History Main / MistakenForSuperpowered

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'': One episode has Irma get zapped with a device some criminals were stealing, while she was on her way to a costume party. This causes her costume to become magnetized, [[HollywoodMagnetism resulting in it repelling the guns the criminals pointed at her]]. As a result, she mistakenly starts to believe that she has SuperStrength and spends the rest of the episode trying to be a superhero before the effect on her costume wears off as she is fighting Shredder, requiring the turtles to save her.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': When the detectives are called to a crime scene, they find a man who was shot in the head. When the man inexplicably wakes up and he's fine, Castle [[WrongGenreSavvy thinks the man is a superhero]].

* Creator/DCComics:
** [[ComicBook/Batgirl2000 Cassandra Cain]] is an ordinary human being who happened to be born with the hereditary gift to "read" human body language. Her father then heightened that ability via abusive TrainingFromHell to the point that her ability to read people is so strong that she appears to have CombatClairvoyance. When fighting a group of federal agents, they mistakenly believe her to be a "metahuman" because of how effortlessly [[DodgeTheBullet she dodged their gunfire]].

** Franchise/{{Batman}} invokes this during the "[[ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand No Man's Land]]" arc. One of the first things he does after returning to Gotham is intentionally draw gunfire so that he can [[UnflinchingWalk keep walking]] after he gets hit, so that he can create the impression that he's unkillable, rather than armored and [[{{determinator}} very determined]].

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HugFW8rLZ8 "The Force,"]] a young boy dresses himself as [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]] and walks around trying to [[MindOverMatter move objects with his mind]]. After repeated failures, he turns his attention to his father's car, which turns on when he points at it. The commercial ends with the astonished boy staring at the camera, unaware that it was the father who started the car with a remote control. It is ''adorable.''

-->-- ''Music/NinjaSexParty'', "Thunder and Lightning"

Compare ActuallyNotAVampire, FakeWizardry and MistakenForUndead. Not to be confused with PowerMisidentification, where they ''do'' have powers but it isn't the one they thought, or CharlesAtlasSuperpower, where their supposed abilities are mundane abilities turned UpToEleven by plausible means.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'': One episode has Irma get zapped with a device some criminals were stealing while she was on her way to a costume party. This causes her costume to become magnetized, [[HollywoodMagnetism resulting in it repelling the guns the criminals pointed at her]]. As a result, she mistakenly starts to believe that she has SuperStrength and spends the rest of the episode trying to be a superhero before the effect on her costume wears off as she is fighting Shredder, requiring the turtles to save her.

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HugFW8rLZ8 "The Force"]], a young boy dresses himself as [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]] and walks around trying to [[MindOverMatter move objects with his mind]]. After repeated failures, he turns his attention to his father's car, which turns on when he points at it. The commercial ends with the astonished boy staring at the camera, unaware that it was the father who started the car with a remote control. It is ''adorable.''

* In the WebVideo/{{Smosh}} video "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUbadUtcYEA MY MUTANT RASH!]]", Ian and Anthony start developing a weird rash after finding a mysterious meteor. They also begin to develop powers (which are actually just mundane tricks they blow out of proportion) like the ability to bend pencils (the Rubber Pencil Trick) and try to psychically control a random bystander (when really he just gets a brain freeze from his drink). The fact that TheMenInBlack come to their door to bother them only feeds into their delusions. By the end of the video, it is revealed that the meteor was a lump of calcified feces dumped from a space-station and the rash they got was a bad bacterial infection they got from eating (and eating off of) the "meteor".

* Invoked in the ''WesternAnimation/WhatsWithAndy'' episode "Scary Teri", where [[PrinceOfPranksters Andy]] deliberately pranks Teri into thinking she's [[MindOverMatter telekinetic]].

* On ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'', when Darren and Samantha's daughter Tabitha is born, certain events lead Darren to the conviction that Tabitha is using magic for her own personal profit. The Cravitzes buy Tabitha a share of stock in a diaper company and the stock promptly goes up. Then Tabitha appears to be pointing at the names of racing horses in the newspaper. Admittedly Darren has something of a point, [[WitchSpecies as his wife is a witch and Tabitha could have inherited those abilities]], but Samantha herself thinks he's being ridiculous, pointing out that "she's a tiny baby!" and they don't even know for sure yet if she actually has magic. Eventually Darren finds mundane explanations for the goings-on and concedes that Tabitha probably didn't do anything. [[spoiler:Tabitha does turn out to be a witch, but it's still unlikely a ''newborn'' was manipulating events regardless.]]