You Can See That, Right?

"Miss Murray... Forgive me, but is it the opium or can you see that as well?"

— Allan Quartermain, on first seeing the Nautilus, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

You've come across something so bizarre and inexplicable, you're not even sure it's real. The solution? Ask the guy standing next to you, "You can see that, right?" Usually the bystander confirms what you are seeing, be it a monster or a rip in space-time. Variations include, "Is anybody else seeing this?" and, "Did you hear that?"

Distinct from Dream Reality Check in that it usually is very real.

A second type of this trope is where the bystander says: "No, I don't see [exact description of event] and if you know what's good for you, neither do you."

Compare Weirdness Censor and Mistaken for Bad Vision. See also By the Eyes of the Blind, to which this is usually said in response. Also see You Can See Me? and I See Them, Too.

You do understand... right?

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Bleach anime episode #199, during the battle between Captain Mayuri and Octava Espada Szayelaporro Grantz. After Mayuri's Bankai attack (a giant deformed baby) swallows Szayelaporro, Renji Abarai and Uryu Ishida watch it chewing Szayelaporro's tentacles into its mouth.
  Ishida: Are you seeing what I'm seeing?
  Renji: As much as I wish I wasn't seeing it, yeah I am.
• In El-Hazard: The Magnificent World after encountering the first (of many) weird things in the new realm, Fujisawa-sensei is thankful that Makoto saw it too, as that means he doesn't have the DT's.

Asian Animation

• In episode 46 of Happy Heroes, the heroes inexplicably start to see random vegetables and other foods appearing in their home in odd locations (such as a carrot appearing next to Smart S. in his mirror, but not anywhere else). A few of the heroes ask the others if they saw it too.

Audio Plays

• In The Death Collectors, one of the Dar Traders, a species that can sense death, is surprised that a human can see the Doctor.

Comic Books

• Can't remember the details, but there was a Secret Avengers story where they were facing an army of Skrulls or something, and Spider-Man says something like, "Is everyone else seeing this? 'Cause if you're not, that'd be great."
• A Scooby-Doo short story in Gold Key issue #20 had him and Shaggy returning home after a scare in a deserted house.
  Fred: Don't tell me you two saw a ghost.
  Shaggy: Who believes in ghosts? In fact, Scooby didn't see the two ghosts I didn't see...right, Scoob?

Comic Strips

• In Beetle Bailey, General Halftrack is leaning out his office window, watching Miss Buxley interact with various soldiers. As she stops and talks with one, the General falls out of the window. Lt. Fuzz and the Captain walk by just at that moment, looking up in the sky:
  Lt. Fuzz: Did you see that?
  Captain: No, and neither did you.
• Cul-de-sac: Petey isn't sure if his acquaintance/nemesis Ernesto is real or not, and sometimes asks if others saw him.
• One Gahan Wilson cartoon depicts a man lying on a psychiatrist's couch, glaring up at a glowing dragon-thing floating overhead. The psychiatrist says "Well, first of all, let me assure you that that is not a hallucination."
• Garfield: Three weeks after giving up donuts for her New Year's resolution, Liz hallucinates that Jon's face looks like a donut.
  Liz: Okay, did you see that?
  Garfield: He usually has sprinkles.

Fan Works

• In the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Empath's Wedding", Smurfette's Invisible to Normals horse friend Blue Eyes shows up as one of the wedding guests, and Brainy (who in the 1980s cartoon series writes Smurfette's friend off as being imaginary) asks Empath if he's seeing the same horse with wings that talks as he is, and Empath confirms that he is seeing it as well.
• Barry's first reaction to seeing Sonic in Flashpoint 2: Advent Solaris.
• In Steven Universe: and the Hunters of Arcadia, Jim asks for confirmation from Claire if he did not hallucinate the magical pink lion that can walk on water leave via portal.
  Jim: Claire, you saw that ri-
  Claire: I have eyes Jim.
• In Flight of the Raven Anton and Lu show memories of Raven to an ICW accreditation board in an attempt to have him awarded international Charms and Dueling masteries.
  Gustav: He fought a duel with, possibly a dozen wizards, singlehandedly and won. He created a new shield charm in the midst of that duel, from scratch, erected it wandlessly and wordlessly. Then when the duel was over, he created a language charm, again from scratch, in the space of... what, five minutes? Did I see that? Did anyone else see that?
• In Dragon Chronicles 2: Harry Potter, Dragon Whisperer Harry uses a stick and his jacket to create a makeshift kite to ride on, then powers it with elemental magic.
  Remus: Are you seeing what I'm seeing?
  Sirius: Seeing. Still working on believing.
• Happens in the infamously-hilarious Power Rangers fanfic Of Love and Bunnies, when Justin and Cam witness a bunch of other Rangers get chased by a mob of angry clowns.
• In The Problem with Purity Hermione asks the local unicorn herd for assistance in getting Draco out of the Forbidden Forest before a bunch of werewolves shows up.
  Draco: Do you see a whole bunch of unicorns?
  [Snape and Harry nod]
  Draco: Huh. I thought the pain had finally got to me and I was hallucinating.
• In High Heels and Hippogriffs after Harry is revealed to be Regulus' daughter Cassiopeia, Kreacher removes Mrs. Black's portrait when it insults her one too many times.
  Tonks: Did that just happen? I'm not hallucinating right? I did get hit by a weird curse last week on a job, maybe this is just a delayed reaction.
  Cassiopeia: Nope, that definitely happened.
• In Ace and Lightning the Weasleys and Hermione apparate into Grimmauld Place.
  Ace: Am I high, or is there a massive brood of red heads standing in that doorway?
  Lightning: I can see them too. It's not just you.
  Ace: Ok, good, seeing as they popped out of nowhere, I feared I must've have taken something.

Films — Animation

• Big Hero 6: Fred asks, "Am I the only one seeing this?" when he first notices Yokai.
• Cars: As Lightning McQueen tears up the road, Filmore the blissed-out VW bus asks, "I'm not the only one seeing this, right?"
• DC League of Super-Pets: When the Justice League is saved.
  Batman: Um... You all see the giant pig too, right?
• Disney's Dumbo. When the "Pink Elephants on Parade" segment starts, Timothy Mouse asks Dumbo "Dumbo! You see what I see?"
• Mad Monster Party?. The captain and first mate of a ship are waiting for their passengers. Dracula shows up and asks how much passage will cost, and the captain tells him it's a hundred dollars. Dracula says it's too much, turns into a bat and flies away. The first mate says to the captain "Me eyes are playing tricks on me. Did you see wha' I think I saw, captain?"
• In Turning Red, Stacy and her friend witness Mei very briefly using her red panda transformation ability and glance at each other wordlessly communicating to each other: "Did you just see that?".

Films — Live-Action

• Aliens in the Attic: When Tom and Jake first meet the aliens.
  Jake: Please tell me you see that too.
  Tom: Not sure if I want to, but yeah.
• The Andromeda Strain (1971). Dr. Ruth Leavitt and Dr. Jeremy Stone are examining the meteorite and the green stains on it. While Dr. Stone isn't looking at the screen, the stain changes color and expands, then returns to normal. Dr. Leavitt is tired and isn't sure she really saw something.
  Dr. Leavitt: Jeremy?
  Dr. Stone: What?
  Dr. Leavitt: Nothing.
  [The stain changes color and expands again while Dr. Stone is watching]
  Dr. Leavitt: Did you see that?
• Near the end of A Beautiful Mind John Forbes Nash asked a student to confirm a new person is real, a sensible precaution given his frequent hallucinations.
• Clock: At the clinic, Ella has this reaction when Dr. Simmons shows her some cards with ink blots on them (similar to a Rorschach test) and she sees a grandfather clock, a Very Tall Woman, and a pile of dead spiders materialize from the ink blots.
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind - as Roy and Jillian approach the secret UFO rendezvous site, he asks her a couple of times if she sees it too.
• Godmothered: Mackenzie asks Ray this to confirm that Eleanor really used magic to make Mackenzie's coat gigantic.
• The Jumanji movie: "You just saw three monkeys go by on a motorcycle, didn't you?" "Yes..." "Good girl."
• Raising Arizona: "What is he?" "You see him, too?"
• Silent Hill. While Silent Hill is in its dark alternate world form, Rose and the police officer Cybil Bennett are pursued by Pyramid Head, who tries to break into the room they're hiding in. Eventually the town returns to normal and the pair leave the room. Cybil says to Rose "You saw that, right? That was real?"
• In Star Trek IV, two garbagemen watch as the main characters emerge from thin air (actually a cloaked Bird-Of-Prey). One asks the other this question, leading to the second variation.
• Suicide Squad (2016). The team enters a room where the villains are casting a spectacular spell to destroy the world, and this exchange ensues.
  Harley Quinn: Hey, everyone can see all this trippy magic stuff right?
  Colonel Flag: Yeah, why?
  Harley: (awkwardly laughing) I'm off my meds.

Literature

• Narnia book and film, numerous times with Aslan apparently playing hide and seek with the characters to gauge their level of commitment.
  Lucy: You saw him too, didn't you?
  Trumpkin: Do you see him... now?
• Discworld:
  • In The Light Fantastic:
    Shaman: You didn't just see two men go through upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did you?
    Boy: Certainly not.
    Shaman: Thank goodness for that. Neither did I.
  • Feet of Clay has an inversion; Detritus confirms with another character that what he just ingested was, in fact, a drug...because he would hate to think the room was really full of giant hairy spiders.
• In the Star Wars Legends X-Wing: Rogue Squadron novel The Krytos Trap Wedge Antilles asks ground controllers to confirm what he is seeing - namely that a large portion of nearby Coruscant cityscape has been devastated and a Super Star Destroyer is rising up through the rubble - because he at first cannot believe what his ship's sensors are telling him. The controller tells Wedge that he's seeing the same thing they are.
• This exchange in Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe:
  [The bird] turned its heavy eyes on Zaphod and clicked its beak in a desultory fashion.
  "Go away." said Zaphod.
  "OK" muttered the bird morosely and flapped off into the dust again.
  Zaphod watched its departure in bewilderment.
  "Did that bird just talk to me?" he asked Marvin nervously. He was quite prepared to believe the alternative explanation, that he was in fact hallucinating.
  "Yes," confirmed Marvin.
• In the Left Behind book The Remnant, Mac McCullum sees the Archangel Michael beckoning him to come down to the river near a water dam in India. He asks his companions Abdullah Smith and Albie if they also see him, and Abdullah says it's probably a "cowboy marriage" (he meant "mirage").
• Aunt Dimity Takes a Holiday:
  Lori: Bill, do you see what I see?
  Bill: If you mean the flaming turtledove [topiary], then yes, I do.

Live-Action TV

Series:

• Happens with Dr. Spaceman, the resident Back-Alley Doctor of 30 Rock with Tracy's son. "Am I the only one who sees a little black kid sitting in the corner?"
• On All My Children, Dixie feared she was losing her mind thanks to frequent run-ins with the ghost of her late brother Will until another character mentioned seeing him as well—he was an actor who'd been hired to drive her crazy.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Oz is slightly nonplussed upon witnessing his first vampire kill.
  Oz: Hey, did everybody see that guy just turn to dust?
• The Bureau of Magical Things: Lily accidentally turns the world into a musical. After Kyra triggers a musical number involving everyone in the café, and everyone goes right back to doing what they were doing before once the song ends, Ruksy turns to Lily and asks "Did we just see that?"
• In Class Act, Joanna Lumley's character is driving a forklift toward a religious group meeting. Detective Inspector Latham asks a constable what the hell that is, the constable describes the scene quite succinctly and Latham replies, "I am so glad you can see it, too."
• Community 2011 Christmas Episode. When the protagonists walk into their study room, they see a guy sitting at a piano. Chevy Chase's character asks the other characters if they see him too, and they all nod "yes".
• On General Hospital, Carly thinks she's going crazy when she sees her presumed-dead son Michael playing in the park, until her companion reveals that he can see him as well, thus revealing that Michael is very much alive.
  • A few years earlier, psychiatrist Kevin was being tormented by hearing and seeing visions of his late, Evil Twin Ryan. Naturally he feared he was cracking up, until his girlfriend Lucy mentioned that she'd heard Ryan's voice as well. Then he realized that someone was deliberately trying to drive him crazy.
• In The Golden Girls, this leads to one of the few moments where Sophia doesn't act rude. When she comes home early while Rose's boyfriend, who happens to be a little person, is visiting, everyone immediately panics only for Sophia to politely excuse herself. She then calls Dorothy over and quietly asks if Rose's boyfriend is a midget.
  Sophia: Thank God, I thought I was having another stroke.
• Just Shoot Me!, "Dog Day Afternooon":
  Dennis: Is that a dog?
  Nina: Oh, thank God! You see it, too.
• Lost:
  • In the pilot, Claire asks "Did anyone else just see that?" after seeing several trees ripped up by the monster. There are over 40 people around her and only one responds.
  • Later in the series, Hurley is frequently visited by ghosts of the dead people that only he can see. One of them turns out to be not so dead after all...
    Locke: I assure you, I'm very much alive.
    Hurley: Hey, Nurse, am I talking to a dude in a wheelchair right now?
    Nurse: Yep.
    Hurley: Whoa!
• Lost in Space episode "Wild Adventure". When Dr. Smith sees a green alien woman floating around in space outside the Jupiter 2, he asks the Robot "You see her, don't you?" The Robot did not see her. She was real, just not in sight at that point.
• Monk:
  • In "Mr. Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf", Sharona thinks she's losing her mind after she starts seeing a bloodied man with a screwdriver in his ear and knife in his chest, only for him to vanish without any evidence he was ever there when she goes to get help from Monk. The first couple times he only appears when Sharona is alone, but eventually he shows up while she's in the middle of a talk with her writing teacher. Sharona asks the teacher if she can see him, but she says she can't. She actually does, she's just in on it due to a murder scheme.
  • In "Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii", when on her flight to Hawaii, Natalie sees Monk on the plane, on Dioxynl, and initially doesn't believe it because she knows Monk would never get on a plane, much less sit in an odd-numbered row seat on an airplane. She has to ask the girl sitting next to her if she's dreaming or not.
• Elliot of Mr. Robot talks to the audience as if he's talking to an imaginary friend, so he will occasionally ask this of the viewer.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000:
  • When Mr. B Natural materializes in a music store and starts yelping his/her spiel, Buzz wails "Mom, Dad, tell me you heard that!"
  • Again in Werewolf (1996), over a mural of an old west scene that includes the spirit of an Indian chief watching from the heavens: "Hey, did I have too much mescal, or do you guys see those Indians in the sky?"
  • Crow asks this of Mike and Servo after the brief scene of the ticket-selling monkey robot in The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.
• The Thundermans: Chloe asks as much of Billy and Nora when their Nanna presents each of them with a Homemade Sweater from Hell.
• The Wire has a mundane version when the police receive a quick phone call from one of their own, McNulty, to check if they're all getting the same seemingly impossible phone numbers from the Barksdale ring's pagers.

Specials:

• In the Jim Henson TV special Hey Cinderella!, King Goshposh has this reaction when he sees Cinderella's coach pull up to his party. Please note that in this version, the Fairy Godmother doesn't have access to mice to turn into horses, but she DOES have Kermit The Frog and a Muppet monster called Splurge, who refuse to be turned into anything...
  King Goshposh: Aha, I see the guests are beginning to arrive..huh!? Good heavens! Featherstone? Is that coach being pulled by a purple, shaggy monster? And is that a frog driving?
  Featherstone: I'm afraid it is, sire.
  King Goshposh: Thank heavens. I thought I was seein' things!

Music

• The Christmas song "Do You Hear What I Hear?"

Radio

• In a fan-favorite segment of Phil Hendrie's mock-talkshow, "guest" Jeff Dowder explains how California brush fires really get started. It's because in hot weather, jackrabbits build up a static charge that ignites the dry underbrush. When pressed further, Dowder stated that he and a friend both observed rabbits running around, followed by this flame trail... during a peyote trip.
• A BBC radio spin-off/tie-in to Independence Day, which was a blatant to the point of derivative Whole-Plot Reference to the Orson Welles adaptation of The War of the Worlds but surprisingly well-written for all that, featured this exchange after Sir Patrick Moore and a Radio 1 disc jockey -both appearing as themselves- have borrowed a 4x4 and gone to recover a couple of RAF aircrew who were shot down but succeeded in taking an alien fighter with them. (It Makes Sense in Context.) The DJ helps fish the fighter's Guy in Back out of a reservoir while Moore and the pilot deal with the alien that's just climbed out of the wreck of its own vessel, at which point this exchange happens.
  RAF officer: "Either I'm concussed or I'm watching Patrick Moore fistfighting with an extraterrestrial."
  DJ: "No, that really is happening."
  RAF officer: (in a tone that suggests he's Giving Up on Logic) "Oh. Now there's something you don't see every day."

Video Games

• From Neverwinter Nights 2
  Khelgar Ironfist: Just to make sure my eyes aren’t lying to me – a huge suit of armor did smash through here, attack the githyanki – and us – then we drove it back to the portal?
  Neeshka: No… no, that’s about right.
  Khelgar Ironfist: Good. Because if my drinking is catching up with me, I’m stopping right now.
• This is the common reaction of players in an MMORPG when a spectacular and until then unknown glitch derails a boss fight into a monumental Epic Fail.
• In F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate, while you're escorting Gavin Morrison, you're treated to a hallucination where Fettel rambles a little about his history with Alma and she's shown brutalizing a number of scientists in her usual way. As soon as perspective returns to the real world...
  Morrison: [unnerved] Tell me you saw that.
• Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse: In "Beyond the Alley of the Dolls", if you ask Bluster Blaster about the clones of Sam running around town looking for the Toys of Power, he seems surprised that other people can see them.
  Sam: Do you know anything about these Sam clones running around?
  Bluster Blaster: THOSE ARE REAL?!
  Sam: Uh...Yeah?
  Bluster Blaster: HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!
  Max: I'll take that as a no.
• Puzzle Adventure:
  Keisi: Am I hallucinating? A pig on two legs? Did you see that? You saw that, right?
• Adventure Chef:'
  Chef Valerie: Uh, um, Izy, are you seeing a flaming, talking horse too? The heat hasn't gotten to me?

Webcomics

• Hanners questions her reality in this Questionable Content strip.
• S.S.D.D. has an interesting version here, apathy based police work.
• A improbable escape in One Question, here
• Nip and Tuck: here
• On this page of Digger, Murai (who is a little bit insane) wants to know if Digger can also see the team of lizards hauling on ropes forcing a giant suspended heart to beat.
• In the Oglaf comic Harrow, Thessaly has gone mad and interrogates a goose. The goose doesn't answer; a chair however...
• Done in Freefall when Florence borrows the kitchen of the worst restaurant in the world, with some bonus Bait-and-Switch comedy.
  Cook 1: Did you just see a wolf in a blue dress carrying a beautifully prepared liver platter and prime cut of venison steak?
  Cook 2: Yes.
  Cook 1: We must be imagining things.
  Cook 2:' Right. No way food like that would ever come out of OUR kitchen.

Web Original

• Charlie the Unicorn 2:
  Charlie: ...Who is that? No, no really. You guys see it right? I gotta be honest, I'm getting creeped out here, somebody say something.
• Ruby Quest: "Tom says that if you saw a huge door lined with teeth leading into some sort of horrible abyss then yes, he saw the same thing."
  • In this case, it wasn't simply that the sight itself was so bizarre—at that point, a common player theory was that Ruby was insane and therefore an Unreliable Narrator; hence, whenever she saw something bizarre, they needed to ask Tom for confirmation.
• Played for Laughs in Red vs. Blue, when Caboose confirms that Washington and Church can see the A.I. Delta while they are in the middle of a conversation with it.
• The Angry Video Game Nerd uses "You can hear that right?" in his review of Plumbers Don't Wear Ties.
  Nerd: Are there dogs applauding? I'm not imagining that am I?

Western Animation

• X-Men: Evolution: Kitty makes the X-jet fly though a mountain.
  Pilot 1: Did you see that?
  Pilot 2: No, and neither did you.
• The Penguins of Madagascar:
  "Am I seeing a robot penguin playing checkers with a frog?"
  "I see it too, Skipper."
  "More rack-time, boys."
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
  Plastic Man: Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Because I'm seeing gorillas, riding pterodactyls, with harpoon guns, stealing a boat.
• Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Time Trap". When the Klingon battlecruiser disappears Kirk says "Mr. Spock, did you see what I think I just saw?"
• This exchange from Static Shock after seeing a limousine being chased by a stretched-out guy in a purple suit and keeping up with it
  Virgil: Did you see that?
  Richie: Depends. What did you see?
• Jackie of Cyberchase has this as a Catchphrase. Considering they're in a computer, it makes sense.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • "One Good Scare Ought to Do It!" has a variant when Candace, fresh off using a banana to practice calling her crush, yell at Phineas:
    Candace: That's it, you little psycho! I'm calling Mom! And I am not using the banana this time!
    Phineas: You guys heard that, right? It wasn't just me?
  • In "Backyard Hodge Podge" Linda, who is extremely sleep deprived, is the one who sees the extravagant thing of the week Phineas and Ferb are doing and, not sure if what she's seeing is real or not, phones Candace for confirmation. When Candace shows up, she's hit by Doofenshmirtz's Eye-Fog-Inator and states she's seeing nothing, making Linda sure it's not real. It convinces her that she needed to take a nap.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: After Adora unlocks her fancy new princess duds, Bow - who had, about thirty seconds ago, been helping Glimmer hold her captive - take a second to make sure his reality check didn't just bounce:
  Bow: ...Glimmer?
  Glimmer: Yeah...I see her, Bow.
  Bow: Okay. I wanted to make sure it wasn't just me.
• In the final episode of The Lion Guard, this is Bunga's reaction when he and the other animals see Askari:
  Bunga: Anga, you seeing this too?
  Anga: Shhh.

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