengers; the only person looking that closely at the situation would be Fury himself.

** In Pre-Crisis comics, the key to Superman's house is a gigantic golden arrow sitting in front of the Fortress of Solitude, meant to be mistaken as an old air navigation marker which used to be a thing before modern telecommunications made them unnecessary. Then again, Superman and ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} are some of the few people on Earth capable of even lifting it, so that helps.

--->'''ComicBook/LexLuthor:''' ''"This abandoned island prison is one of my secret lairs. It's equipped with my most advanced weapons. Who would suspect I'd use a prison for a hideout?"''

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'': The DEO begins an investigation into Franchise/WonderWoman's disappearance while she is working for them as an agent under the false identity of Diana Prince. She manages to only be found out by the resident MasterOfDisguise she is partnered with despite never actually lying about her identity at any point.

* In ''WesternAnimation/KuboAndTheTwoStrings'', Kubo finds a legendary sword deep in a cavern and its corresponding legendary armor at the bottom of a lake. Kubo spends the longest time searching for the helmet to complete the set and ultimately finds it [[spoiler:as the bell rung every morning in the village near where he lives.]] Though this trope applying ''did'' slow Kubo down a lot, he would have found it sooner had [[spoiler:the Moon King not appeared in his dreams to deliberately mislead him]].

* In ''Film/{{Alaska}}'', the search and rescue team has a lot of trouble finding a bright yellow plane (the plane of the protagonists' father) stuck in a snowy mountain range. [[spoiler: Admittedly, the protagonists thinking he stayed on his scheduled flight path instead of flying a few miles off course before crashing might have complicated things]].

* ''Film/HarryAndTheHendersons'': At the end of the film, when [[spoiler:the Hendersons release Harry back into the wild, no less than three other sasquatches suddenly appear from ''in front'' of the trees and follow him into the brush.]]

* ''Film/{{Nope}}'': [[spoiler:The UFO had been living in the valley for at least six months by hiding itself in a low cloud when it's not hunting. Angel eventually discovers this because the specific cloud never moves - something he only catches when looking at sped-up footage.]]
* In ''Film/OceansEight'', how do the gang smuggle a $150 million necklace from a huge gala event? By [[spoiler: carefully breaking it into pieces and then each member walks right out of the museum wearing a piece as bracelets, earrings, etc.]]

* In the DLC campaign in ''VideoGame/DyingLight'' called, ''The Following'' the main villain is revealed to be [[spoiler: Kaan, the goofy acting merchant you meet and trade with in the new location during the beginning of the campaign. He is the new leader who took over for Rais' gang after you defeated him during the main campaign. Though he is just [[EvilVersusEvil one of the threats]] Kyle deals with.]]

* The central mystery of ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' is what the aliens are doing on Earth in the first place. The answer is plainly visible before you even [[spoiler:start the game at all. The game's logo is an alien head [[HumanResources made of human skulls]], and the alien's purpose is to create new bodies for their leaders from human DNA.]]

** Later in ''Dual Destinies'', we find that the BigBad [[spoiler: was part of the main cast all along, posing as goofy detective Bobby Fulbright. Athena had been working with her mother's murderer without ever knowing it.]]

* A VillainOfTheWeek in the ''WesternAnimation/SecretSquirrel'' segment of ''WesternAnimation/TwoStupidDogs'' was a chameleon that stole art pieces and hid them in the attic of the very same museum he stole them from. When confronted by Secret, Chameleon explained that hiding in plain sight was his specialty and that he stole the art to blend with it. As it usually happens to chameleons in cartoons, [[spoiler:he wasn't able to hide in modern art pieces because there were too many colors]].

** A prank Bart pulls on the school faculty in ''The Last Temptation of Homer'' involves him simply repainting the parking lot to make each parking space ''slightly'' smaller so each car fits ''exactly'' into a space, which causes everyone to unintentionally box each other in without seeing any obvious change. He even lampshades how subtle this is.

* The ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' HomeBase is Mount Justice, the former base of the Justice League until it was exposed to the world. [[RefugeInAudacity They gave the black-ops team the base that everyone knows about.]] Since the team uses teleportation devices to enter and leave and Mount Justice has a self-contained power source, from the outside there's nothing to suggest it's been reactivated and thus it takes a while before any villains find out. Building a whole new base from scratch without anybody noticing would've been much harder to pull off.

* [[NightmareFuel The most successful serial killers tend to be amazingly talented at doing this.]] If you're curious about this (and have a strong stomach), go to Website/YouTube and watch a video of somebody like John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer being interviewed, and the most striking thing you'll notice about them is how dull and ordinary they seem, and how hard it would be to pick them out in a crowd.

[[folder:Films — Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBadGuys'': The Zumpango Diamond, a gem infamously stolen by the legendary thief Crimson Paw, [[spoiler:is being worn as Diane Foxington's diamond ring that Mr. Wolf steals when he first meets her]]. The {{Novelization}} expands on this slightly; the diamond has a distinct, recognizable shine, but it's not as prevalent in a different holder, making it harder to recognize. It's not until [[spoiler:Marmalade removes the diamond from the ring]] that Mr. Wolf finally recognizes it.

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

* ''Wiki/RPCAuthority'': [[https://rpcauthority.wikidot.com/rpc-588 RPC-588]] are in appearance and behavior (mostly) indistinguishable from normal bees making them difficult to locate and contain.

** The Regents themselves also fall into this trope. They're the governing body that oversees a collection of the world's most dangerous historical artifacts--and they all have mundane jobs and everyday lives. For example, the group's recording secretary, Theadora Stanton, is a waitress in the diner where the Regents hold one of their meetings (turns out that being able to quickly write down orders in shorthand is an [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower surprisingly useful skill]] when dealing with top-secret information). Another works in the grocery story mentioned above, while another is a schoolteacher.

* In the Creator/DisneyChannel original movie ''Film/GetAClue'', a bank manager steals 10 million dollars and frames one of his employees, but nobody can figure out where the money actually went. Similar to one of the RealLife examples below, it turns out the manager used the money to buy a very rare diamond and disguised it as a kitschy brooch; when he lost it, it got picked up by the scapegoat's mother, who proceeded to wear it almost every day without knowing its true value.
* A central theme in ''Film/GlassOnion'': During TheSummation, Benoit Blanc uses the titular phrase as a metaphor for something that seems complex and multilayered on the surface, but is actually completely transparent. This applies to the film's plot in several ways:
** Despite Blanc's initial assumption that he's dealing with a hidden mastermind's complicated murder scheme, it eventually turns out that [[spoiler:Miles Bron, the person with the most obvious motive, is in fact the killer, and the murders were committed on the spur of the moment, without any regard for the consequences, and, in one case, [[RefugeInAudacity right in front of multiple witnesses]]]]. The main reason the killer was able to avoid detection for so long is that Blanc vastly overestimated their intelligence, expecting complexity where there was none.
** TheReveal hinges on the realization that [[spoiler:Miles is a fraud who pretends to be much smarter than he actually is]]. As Blanc points out, this should have been obvious to everyone due to [[spoiler:the impracticality of his business ideas and his frequent misuse of technical terms, but because of his self-confidence and charisma, everyone, including Blanc himself, fully believed in his fabricated reputation as an eccentric genius]].
** The most crucial piece of evidence for the solution of the case was never carefully concealed or secured, but [[spoiler:openly displayed in the culprit's office and accessible to everyone the entire time]].

** Despite Blanc's initial assumption that he's dealing with a hidden mastermind's complicated murder scheme, it eventually turns out that [[spoiler:Miles Bron, the person with the most obvious motive, is in fact the killer, and the murders were committed on the spur of the moment, without any regard for the consequences, and, in one case, [[RefugeInAudacity right in front of multiple witnesses]]]]. The main reason the killer was able avoid detection for so long is that Blanc vastly overestimated their intelligence, expecting complexity where there was none.

%%* In Creator/JackMcDevitt's ''Literature/InfinityBeach'', both major {{MacGuffin}}s -- the unaltered ''Hunter'' logs and the alien spaceship -- turn out to be hidden in plain sight. How?

* In ''Literature/{{Earthborn}}'', Shedemei decides to come down from the colony ship and mingle among her descendants, having had an inkling of brewing conflict. She takes a guise as an itinerant school teacher, under her real name. At this point in the series, her name has been practically deified as "The One Who Was Never Buried". Most people who know her simply assume she's an oddball with [[NamesTheSame Shedemei's name]], spelled and pronounced in the old way.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

* In ''Fanfic/TheUnchained'', when the Strawhats Pirates decide to disguise themselves on Sabaody Archipelago, they opt for a traveling circus, with Luffy pretending he's impersonating Straw-Hat himself, and Keimi putting a false zipper on her fin to avoid slavers and bounty hunters.

* In ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'', this is Ren's Semblance. With a little bit of concentration, he can make himself or someone else entirely invisible to the [[EmotionEater Grimm]], despite them being right out in the open and visible to normal people.

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue: Singularity'' explains what Agent Carolina did after the Meta tossed her off of a cliff and she abandoned Project Freelancer; she re-enlisted in the UNSC under a false identity. The military was desperate for recruits against the Covenant, and wouldn't check her credentials thoroughly. Wash, using MentalTimeTravel, finds her stationed at an average base as "[=McCallister=]" wearing the same kind of armor as everyone else.

* ''Literature/{{Kane}}'': In ''Dark Crusade'', upon getting to Ingoldi, Erill and Javro find their place with the Theater Guild--and Javro is chosen to play ''himself'', the cowardly general of the vanquished enemy forces, in the patriotic pageant ''The Invincible March of the Sword of Sataki'', which is highly praised by the authorities for its propaganda value.

** In the final case of ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney Trials and Tribulations]]'', [[spoiler:Maya is saved from being killed by someone channeling Dahlia Hawthorne by channeling her herself. It works to the point Dahlia thinks it's Pearl who is channeling her, and even Phoenix only realizes Maya is the one channeling Dahlia by process of elimination - there wasn't anyone else capable of doing that, by the time she's being cross-examined]].

* In the game ''Cadillacs and Dinosaurs'' the protagonists realize that the villains have an arms factory built under the island. When one asks: "how could they hide the smoke?" they gaze at each other for a moment and then turn to stare at the volcano which has been steadily blowing out smoke for the duration of the game.