History RefugeInAudacity / RealLife

* ''Series/TheChasersWarOnEverything'' managed to get through the heavy security at the 2007 APEC summit using nothing but a Canadian flag, [[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy fake passes which actually said "joke" and "it's pretty obvious this isn't a real pass"]], and a heavy helping of this trope. With it, they actually drove past the entire guard of honor, who were armed. In the end, the Chaser team was only caught by police because [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvH3YQGQwLM one of them exited the car disguised as]] UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden...though in another example of this trope, the officers walked up to and arrested ''the plainclothes guy standing next to him'', leaving "Osama" to awkwardly follow the group off the premises. This was just outside of the hotel UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush was staying at during the meeting. Buoyed by their success, the members of ''The Chaser'' who weren't arrested tried to infiltrate the APEC meeting again the very next day. All of them disguised as [[PaperThinDisguise black limos]]. It's a surprise none of them got shot.

* The Canadian Caper, later adapted into the movie Film/{{Argo}}. When sneaking six hostages out of Iran, the CIA went undercover as a high-flying film crew.

** If that wasn't enough, he was the only person in World War II to have a confirmed kill with a ''[[TheArcher longbow]]''.

* More war stories; Juan Pujol García, after being rejected by both the American and British intelligence agencies, managed to join with Germany as a spy by promising them information on shipping movements and an extensive spy network. In actual fact, he had never been in Britain in his life and all the information he gave the Germans was based on film footage and library research. He created a fictitious network, just so the Germans would believe him and he'd be able to work for the British cause as a double agent known as Agent Garbo. The information of his "network" has such breadth that his German handlers stopped recruiting agents for the UK. The Brits finally hired him because his "infiltration" of their network consisted of marching up to their HQ, telling them he had been hired by Germany to spy on them, and offering to give Germany anything the British felt would hurt the German war effort -- that and the fact that the Germans trusted him and his "network" so much that he had convinced them to expend significant resources tracking down an Allied convoy that did not exist.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude Operation Fortitude]]. The Allies were working on trying to hide the massive troop build up in preparation for the Normandy Invasion. They hit a lucky break when intel revealed that the Germans believed the skeleton army the First United States Army Group was a fully functional Army Group. So the allies built a bunch of props (including balsa wood troop transport ships and inflatable tanks and maintained fake radio chatter around the clock to make the army seem larger than it really was. They assigned Patton to be in charge of the Group, which allowed them to bench him from Normandy for the slapping incident and which they hoped would further convince the Germans that the dummy army was real[[note]]Actually, despite what the ''Film/{{Patton}}'' movie shows, most of the German generals didn't know or care who Patton was. The fact that the invasion army looked real to them had them scared enough already.[[/note]]. The net result was Hitler never mobilized counter forces to counter the "test landing" at Normandy and Hitler was convinced an invasion at Calais was likely because the above mentioned Garbo told him it was still coming... AFTER THE FIRST ARMY WAS STOOD DOWN!

** One of the real tragedies of that approach is that reports of the atrocities early in the war were accused by ''prominent Jewish figures'' of being nothing more than anti-German propaganda. Individuals reporting the atrocities were often denounced for creating such unbelievable exaggerations, and accused of harming their own cause because no sane person could possibly commit such monstrous acts.

* More war stories; Juan Pujol García, after being rejected by both the American and British intelligence agencies, managed to join with Germany as a spy by promising them information on shipping movements and an extensive spy network. In actual fact, he had never been in Britain in his life and all the information he gave the Germans was based on film footage and library research. He created a fictitious network, just so the Germans would believe him and he'd be able to work for the British cause as a double agent known as Agent Garbo. The information of his "network" has such breadth that his German handlers stopped recruiting agents for the UK. The Brits finally hired him because his "infiltration" of their network consisted of marching up to their HQ, telling them he had been hired by Germany to spy on them, and offering to give Germany anything the British felt would hurt the German war effort - that and the fact that the Germans trusted him and his "network" so much that he had convinced them to expend significant resources tracking down an Allied convoy that did not exist.

** So daring was the raid, along with countless incidents, five Victoria Crosses were awarded to the raiders, more than in any other operation - ''on the suggestion of the Germans'', as impressed as they were by the sheer balls of the operation.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart#Prisoner_of_war Adrian Carton de Wiart]], a British officer whose biography reads like a very unlikely movie plot, escaped from an Italian POW camp at Vincigliata. While on the run, he pretended to be a simple 'Italian farmer' - despite having an eyepatch, missing an arm, being riddled with scars and old bullet holes, and ''not being able to speak a word of Italian''.[[note]]It was most likely assumed he was a WWI veteran from Alto Adige, that until 1919 had been part of Austria and to this day is inhabited mostly by people whose first language is German. Vincigliata being in Tuscany, thus away from Alto Adige and where most people at the time had never heard anyone speaking German ''or'' English[[/note]] He kept up the charade for eight days.

* Polish/British agent Krystyna Skarbek was this in spades - she would always found a way to escape from a tense situation through combination of wit, audacity, and personal charm. Notable feats include:

* The Canadian Caper, later adapted into the movie {{Film/Argo}}. When sneaking six hostages out of Iran, the CIA went undercover as a high-flying film crew.
--> “If possible, the cover should be sufficiently dull so that it does not pique undue interest. In this case, however, I believed we should try to devise a cover so exotic that no one would imagine it was being used for operational purposes.”

** Also, one East German journalist managed to flee East Germany by organizing a photoshoot at one of the Inner Berlin checkpoints with a famed athlete. He asked the guards to pose for a picture with the athlete - then darted over the turnpike and ran across the death strip into the American sector.

* Upon receiving his draft notice in 1967, ''Berkeley Barb'' editor (and later, technology guru) [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Felsenstein Lee Felsenstein]] wrote an editorial stating his intention to submit to the draft - so that he could learn military tactics that he could then use against the US government. When he got to the induction post, they told him that he'd been deferred, without any official explanation, [[BriarPatching exactly as he planned]].

* In the 1930s, a women's group in Breckenridge, Colorado stumbled upon an 1880s map that failed to include the town. They speculated that Breckenridge had never been officially annexed into the United States, and was thus still considered "No Man's Land".[[note]]This was completely false — official US maps ''did ''include Breckenridge.[[/note]] These women created an incredibly clever marketing campaign out of this one map. In 1936 they invited Colorado governor Edwin Johnson to Breckenridge to raise a flag at the Courthouse officially welcoming Breckenridge into the union—and he came. There was a big party, and the entire event/idea of Breckenridge being left off the map made national news. The "No Man's Land" idea later morphed into a new theme of Breckenridge being referred to as "Colorado's Kingdom", and the theme of the town's independent spirit is still celebrated today during the annual "Kingdom Days" celebrations every June.

-->'''Adam Hyde''': [[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/03/peking-duk-fan-infiltrates-backstage-by-fooling-security-guard-with-wikipedia-edit I’ve got to tip my hat to that guy’s kahunas.]]

* [[https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/hotels-freebies-manchester-lowry-gotham-14302940 How one hotel guest stole a television:]] "When I was working in a city centre hotel one of the guests walked out of the front door with the TV under his arm. The doorman let him out with it - he assumed he was taking it for repair because he was so brazen in walking out the door in that way."

** According to legend, when no one in the kingdom dared to tell King Philip VI of France about the disastrous outcome of the naval battle at Sluys, his (unnamed) court jester broke the ice by quipping, "The English knights are all cowards - they didn't dare to jump into the sea as our brave French knights did!"
* Nicolas Ferrial, also known as Le Févrial or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triboulet Triboulet ]] (1479–1536) was a jester of kings Louis XII and Francis I of France. Once, Triboulet could not contain himself and slapped Francis I on the bum, to the enjoyment of the surrounding nobles. The monarch lost his temper and threatened to execute Triboulet. A bit later, the monarch calmed down a little and promised to forgive Triboulet if he could think of an apology more insulting than the offending deed. A few seconds later, Triboulet responded: "I'm so sorry, your majesty, that I didn't recognize you! I mistook you for the Queen!"

* The English loanword ''chutzpah'' has been defined as "clever audacity; for example, a child killing both parents and then asking the courts for mercy because they're an orphan." (Jews usually beg to defer, as that example was meant to show temerity and shamelessness, not cleverness.)

** So daring was the raid, along with countless incidents, five Victoria Crosses were awarded to the raiders, more than in any other operation.

* One group of German prisoners in an internment camp during [=WW2=]. They weren't allowed to have radios, but wanting to know how the war was going, they built a radio into the seat of a chair. The camp commander suspected they had a radio and had their rooms searched repeatedly. Each time, the commander came along to see that the search was done properly. Each time, the prisoners offered him a chair -- the one with the radio in it. Each time, the chair wasn't searched, because the commander was sitting on it. After the war, one of the ex-prisoners told the commander how it was done; the commander apparently [[ActuallyPrettyFunny thought it was pretty funny.]]

Admiral Kurita himself later explained (after an American high school student sent him a letter asking about it for a school project in 1963, which itself is probably an example of this) that not only was he badly fatigued and had his flagship ''Musashi'' blown out from under him the previous day along with most of his staff, they had mistaken several ships on the American side for heavier classes (they didn't have the escort carriers in their recognition manuals, and ''Fletcher''-class destroyers resemble ''Baltimore''-class heavy cruisers at a distance). They also intercepted one of Taffy 3's distress signals, which had been sent unencrypted and gave their exact position. Kurita didn't believe that the Americans would be that dumb, or counterattack with such ferocity, unless they had heavier reinforcements within striking distance and ''he'' was the one who had been baited. In reality, it was a desperate attempt to get Halsey's attention after previous encoded messages had failed to get a response: Rear Admiral Sprague figured that any Japanese warship worth sending was already attacking them, so sending their position in the clear couldn't make their situation any worse.

* Taffy 3 at the Battle Off Samar. The Japanese Navy successfully baited both groups of heavy warships away from the landing area with sacrifice plays: the Battle of the Surigao Strait led the shore bombardment battleships away, then Admiral Ogawa baited Admiral Halsey into chasing him and [[PoorCommunicationKills Halsey failed to inform anyone where he was going]]. This left the entire invasion force of destroyers, escort carriers, and troop transports wide open for a huge Japanese surface fleet that included the ''Yamato'', one of the two largest battleships ever built (Halsey had sunk her sister ''Musashi'' the previous day in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea): a ship that outweighed ''all of the ships in Taffy 3 combined''. So what did the Americans do?\\

''They counterattacked.'' Everything about this battle screams this from the ''Johnston'' sailing onto weapons splashes (after all, if they'd missed the shot, they'd adjust their guns to compensate) to the ''Samuel B. Roberts'' engaging a Japanese heavy cruiser at such close range that the enemy ship couldn't depress its guns low enough to effectively fire back. It takes a lot of guts to lead a force of tin cans against a massive squadron of battleships. This battle also was the only time a carrier sunk a warship; not the carrier's planes, but the carrier ''itself''. The ''White Plains''[='s=] single [[CherryTapping five-inch gun]] hit the ''Chokai''[='s=] [[MadeOfExplodium torpedo rack]] and the explosion disabled the heavy cruiser, which had to be scuttled by the Japanese during retreat.

** Admiral Kurita himself later explained (after an American high school student sent him a letter asking about it for a school project in 1963, which itself is probably an example of this) that not only was he badly fatigued and they had mistaken several ships on the American side for heavier classes (they didn't have the escort carriers in their recognition manuals, and ''Fletcher''-class destroyers resemble ''Baltimore''-class heavy cruisers at a distance), but they intercepted one of Taffy 3's distress signals--which had been sent unencrypted and gave their exact position (in reality, it was a desperate attempt to get Halsey's attention after previous encoded messages had failed to get a response; the admiral figured that any Japanese warship worth sending was already attacking them and so sending their location couldn't make their situation any worse). Kurita didn't believe that the Americans would be that dumb, or counterattack with such ferocity, unless they had heavier reinforcements within striking distance and ''he'' was the one who had been baited.

* The Canadian Caper, later adapted into the movie Film/Argo. When sneaking six hostages out of Iran, the CIA went undercover as a high-flying film crew.

* The Canadian Caper, later adapted into [[Film/Argo the movie Argo]]. When sneaking six hostages out of Iran, the CIA went undercover as a high-flying film crew.

* The Live TV Page mentions the "D.B. Cooper joins the FBI" theory in ''Leverage''. In New Zealand, car thief George Wilder, after escaping from prison, at one point joined his own search party, walking along shoulder-to-shoulder with the people looking for him, until he saw an opportunity to slip away.

* Albert Göring, the younger brother of Hermann Göring, who actively ''helped'' Jews to escape the Third Reich. This was a man who brazenly forged his brother's -- ''Reichsmarschall'' Hermann Goering -- signature on release forms for dissidents, actively sabotaged his own munitions factory in Czechoslovakia, and dealt with the Czech Resistance, and who at least once, was able to get a group of Jewish women released from being forced to scrub a street by joining with them... and then ''[[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections telling the Nazi thugs who were about to arrest him that he was Goering's brother.]]'' His better-known notorious brother was well aware of his actions and turned his eye. Hermann Göring once said "I decide here who is a Jew", and allowed Air Marshal Erhard Milch (whose mother was Jewish) and Rear Admiral Bernhard Rogge (whose grandfather was a Jew) to rise in high positions, as he couldn't have cared less about Nazi ideology and simply used it as a pathway to power.

* "Mad" Jack Churchill was practically a walking RefugeOfAudacity. To recount his exploits in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII…

* Jack Churchill, in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, once took a German bunker by rushing it with a Claymore sword, with bagpipes on his hips, and screaming "COMMANDOOOO!!!!"
** Jack Churchill was this incarnate. He was captured (while playing said bagpipes) and sent to a prison. He just walked out. He was captured again. Once again, he walked out and made it back to England.
*** And upon his arrival, he ''demanded'' to be [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17019_5-real-life-soldiers-who-make-rambo-look-like-pussy.html put back on the front lines.]] Unfortunately for him, the war was over by that point... which also explains how he was able to walk out of the prisons. He was in Yugoslavia fighting as a British liaison among partisans and formed a thousand-man strong partisan army to raid an island in the Adriatic. He was the only man in his unit not to ultimately be killed, and the Germans found him playing a mournful tune on his bagpipes. Existing in the company of Partisans was a kill-on-sight offense for the Germans, but they mistakenly thought he was related to [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill Winston]] and thus of more use alive, and so interrogated him in Berlin before consigning him to Sachsenhausen. Sachsenhausen the ''[[HellholePrison concentration camp.]]'' The ''infamous'' concentration camp, designed to be able to be effectively and securely guarded by ''one machine gun'' if necessary due to the camp's panopticon design. [[CardboardPrison He escaped]]. He was recaptured and was transferred by the SS to the Tirol with 139 other high-value prisoners. There, a regular army unit, concerned that the SS would execute the prisoners out of hand, intervened to save their lives, and after the SS decided not to contest the issue, set the prisoners free. Churchill and a companion walked down German-occupied Northern Italy, finally being rescued by an American armored unit in the last days of the war. After recuperation, he was to be sent to Burma, but the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki intervened. His reaction? "If it wasn't for those damned Yanks, we could have kept the war going for another ten years." This man was certainly a walking, talking breathing example of RefugeInAudacity.

* Taffy 3 at the Battle Off Samar. The Japanese Navy successfully baited both groups of heavy warships away from the landing area with sacrifice plays: the Battle of the Surigao Strait led the shore bombardment battleships away, then Admiral Ogawa baited Admiral Halsey into chasing him and [[PoorCommunicationKills Halsey failed to inform anyone where he was going]]. This left the entire invasion force of destroyers, escort carriers, and troop transports wide open for a huge Japanese surface fleet that included the ''Yamato'', one of the two largest battleships ever built (Halsey had sunk her sister ''Musashi'' the previous day): a ship that outweighed ''all of the ships in Taffy 3 combined''. So what did the Americans do?\\

* The Dutch minelayer HNLMS ''Abraham Crijnssen'' was behind enemy lines when the Dutch East Indies were overrun by Japan. In order to escape to safety in Australia, the ship's crew disguised it as ''a small tropical island'' by completely covering the ship's superstructure in palm trees and other foliage. It worked.

* U.S. pilot [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Woolams Jack Woolams]] was the test pilot of the first American jet fighter prototypes. To help keep it a secret, he got creative including wearing a gorilla suit. So, those who saw him would say they saw a propeller less plane, piloted by a gorilla [[https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/the-test-pilot-of-the-usafs-first-jet-fighter-dressed-as-a-gorilla-to-mess-with-other-pilots/ "wearing a derby hat, waving a stogie at them"]], making people think they were just crazy and dismiss the propeller-less plane part of their story.

This very ''page'' is an example of RefugeInAudacity, considering the [[Administrivia/InUniverseExamplesOnly warning]] on the main trope page. However, RefugeInAudacity is ''very much'' TruthInTelevision, as you will see in the examples below:

* The "Siluro a Lenta Corsa" (Italian for "Slow-Moving Torpedo"), or ''Maiale'' (pig), is a manned [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin torpedo fired from a submarine that moves very slowly]] but has longer range and a removable limpet mine in place of the warhead. The Royal Navy had turned down the idea as insane during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, six Italian frogmen with three ''maiali'' penetrated Alexandria's harbour and ''sank two battleships and damaged a tanker and a destroyer'' (the latter was collateral: she was too near the tanker when the mine blew up). After that, the British [[ProperlyParanoid became even more paranoid, as it doesn't do any good to catch the frogmen after they've already placed the mines]].

* Shortly after the Supreme Court overturned nationwide protection of abortion rights in ''Dobbs v. Jackson'', Republican-controlled state governments rapidly instituted various abortion bans, with Texas in particular declaring that a fetus legally counted as a person. In the wake of this, one pregnant woman in Texas was pulled over for driving in a carpool lane without any passengers; when the police pulled her over, she claimed that she ''did'' have a passenger -- her fetus. The case went to court, and she ended up winning.

* During the 2022 Game Awards, a random teenager managed to somehow [[BavarianFireDrill sneak onto the stage]] as the developers of ''VideoGame/EldenRing'' came up to accept their Game of the Year award, and then gave a speech where he nominated said award to "[[WordSaladHumor [his] reformed Orthodox rabbi]] UsefulNotes/BillClinton".[[note]]In case you're wondering, Reform and Orthodox are separate denominations of UsefulNotes/{{Judaism}}, and Clinton himself is a Baptist, not Jewish.[[/note]] He was detained by the [=LAPD=], but they ultimately let him go after questioning him.

* The Germans launched a gas attack against Russian soldiers who were occupying Osowiec, a fortress located in Poland. Even before the gas attack, the Germans outnumbered the Russians nearly 9 to 1. The Russian soldiers who survived the gas attack, with their faces covered in bloody rags and while coughing up blood and their own lungs, charged against the German soldiers. By all accounts it looked as if the Russian battalion had been wiped out, then rose as zombies to keep fighting. The German soldiers retreated because were so scared and caught off guard by the charge of the half-dead Russian soldiers. The half-dead Russian soldiers shot the retreating German soldiers. Obviously, audacity worked in favor of the half-dead Russian soldiers. The charge became known as "the attack of the dead men." Nearly all of the remaining Russian soldiers died afterward, but they held the fortress and inflicted disproportionate losses on the Germans.[[note]]While Germany soon encircled Osowiec, making it impossible to hold, the replacement Russian garrison was able to blow up the fortress before withdrawing and thus denied its use to the Germans.[[/note]] It was so audacious, Music/{{Sabaton}} made [[https://youtu.be/-AFdwoyNT24 a song about it]].

* UsefulNotes/{{Donald Trump}}'s 2016 presidential campaign can be seen as this, regardless of your political leanings. When he first announced he was running, many dismissed it as a publicity stunt, as he had no prior experience in politics. Despite this, he became the Republican frontrunner mainly because he stood out so much from the other GOP candidates. When the race came down to him vs. UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton, the experts believed that [[AssumedWin Clinton's victory was guaranteed.]] With Trump regularly making headlines for things like mocking a disabled reporter, and leaked audio of him bragging about 'grabbing women by the pussy', many members of the Democratic Party didn't campaign as hard as they could have, believing that there was simply no way Trump could win. But he ''did'' win. And at least part of that victory can be attributed to the fact that [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity he was so different from a traditional politician]], and many people felt like the government needed a shakeup, with some even admitting that they voted for him because they were just curious about what a Trump presidency would even look like.

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* The ShockJock is the talk radio embodiment of this trope.