History Main / ScullySyndrome

But don't pat yourself on the back just yet, Scully. If you think about it for more than five seconds, there's a lot that the seemingly "rational" explanation doesn't actually explain at all, or which itself requires increasingly convoluted and improbable further explanations [[VoodooShark which only poke even more holes in the logic.]] For instance, how and where does one even get enough marshmallow to make a fifty-foot marshmallow man and leave its remains scattered over the streets of New York City? How much would that cost, and why is there no record of such a massive purchase? How and where does one make said marshmallow man, and hide it away from everyone until the absolute right moment? How do you get it to move and act convincingly? How do you get it to move ''at all'', for that matter? How do the Ghostbusters set up their "light show" at the building without anyone noticing? The monster steps on a church at one point -- how do you stage that? In fact, the opening of the portal creates earthquakes, lightning storms and unseasonal instantaneous storm clouds that block out the sun -- how could the Ghostbusters create earthquakes, control the weather and turn day into night? How does one spread enough hallucinogens to dose an an entire city without anyone noticing, and then manage to ensure that everyone has the same hallucination at the same time -- which is also the time you need them to hallucinate? And for ''that'' matter, how do you control what kind of hallucinations someone has; wouldn't a massive crowd all be hallucinating wildly different things even if given the same drug? When did the Ghostbusters wire the apartment building to blow, including the apartments of several residents? And ultimately, even if you could do all of this, it would all take a lot of effort, and you'd probably need a lot of people to help you do it, all of whom will have to have some kind of motivation to keep quiet -- such as as a lot of money. The Ghostbusters are just four guys -- ''how did they manage to do this all by themselves without involving anyone else?''

* Any and every attempt to scientifically justify the existence of real-life vampires. "Explanations" include diabetes and porphyria, both of which actually fail miserably. Aside from the diseases not doing what they think they do ([[ArtisticLicenseMedicine you can't treat porphyria by drinking blood]]), the vampires they're usually trying to explain [[NewerThanTheyThink were the product of Hollywood and 20th century literature.]] Older vampire myths are much more like zombie, revenant or ghost stories.
** Some scientists now think that rabies may be at the root of the vampire myth.

* Discussed in ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles''; at several points, [[TheWatson Dr. Watson]] hears a horrible baying noise over the mires which can only be a massive dog, and which the superstitious locals attribute to the titular Hound, a fearsome and murderous HellHound supposedly haunting a nearby wealthy family. Watson scoffs at the supernatural explanation, but admits that he's currently hard-pressed to offer a more rational explanation because there are several gaping holes in any explanation that he can think of which seemingly can't be answered away. Of course, this is a Literature/SherlockHolmes story, so those logical and rational explanations actually are there; it just takes Sherlock Holmes himself to put them together and fill in the gaps.

As a hypothetical example, take the climax of the film ''Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}}'', which involves [[ItMakesSenseInContext an ancient evil god from another dimension, which has taken on the form of a]] [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever fifty-foot advertising mascot made entirely out of marshmallow,]] striding through the streets of Manhattan. In this form, it attacks the roof of a Manhattan apartment building in full view of the public in an attempt to open a portal to another dimension and destroy the world, before itself being vaporized in a massive fiery explosion that covers an entire city block in liquid marshmallow. That is all, admittedly, a fairly difficult set of events to believe in, and if AgentScully were investigating it, she might explain this as all being just a big hoax. The titular Ghostbusters merely staged the marshmallow man and used a combination of a fancy light show and hallucinogenic substances to fool the credulous people below into believing they were witnessing a supernatural event. Which actually makes sense on the surface...

* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'': Niles is a FlatEarthAtheist who despite being a Templar for years, firmly believes the gods are a myth. If the entirety of [[KillTheGod Act 2]] has anything to show, that's not true. He wasn't there to see it first-hand, which conveniently let him maintain his insane conspiracy theories of what the divine phenomenons actually are. He thinks the Templars faked a cannibal god rampaging and consuming an ''an entire nation's populace''. Even when his attempts to prove the gods don't exist backfired, he makes up an excuse for it. This is on top of the fact he's a ''mind reader'', and he thinks the witness has something MoreThanMindControl going on for them. As for what he thinks you were doing when you were directly slaying the gods? Probably breathing in too much crypt gas.

* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'': Niles is a FlatEarthAtheist who despite being a Templar for years, firmly believes the gods are a myth. If the entirety of [[KillTheGod Act 2]] has anything to show, that's not true. He wasn't there to see it first-hand, which conveniently let him maintain his insane conspiracy theories of what the divine phenomenons actually are. He thinks the Templars faked a cannibal god rampaging and consuming an ''an entire nation's populace''.
Even when his attempts to prove the gods don't exist ''definitely prove they do'', he makes up an excuse for it. This is on top of the fact he's a ''mind reader''. As for what he thinks you were doing when you were directly slaying the gods? Probably breathing in too much crypt gas.

* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'': Niles is a FlatEarthAtheist who despite being a Templar for years, firmly believes the gods are a myth. If the entirety of [[KillTheGod Act 2]] has anything to show, that's not true. He wasn't there to see their involvement first-hand, which conveniently let him create conspiracy theories on what really happened. Kitava destroying Oriath and feeding on its denizens? The Templars made it up, the blood is red mud, the footprints were carved in, and his skull is a prop. The fact all the people whose minds he read know they've witnessed the gods? Something MoreThanMindControl is going on. Witnessing a miracle from a blessed object first-hand? Some kind of illusion. Your player character's first-hand account? You were hallucinating the entire time.

It is important to note that, the most common interpretation of OccamsRazor aside, the simplest explanation isn't ''always'' the correct one.[[note]]Occam's Razor actually states that the explanation with the fewest unknown variables is usually the correct one, not just the simplest explanation.[[/note]] Sufferers of Scully Syndrome aren't always wrong. Many frauds and con-jobs have relied on people being willing to believe a simple explanation without stopping to consider that someone ''might'' actually engage in some highly improbable and unbelievable course of action if they think they'll benefit from doing so. Scully Syndrome is not a problem because skepticism of the supernatural and unlikely or a belief in the rational are bad in and of themselves. It is a problem because it allows someone to use rationalism as an excuse to not consider any possibilities that challenge or disprove their current beliefs or worldview, even when those alternative possibilities are actually valid and supported with evidence. That Agent Scully doesn't automatically and unquestioningly believe aliens did it is fine, but it's when Agent Scully starts constructing equally implausible "rational" narratives rather than accept the evidence that aliens, against all odds, actually ''did'' do it that it starts to become an issue.

In other words, while AgentMulder might risk becoming too credulous and easily-fooled thanks to his open-mindedness, thanks to this trope, AgentScully risks becoming too closed-minded and inflexible.

* [[FlatEarthAthiest Mothwing]] from ''Literature/WarriorCats'' tries to explain medicine cats' [[DreamingOfThingsToCome future-predicting dreams]] as just smart cats working out predictions unconsciously, though this still leaves a lot of questions - like why these dreams have such high accuracy and how leaders end up getting [[CatsHaveNineLives nine lives]] from communicating with [=StarClan=].
* Jill goes into great detail in ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil Resident Evil: The Umbrella Conspiracy]]'' about why she can only pick certain locks and why she can't simply kick open the ones she can't, which was an [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality Acceptable Break From Reality]] in the game but would be a PlotHole in a book. Being a former ClassyCatBurglar in this version, she thoroughly examines a door and finds that the locking mechanism is so unique and special that even she has no clue how to get it open without a key, and then when she considers kicking it open she finds that the door and the frame are so heavily reinforced that she has no hope in hell of breaking it with her strength alone. She then considers shooting out the lock but fears that the bullet may ricochet and hurt her ([[ShownTheirWork an actual concern in real life]]). It's even her first clue that there's something fishy about the mansion itself, as no regular mansion would ''ever'' do such a thing with interior doors. Barry on the other hand has no problem booting open one of these reinforced doors when he saves Jill from [[MemeticMutation becoming a Jill Sandwich]] because, as a scene in an earlier chapter of him casually carrying a duffel bag that weighed well over 100 pounds implied, he's just ''that'' strong.

* Named after Dana Scully of ''Series/TheXFiles'', who was particularly adamant in her denial of the supernatural. As their encounters with fairly obvious supernatural cases grew this got quite ridiculous. As cracked.com put it: "After personally witnessing aliens, a cannibal mutant, psychic children, vengeful ghosts, mind-controlling insects, the ghost of an alien, pyrokinesis, the ghost of her father, shape-shifters, body-switching, reverse-ageing, faith-healing, a telepathic frozen human head, a radioactive leech-man, subliminal mind control, vampires, Native American sorcery, precognition, astrology, gargoyles, telekinesis, Chinese sorcery, a sea monster, a golem, past life regression, Frankenstein's Monster, a demon-possessed doll, a giant intelligent shape-shifting beetle monster, time travel, demonic possession, psychic weather control, the Grim reaper, time loops, zombies, doppelgangers, a giant human bat, voodoo, alternate dimensions, transmogrification, a kid that can command insects, another golem, a genie and an ancient piece of potter inscribed with the words of Jesus that can raise the dead, Scully continues to mock Mulder for believing in the paranormal." In Dana Scully's and the series defense, this trope did get downplayed as the series went on and she got used to the supernatural being the usual suspect.

* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'': One arc has the Tagons on a tropical resort and lose one of their own to a giant shark. Except there are no sharks on that world (it was grown in a secret gene-lab by a MadScientist), so the local police keep finding new and inventive reasons for the Toughs to be behind the attacks. At the end of the arc the Toughs' attorney is suing the cops for "impersonating a police force".

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Petergeist", Lois tells Brian there's no such things as ghosts, after seeing supernatural occurrences. When she sees chairs and the refrigerator upside down on the kitchen table, she concludes that she must have accidentally stacked all those thing upside down and then just forgot about it.

** In this case this is enforced by the authorities, who ''do'' know that there is a massive civilisation of Ratmen beneath them but feel this being general knowledge would be too alarming. So those who have seen the Skaven have simply seen mutants or Beastmen who happened to look a bit ratlike, not a completely separate race, despite the fact that no other Beastmen look like that and mutants aren't that uniform in appearance.

* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': Jack Shepherd adamantly refuses to believe in the supernatural because his daddy issues compel him to fix every problem in the world through sheer willpower, and surrendering control to the supernatural gets in the way of that. Even when he physically witnesses [[spoiler: the Island move]], he ''still'' doesn't believe it. However, when he realizes the supernatural is the only way to fix the problem of [[spoiler: rescuing the people left behind on the Island]], he abandons his skepticism and turns into a zealot for the supernatural . . . who's every bit as stubborn about his own convictions.

* Some of the main characters on ''Series/{{Lost}}'' remain in denial of the island's supernatural attributes. In the season 4 finale, despite having just seen [[spoiler:the island vanish]], Jack denies Hurley's assertion that [[spoiler:the island has been moved.]] The shock at this and a subsequent breakdown lead to a total 180 in terms of ease of belief.

* In ''Literature/{{Inferno}}'', Allen Carpentier's attempts to interpret his experiences as a product of [[ClarkesThirdLaw super-advanced technology]] may be more unreasonable than accepting the reality that Hell exists and he's in it.

But don't pat yourself on the back just yet, Scully. If you think about it for more than five seconds, there's a lot that the seemingly "rational" explanation doesn't actually explain at all, or which itself requires increasingly convoluted and improbable further explanations [[VoodooShark which only poke even more holes in the logic.]] For instance, how and where does one even get enough marshmallow to make a fifty-foot marshmallow man and leave its remains scattered over the streets of New York City? How and where does one make said marshmallow man, and hide it away from everyone until the absolute right moment? How do you get it to move and act convincingly? How do you get it to move ''at all'', for that matter? How do the Ghostbusters set up their "light show" at the building without anyone noticing? The monster steps on a church at one point -- how do you stage that? In fact, the opening of the portal creates earthquakes, lightning storms and unseasonal instantaneous storm clouds that block out the sun -- how could the Ghostbusters create earthquakes, control the weather and turn day into night? How does one spread enough hallucinogens to dose an an entire city without anyone noticing, and then manage to ensure that everyone has the same hallucination at the same time -- which is also the time you need them to hallucinate? And for ''that'' matter, how do you control what kind of hallucinations someone has; wouldn't a massive crowd all be hallucinating wildly different things even if given the same drug? When did the Ghostbusters wire the apartment building to blow, including the apartments of several residents? And ultimately, even if you could do all of this, it would all take a lot of effort, and you'd probably need a lot of people to help you do it, all of whom will have to have some kind of motivation to keep quiet -- such as as a lot of money. The Ghostbusters are just four guys -- ''how did they manage to do this all by themselves without involving anyone else?''

* Many sightings of unexplained "ghost lights" (which are often thought to be {{UFO}}s, or some supernatural thing) have been blamed on burning swamp gas. This is rather unlikely as, for one, the conditions for swamp gas to spontaneously ignite are rather unlikely to occur in nature, and two, when swamp gas has been ignited in lab experiments, it behaves nothing like how the stereotypical ghost lights work, instead just burning a blue-green color for a few seconds before burning out. This isn't to say there's no possible mundane explanation, just that "burning swamp gas" isn't it.

** The tables are turned later thanks to {{Flanderization}}, where Brian is still [[FlatEarthAtheist an atheist after meeting Jesus and seeing him preform miracles.]]

* In ''Series/{{Medium}}'', Allision's husband, Joe, will greet 90% of his wife's prophecies with skepticism, despite the fact that they will always prove to be meaningful if not completely true. This is justified because Allison's visions appear as metaphors (mostly in her dreams) that she rarely correctly interprets the first time around. Allison also has a tendency to believe that her visions give her the moral obligation to take illegal action. For instance, there was one time that she [[ItMakesSenseInContext kidnapped a baby from his mother in order to save the baby from a death she foresaw in a vision.]].

* ''Literature/TheMasterAndMargarita'': The devil in human form visits Moscow and wreaks havoc there. After he leaves, the Soviet authorities are left with the problem of how to explain all the supernatural goings-on. They settle upon "hypnotism". Apparently the mysterious foreign visitor is a skilful hypnotist who can, for example, convince an entire theatre that money bills are raining from the ceiling. What, then, about that one guy who was transported in an instant from Moscow to Sochi on the Black Sea? Why, he never ''was'' in Sochi; he was only hypnotized to believe he was. But what about all those people ''in'' Sochi who saw him there and talked to him? Why, they were hypnotized as well; apparently the visiting stranger can perform such prodigious feats as hypnotize people from more than a thousand kilometers away!

* ''Literature/TheMasterAndMargarita'': The devil in human form visits Moscow and wreaks havoc there. After he leaves, the Soviet authorities are left with the problem of how to explain all the supernatural goings-on. They settle upon "hypnotism". Apparently the mysterious foreign visitor is a skilful hypnotist who can, for example, convince an entire theatre that money bills are raining from the ceiling. What, then, about that one guy who was transported in an instant from Moscow to Sochi on the Black Sea? Why, he never ''was'' in Sochi; he was only hypnotized to believe he was. But what about all those people ''in'' Sochi who saw him there and talked to him? Why, they were hypnotized as well; apparently the visiting stranger can perform such prodigious feats as hypnotize people more than a thousand kilometers away!

* Happens to Cilan in ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' during the course of the museum episode. He keeps suggesting ridiculous things to explain the mysterious circumstances, even though it becomes increasingly clear that there is a ghost, like Iris suggested. Subverted when it's revealed that they're both wrong - it was a Ghost ''Pokémon''.
** This concept was recycled later in XY, this time with a Psychic Pokémon. Why Pokémon aren't the obvious solution is anyone's guess.
* People in ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' seem to have a ''lot'' of respect for the capabilities of CGI[[note]]Some things get lost in translation. The original explanation was "toku", as in practical effects like Godzilla, or Power Rangers, which makes the self-imposed WeirdnessCensor more reasonable.[[/note]]. Similarly, [[{{Metaguy}} Chisame]] goes to great lengths to not accept the existence of magic 'til everything she's seen effectively forces her to. It is explained that humans have some sort of strong natural tendency to not believe in magic, and high-magic places have spells cast on them to boost this effect. [[spoiler:In the BadFuture, it ended up taking a global-scale ReversePolarity to break this skepticism.]]

* Invoked by Yukari in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' while solving the mystery behind the hospitalization of three girls at the school. Somewhat justified in that Yukari was looking into ridiculous things to prove that it ''wasn't'' ghosts, which was Junpei's (joking) suggestion. Why the cast didn't just assume it was the work of the Shadows to begin with is still ridiculous, however.

But don't pat yourself on the back just yet, Scully. If you think about it for more than five seconds, there's a lot that the seemingly "rational" explanation doesn't actually explain at all, or which itself requires increasingly convoluted and improbable further explanations [[VoodooShark which only poke even more holes in the logic.]] For instance, how and where does one even get enough marshmallow to make a fifty-foot marshmallow man and leave its remains scattered over the streets of New York City? How and where does one make said marshmallow man, and hide it away from everyone until the absolute right moment? How do you get it to move and act convincingly? How do you get it to move ''at all'', for that matter? How do the Ghostbusters set up their "light show" at the building without anyone noticing? The monster steps on a church at one point -- how do you stage that? In fact, the opening of the portal creates earthquakes, lightning storms and unseasonal instantaneous storm clouds that block out the sun -- how could the Ghostbusters create earthquakes, control the weather and turn day into night? How does one spread enough hallucinogens to dose an an entire city without anyone noticing, and then manage to ensure that everyone has the same hallucination at the same time -- which is also the time you need them to hallucinate? And for ''that'' matter, how do you control what kind of hallucinations someone has, and wouldn't a massive crowd all be hallucinating wildly different things? When did the Ghostbusters wire the apartment building to blow, including the apartments of several residents? And ultimately, even if you could do all of this, it would all take a lot of effort, and you'd probably need a lot of people to help you do it, all of whom will have to have some kind of motivation to keep quiet -- such as as a lot of money. The Ghostbusters are just four guys -- ''how did they manage to do this all by themselves without involving anyone else?''

It is important to note that, the most common interpretation of OccamsRazor aside, the simplest explanation isn't ''always'' the correct one.[[note]]Occam's Razor actually states that the explanation with the fewest unknown variables is usually the correct one, not just the simplest explanation.[[/note]] Sufferers of Scully Syndrome aren't always wrong. Many frauds and con-jobs have relied on people being willing to believe a simple explanation without stopping to consider that someone ''might'' actually engage in some highly improbable and unbelievable course of action. Scully Syndrome is not a problem because skepticism of the supernatural and unlikely or a belief in the rational are bad in and of themselves. It is a problem because it allows someone to use rationalism as an excuse to not consider any possibilities that challenge or disprove their current beliefs or worldview, even when those alternative possibilities are actually valid and supported with evidence. That Agent Scully doesn't automatically and unquestioningly believe aliens did it is fine. It's when Agent Scully starts constructing equally implausible "rational" narratives rather than accept the evidence that aliens, against all odds, actually ''did'' do it that it starts to become an issue.

It is important to note that, the most common interpretation of OccamsRazor aside, the simplest explanation isn't ''always'' the correct one.[[note]]Occam's Razor actually states that the explanation with the fewest unknown variables is usually the correct one, not just the simplest explanation.[[/note]] Sufferers of Scully Syndrome aren't always wrong. Many frauds and con-jobs have relied on people being willing to believe a simple explanation without stopping to consider that someone ''might'' actually engage in some highly improbable and unbelievable course of action. Scully Syndrome is not a problem because skepticism of the supernatural and unlikely or a belief in the rational are bad in and of themselves, it is a problem because it allows someone to use rationalism as an excuse to not consider any possibilities that challenge or disprove their current beliefs or worldview. That Agent Scully doesn't automatically and unquestioningly believe aliens did it is fine. It's when Agent Scully starts constructing equally implausible "rational" narratives rather than accept the evidence that aliens, against all odds, actually ''did'' do it that it starts to become an issue.

But don't pat yourself on the back just yet, Scully. If you think about it for more than five seconds, there's a lot that the seemingly "rational" explanation doesn't actually explain at all, or which itself requires increasingly convoluted and improbable further explanations [[VoodooShark which only poke even more holes in the logic.]] For instance, how and where does one even get enough marshmallow to make a fifty-foot marshmallow man and leave its remains scattered over the streets of New York City? How and where does one make said marshmallow man, and hide it away from everyone until the absolute right moment? How do you get it to move and act convincingly? How do you get it to move ''at all'', for that matter? How do the Ghostbusters set up their "light show" at the building without anyone noticing? The monster steps on a church at one point -- how do you stage that? In fact, the opening of the portal creates earthquakes, lightning storms and unseasonal instantaneous storm clouds that block out the sun -- how could the Ghostbusters create earthquakes, control the weather and turn day into night? How does one spread enough hallucinogens to dose an an entire city without anyone noticing, and then manage to ensure that everyone has the same hallucination at the same time -- which is also the time you need them to hallucinate? When did the Ghostbusters wire the apartment building to blow, including the apartments of several residents? And ultimately, even if you could do all of this, it would all take a lot of effort, and you'd probably need a lot of people to help you do it, all of whom will have to have some kind of motivation to keep quiet -- such as as a lot of money. The Ghostbusters are just four guys -- ''how did they manage to do this all by themselves without involving anyone else?''

** Discussed in ''The Hole In The Wall'', where it forms the key to the story's plot. As a main character puts it, if you go into a town which has an inn by the name of St. George and the Dragon, and tell everyone that it's a corruption of King George and the Dragoon, a lot of people will believe you on no evidence just because it sounds mundane. Similarly, when someone decided to say that Prior's Park (the estate where the mystery takes place) was not a priory, but the dwelling of a Mr. Prior, nobody ever asked whether anyone had heard of Mr. Prior or whether there were any records of him. In actual fact, the place was a priory. Finally, and most importantly, the district is spelt Holinwall on the maps, and the educated mock the peasantry for pronouncing it Holiwell. But it is spelt wrong and pronounced right. There was a holy well, and a certain corpse was dumped down that well earlier.

A self-applied case of WeirdnessCensor by a character, particularly one considered or who considers themselves rational or skeptical. When a sufferer of Scully Syndrome attempts to offer a "rational" explanation for a supernatural situation, they will usually end up offering an explanation that is itself so tortuous, convoluted and[=/=]or improbable that it also ceases to be rational. This explanation may draw upon things that are seemingly more plausible and 'realistic' than the supernatural explanation, but the way it puts these things together is unlikely or full of holes. The EpilepticTrees invoked by the characters -- who, ironically, are usually trying to ''debunk'' someone else's Epileptic Trees -- are so ludicrous that the viewers want to bash the character's head against the wall, all while pointing out that accepting the supernatural explanation would, in fact, be [[OccamsRazor simpler]]. The character also has a tendency to ignore any evidence of the supernatural that they might be presented with, no matter how conclusive, in favour of presenting more 'rational' explanations that are just as (if not more) lacking in supporting evidence.

As a hypothetical example, take the climax of the film ''Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}}'', which involves [[ItMakesSenseInContext an ancient evil God from another dimension, which has taken on the form of a]] [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever fifty-foot advertising mascot made entirely out of marshmallow]], striding through the streets of Manhattan. In this form, it attacks the roof of a Manhattan apartment building in full view of the public in an attempt to open a portal to another dimension and destroy the world, before itself being vaporized in a massive fiery explosion that covers an entire city block in liquid marshmallow. That is all, admittedly, a fairly difficult set of events to believe in, and if AgentScully were investigating it, she might explain this as all being just a big hoax. The titular Ghostbusters merely staged the marshmallow man and used a combination of a fancy light show and hallucinogenic substances to fool the credulous people below into believing they were witnessing a supernatural event. Which actually makes sense on the surface...

But don't pat yourself on the back just yet, Scully. If you think about it for more than five seconds, there's a lot that the seemingly "rational" explanation doesn't actually explain at all, or which itself requires increasingly convoluted and improbable further explanations [[VoodooShark which only poke even more holes in the logic]]. For instance, how and where does one even get enough marshmallow to make a fifty-foot marshmallow man and leave its remains scattered over the streets of New York City? How and where does one make said marshmallow man, and hide it away from everyone until the absolute right moment? How do you get it to move and act convincingly? How do you get it to move ''at all'', for that matter? How do the Ghostbusters set up their "light show" at the building without anyone noticing? The monster steps on a church at one point -- how do you stage that? In fact, the opening of the portal creates earthquakes, lightning storms and unseasonal instantaneous storm clouds that block out the sun -- how could the Ghostbusters create earthquakes, control the weather and turn day into night? How does one spread enough hallucinogens to dose an an entire city without anyone noticing, and then manage to ensure that everyone has the same hallucination at the same time -- which is also the time you need them to hallucinate? When did the Ghostbusters wire the apartment building to blow, including the apartments of several residents? And ultimately, even if you could do all of this, it would all take a lot of effort, and you'd probably need a lot of people to help you do it, all of whom will have to have some kind of motivation to keep quiet -- such as as a lot of money. The Ghostbusters are just four guys -- ''how did they manage to do this all by themselves without involving anyone else?''

As alluded to above, a marking feature of AgentScully. Compare InvisibleToNormals, ArbitrarySkepticism, FlatEarthAtheist. Not to be confused with the real [[http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/w/weinstein_kliman_scully_syndrome/intro.htm Weinstein Kliman Scully syndrome]].

It is important to note that, the most common interpretation of OccamsRazor aside, the simplest explanation isn't ''always'' the correct one.[[note]]Occam's Razor actually states that the explanation with the fewest unknown variables is usually the correct one, not just the simplest explanation.[[/note]] Sufferers of Scully Syndrome aren't always wrong; many frauds and con-jobs have relied on people being willing to believe a simple explanation without stopping to consider that someone ''might'' actually engage in some highly improbable and unbelievable course of action. Scully Syndrome is not a problem because skepticism of the supernatural and unlikely or a belief in the rational are bad in and of themselves, it is a problem because it allows someone to use rationalism as an excuse to not consider any possibilities that challenge or disprove their current beliefs or worldview. That Agent Scully doesn't automatically and unquestioningly believe aliens did it is fine; it's when Agent Scully starts constructing equally implausible "rational" narratives rather than accept the evidence that aliens, against all odds, actually ''did'' do it that it starts to become an issue.

In other words, while AgentMulder might risk becoming too credulous and easily-fooled thanks to his open-mindedness, thanks to this trope AgentScully risks becoming too closed-minded and inflexible.

* Many sightings of unexplained "ghost lights" (which are often thought to be UFOs, or some supernatural thing.) have been blamed on burning swamp gas. This is rather unlikely as, for one, the conditions for swamp gas to spontaneously ignite are rather unlikely to occur in nature, and two, when swamp gas has been ignited in lab experiments, it behaves nothing like how the stereotypical ghost lights work, instead just burning a blue-green color for a few seconds before burning out. This isn't to say there's no possible mundane explanation, just that "burning swamp gas" isn't it.

* Happens to Cilan in ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' during the course of the museum episode. He kept suggesting ridiculous things to explain the mysterious circumstances, even though it becomes increasingly clear that there is a ghost, like Iris suggested. Subverted when it's revealed that they're both wrong - it was a Ghost ''Pokémon''.

* People in ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' seem to have a ''lot'' of respect for the capabilities of CGI. Similarly, [[{{Metaguy}} Chisame]] goes to great lengths to not accept the existence of magic till everything she's seen effectively forces her to. It is explained that humans have some sort of strong natural tendency to not believe in magic, and high-magic places have spells cast on them to boost this effect. [[spoiler:In the BadFuture it ended up taking a global-scale ReversePolarity to break this skepticism]].
** Chisame is interesting because she seems to have no WeirdnessCensor (and actually complains whenever someone else comes up with an absurd explanation for magic)--she just really does ''not'' want magic to be real.

** While Squire Vane's strain of the Syndrome in ''The Trees Of Pride'' is not as virulent, the consequences are even nastier. There happened to be a myth that certain oddly-colored trees on the Squire's lands, called the peacock trees, gave forth poisonous fumes and caused fevers if you came near them. A local doctor soon realized that a certain disease rampant in that neighborhood struck everyone who came near the trees, and only those who came near the trees. In short, the peacock trees ''were'' poisonous. But the Squire was adamant in his refusal to accept that the legends might have any grain of truth, no matter how many hundreds and thousands of deaths the doctor could point to as evidence.