History Main / GasLeakCoverup

* In ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies'', [=MI6=] covers up the death of media mogul Elliot Carver at the hands of a '00' agent by issuing a press release reporting him lost at sea after falling overboard from his yacht in a suspected suicide, with the implication that this is not the first time they have done something like this.[[note:This was a reference to then recent death of media mogul Robert Maxwell who died after falling overboard from his yacht. Suicide was strongly suspected as after his death it was revealed he was on the brink of financial collapse.[[/note]]

* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. In "Old Dog with New Tricks," the gas leak excuse is lampshaded by Crowley as to why the street outside a hostage situation is deserted. However the goal is not to cover up what happened, but to remove witnesses to the ruthless ([[CowboyCop and illegal]]) tactics that [=CI5=] will use to end the situation.
* In the ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' episode "Snow Day" [[spoiler:a criminal gang]] uses a fake gas leak to [[spoiler:clear out the Crime Lab's building so they can recover the drugs that the police had confiscated (worth about a hundred million dollars)]].
* ''Series/StrangerThings'':
** In season one, to cover up the fake corpse of Will Byers, the Hawkins Lab makes a deal with Hopper to pass the body off as that of some other boy who disappeared years prior, in exchange for him and Joyce going into the Upside Down to rescue Will.
** In season two, Nancy, Jonathan, and Murray make up a story about a chemical leak from the Hawkins Lab being the culprit of Barb's death as to make the situation more believable, and thus expose the crimes of the lab without revealing the supernatural side of Hawkins.
** Season three ends with the deaths of [[spoiler:thirty or so victims of the Mind Flayer]] being given a cover story that could only work in TheEighties. According to the [[IfItBleedsItLeads sensationalist news broadcast]], we see during the epilogue, they were all victims of a [[HollywoodSatanism Satanic cult]] that was probably caused by ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', and was also probably behind Barb and Bob's deaths in prior seasons.
* In Season 3 of ''Series/BlackLightning'', Freeland is the site of a war between the ASA and Markovia, with the entire area having been cordoned off and put under martial law, and a total blackout on information coming in or out. When the characters do manage to pick up an external news program, they're shocked to hear them talking about Freeland being under quarantine due to a SARS outbreak.

* In the ''TabletopGame/DarkMatter'' adventure "The Killing Jar", the bad guys use this ''modus operandi'' when killing more than two people. They call it "a tragic fire".

* ''VideoGame/SplinterCell'':
** The first game uses this to cover up the removal of a dirty bomb.
** Used in ''Conviction'' by [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Black Arrow]] to evacuate the Washington Monument fairgrounds so that their men can move in to get Sam.
** Used in ''Blacklist'' to cover up the vehicles Grim destroyed with a UAV in Tehran. [[BlatantLies Of course, a gas leak could destroy a dozen SUVs while leaving everything else around them okay]], but [[JustifiedTrope the Iranian government goes along with it]] since they are no more eager than Fourth Echelon to engage in a shooting war with the U.S.

* One story arc of ''Webcomic/TheWotch'' involved a conspiracy of militant mind-controlling feminists with an ElaborateUndergroundBase below the school. After everything has been resolved, most of the mind-control victims have no memory of what transpired, and them waking up groggy in the school basement is explained with (what else?) a gas leak.

* In the first episode of the first season of ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'', after Scott Summers accidentally provokes a fire at a football game, Professor Xavier rewrites the memory of a nearby cop into thinking it was a leak in a propane tank.
* Inverted in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', where a series of religious experiences turned out to all be caused by a dangerous gas leak that could've blown up and killed a lot of people had it not been detected.

* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'': Lex Luthor secretly hacks into the Watchtower and fires its [[WaveMotionGun binary fusion generator]] at a Cadmus hideout, which is hidden beneath an abandoned warehouse in the middle of a town. The civilians don't know what happened and the League doesn't make a statement on it, but some assumed it was an industrial accident, while others saw a bright light in the sky and figured out it was from the Watchtower since the League had previously used their BFG on a previous mission, leading to the League getting hit hard with HeroWithBadPublicity.

* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' has a series of such "accidents" to cover up a Servant stealing life energy from assorted {{Muggles}}.
* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'''s "Hinamizawa Disaster" is said to be the result of a gas cloud erupting from the swamp, which has a ''grain'' of truth to it: [[spoiler:gas was responsible, but it wasn't a natural occurrence or an accident. Gas-masked soldiers showed up in the town telling people to stay inside their houses due to poison gas, then murdered them by turning the houses into improvised {{Gas Chamber}}s, killing nearly the entire town.]]

* In ''Literature/TheCaseFilesOfYakushijiRyoko'', the destruction of a skyscraper in Ginza is attributed to a large-scale gas leak and explosion. In reality, the building's owner belonged to a cult that had bred a colossal snake and kept it near the top of the building. Inspector Yakushiji gave it a massive dose of growth drugs that caused it to instantly grow large enough to tear the building apart from the inside.
* In ''Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam'', the Titans' pumping of poison gas into a space colony, killing all the inhabitants, was covered up as a malfunction of the air recycling system.

* In ''ComicBook/PS238'', when Suzie Fusion loses her temper and almost blasts a group of mean older girls, this is the excuse used to cover up the incident. In fact, the school turns out to have large quantities of empty pipes running around the entire campus. This is just so they can claim any one of them had burst to cover up things like the odd explosion, or people with radioactive superpowers (like Suzie) irradiating the playground.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'', the first time Briar Rose falls asleep in the series, the Fables cover it up as a gas leak.

* In ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'', the Cybertronian Senate seems to have been fond of the phrase "faulty energon line" when it comes to explaining away various arsons and bombings. It doesn't work in the long run, however; by the comic's present day, the Senate no longer exists.
* ''ComicBook/TheHaloGraphicNovel'': The UNSC initially tries to cover up the damage from the space battle over New Mombasa as being caused by a gas valve venting pressure.
* In [[ComicBook/Supergirl2005 DCU storyline]] ''ComicBook/WhoIsSuperwoman'', the titular villain murders a witness who spotted her and Reactron by deliberately creating a gas explosion which burns down the victim's apartment so "her death looks accidental".

** Dr. White uses it to cover for the destruction of a group that found out about Slashers in Tub Club.

* ''ComicBook/GodzillaRageAcrossTime'': After the Mongol fleet was destroyed by Godzilla, the Shogun came up with the story of a typhoon to cover up his involvement.

* Used as a plot point in ''Fanfic/FateStayNightUltimateMaster''. The [[SpaceCop Plumbers]] are GenreSavvy enough to suspect something and send [[WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}} Ben Tennyson]] to investigate, leading to the whole plot of the fic. A later chapter actually has Ben comment on how flimsy this excuse was.
* In ''Fanfic/FateParallelFantasia'', gas leaks are used as the standard explanation for people falling unconscious due to being drained of prana, mostly by True Caster and True Rider.
* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/14997911/chapters/34760702 The Horsewomen of Las Vegas]]'', in the chapter that flashes back to when Wrestling/CharlotteFlair was a college medical student with plans of being something other than a crime boss, [[Wrestling/RicFlair her father]] and [[Wrestling/TheFourHorsemen his most trusted associates]] show her evidence that her best friend, Santana Garrett, and her fiancee, Wrestling/ShaneDouglas, were undercover FBI agents. They then leave her alone with them and leave a gun behind for her to shoot them. Once the deed is done, Tully Blanchard says, "Now it's time to arrange that gas leak" as they prepare a FieryCoverup.

* The trope is exaggerated and PlayedForLaughs in the first ''Film/MenInBlack'' movie; as evidenced by the page quote, the typical cover story for UFO sightings given by MIB agents takes multiple elements from every standard, individual variant of the trope (swamp gas, weather balloons, Venus) and combines them into a single cover story. They do have the added benefit of [[LaserGuidedAmnesia a neuralyzer]], which apparently makes its victims very impressionable while the agents work their cover story, and they'll even scorch some terrain as necessary with flamethrowers to make it more credible. The brain seems rather desperate to fill in gaps in memory. Agent J, for his part, ''hates'' how stupid and standard the cover stories are and makes it a point to come up with things that will make more sense and make the witness feel better about themselves (''e.g.'' telling the bug man's wife that she left him because he was a {{Domestic Abuse}}r, which was probably pretty close to the mark).

* Used in ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'' -- sort of, as it's the exact same excuse from ''Close Encounters'':
-->'''Maj. Lennox:''' All right. China's cover story this time is "toxic spill"; they had to evac the area for Search and Rescue.

* In ''Film/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol'', half the Kremlin blowing up is put down to gas lines exploding, and an unexploded nuclear warhead plunging down on San Francisco is a meteorite. When half the planet believes in UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories, why bother coming up with a plausible explanation as long as you can disavow it officially? Indeed, the way the civilian news reports are phrased indicates that pretty much no one believes the "accident with the gas mains" coverup.

* In ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars: A New Hope]]'', Han Solo, answering the operator of a concerned nearby station following the dispatch of the Death Star detention block's guards and security cameras, attempts to buy time for Luke to find Princess Leia by claiming a "reactor leak" is in progress, asking for time to shut it down. It fails miserably.
* In the preceding ''Film/RogueOne'', Darth Vader informs that this is how the premature Death Star test on Jeddha was covered up.
-->'''Darth Vader''': The Senate has been informed that Jeddha has been destroyed in a mining disaster.

* ''Film/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem'' demonstrates a DoubleSubversion of this trope. A cop tries to claim the destruction at Kowalski's apartment is the result of a gas leak, only for all the witnesses to berate him and point out the lack of gas's scent. One man steps up to say that they all saw a magical beast cause the destruction, but before he can, Newt casts a spell over all of the witnesses and they frantically claim in agreement that it was a gas leak that caused everything.
* ''Film/JohnWickChapter2'': Jimmy the policeman takes one look at John's house, which is on fire from several grenades and says "Gas leak?" It's made clear in both movies that Jimmy knows [[ProfessionalKiller exactly what John does for a living]], and is willing to accept any semi-plausible excuse to keep the rest of the police from getting involved.

* In the second ''{{Literature/Montmorency}}'' novel, an explosive terrorist attack at a train station is covered up in this manner. The truth is never made public, and the repairman blamed for the faulty line hangs himself a year later.
* This trope is used both literally and in the more general sense repeatedly in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' novels as a theme illustrating the hapless nature of non-magical humans:
** One book lampshades and discusses it; Harry predicts that the latest bit of magical shenanigans will be explained by a gas leak, to which Billy retorts that subsequent inspection of the building will show that the gas pipes are intact, the gas company's monitoring instruments will detect no loss of pressure at the site, none of the victims will show symptoms of gas inhalation, and so on and so forth. Harry cuts him short by simply pointing out that nobody will want to admit that they have no idea what happened, so, to pacify the public and preserve their own jobs, they'll explain it away as a gas leak.
** This argument is reinforced by the fact that the experienced medical examiner Butters reported the discovery of "human-like, but definitely non-human" remains (actually [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Red Court vampires]], which resemble human-sized bats) in a fire and immediately got suspended from work, given a forced psychiatric evaluation, and permanently landed with the worst assignments for having let the stresses of his job get to him and prevent him from recognizing what were ''obviously'' human remains that had been badly warped and distorted by the heat.

* In the Creator/KimNewman ''Literature/DiogenesClub'' story "Moon Moon Moon", the area around a magical working is cordoned off by the police because of an "anthrax spill". Jeperson comments to his American counterpart that if every anthrax spill in Britain was genuine, the whole country would be awash with the stuff. She replies that her superiors prefer "experimental nerve gas" -- unless it actually ''is'' experimental nerve gas, in which case they blame it on foot-and-mouth disease.
* In the ''Literature/AlexRider'' book ''Eagle Strike'', this is the official explanation for the attempt on Edward Pleasure's life.
* In ''Literature/TheRestOfUsJustLiveHere'' the authorities claim that a teenage girl smoking near a gas leak caused the explosion at the amphitheater, rather than the Immortals invading.
* ''Literature/TheColdestWar'' had some fun with this trope. British Intelligence knows a Soviet assassin with supernatural powers is planning to murder someone in their custody, so they evacuate the entire street to avoid witnesses and collateral damage using the gas leak excuse. When the assassin does show up, he's disguised as a National Gas repairman. When the entire house and half the street burn up thanks to the assassin PlayingWithFire, the government has a ready-made explanation.

* In ''Literature/RiversOfLondon'', DI Nightingale has an arrangement with the Metropolitan Fire Brigade for when he has to KillItWithFire. The fire brigade will have appliances on hand to make sure the blaze doesn't get out of hand, and the fire inspector will write the fire off as the result of "faulty wiring" or something similar.
* In ''Broken Homes'', the near-total demolition of a small farm during a magical battle between two veteran combat wizards is written up as the result of some propane canisters exploding. As it happens, one such canister ''did'' blow up during the fight, but only accidentally and after the majority of the damage had already been done.

* In ''Literature/FateStrangeFake'', the Snowfield authorities begin sweating bullets when they realize just how horrifically hard covering a Holy Grail War in their city is going to be, fully aware that the {{muggles}} aren't stupid and will begin digging. They manage to blame False Assassin's attack on terrorists, True Archer's attack on Gilgamesh a tornado, Gilgamesh and Enkidu's battle a gas leak... Even so, it's obvious TheMasquerade is badly cracking by the time a lunatic in full golden armor takes responsibility for a massive magical blast that punches a hole in Snowfield's Opera House... ''on live television''.

* Played completely straight in ''Series/{{Oz}}''. The fourth season ended with an explosion, caused by a home-made bomb created by one of the prisoners, destroying Emerald City. The opening of the fifth season showed the warden reopening the rebuilt prison, explaining the destruction as a gas leak. And everyone buys it. This in a prison that by then has had a major riot, a sexual harassment suit against one the head wardens, and quite a massive number of in-prison maiming and murders -- all heavily covered by the media. The irony being that it really ''was'' a gas leak -- the bomb never went off.

* In ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', the government is fond of using explanations like this, usually involving gangs on PCP, but the only time the actual "gas leak" excuse is used, it's by the heroes. SunnydaleSyndrome being what it is, it's a completely implausible and unanimously accepted explanation for what happened.

* In the first episode of the second series of ''Series/{{Being Human|UK}}'', [[spoiler:the villains]] use a gas leak excuse to [[spoiler:clear out a whole neighborhood so they can use a psychic to find out which house the heroes -- one of whom is a ghost -- live in]].

* ''Series/TwentyFour'':
** In the first season, when Dr. Ferragamo's office is torched to cover up the evidence against Keith Palmer, the police initially report the possible cause of the fire as a suspected broken gas line.
** In ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24: Live Another Day]]'', a drone attack on a house that the CIA was investigating is covered up as being a gas main explosion.
* Subverted in ''{{Series/Fringe}}'': a gas explosion ''was'' the event; however, it was what ''caused'' said explosion that needed to be investigated.
* In the ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode "[[Recap/MonkS2E1MrMonkGoesBackToSchool Mr. Monk Goes Back to School]]", Derek Philby gets rid of the school's groundskeeper by staging a gas explosion in his house: he makes a pinhole in the gas line so that fumes will come into the house, glues a matchbook to the bottom of a door with the ends facing down, and puts a piece of flint on the floor. The matches strike the flint when the door opens, blowing up the house. Monk determines that said explosion was staged because the weather was unusually warm on the night it happened (meaning the victim should not have had any reason to be trying to manually light the pilot light for the fireplace), and the air conditioning unit was on.
* Played with in ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': An explosion is assumed to have been caused by a gas leak, but is then discovered to have in fact been a bombing.
* One episode of ''Series/CriminalMinds'' has a mundane variation: the heroes tell a civilian that her neighbor's house, which contains samples of anthrax he was planning on releasing as a gas, has asbestos.

* On Nickelodeon's ''Series/TheTroop'', the gym is destroyed by enormous worm monsters during a big dance. The Troop destroys the monsters and uses their miniature memory zapper monster (the snark) on everyone. As everyone surveys the wreckage, the Troop's adult advisor cheerily tells them that there had been a simple plumbing leak. In a later episode, they open a portal to a monster dimension and cover it with a tent and a gas leak sign. Unfortunately, the sign looks like one used by a band named "Gas Leak" and the heroes find themselves surrounded by fans who won't let anyone explain they're talking about an actual leak instead of the band.
* In an episode of ''Series/ColdCase'', a bomb was wired to a stove to make it look like the explosion was caused by a leaky gas pipe in the kitchen. The case is reopened years later when the new owners of the house find a piece of the detonator trapped behind a wall in the basement.
* Played with on ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'': [[spoiler:The Council]] are all killed in a gas explosion. The official explanation is that a gas pipe was busted and the house's owner failed to notice; however, the audience knows that the man actually disconnected the pipe himself and triggered the explosion in a strange murder-suicide.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'' played with this trope (as with so many others) over the seasons, coming up with mostly-plausible explanations for strange events on Earth. However, when an office building vanishes from downtown Seattle in a flash of light in one of the last seasons, the U.S. government desperately goes for the "gas explosion" explanation -- an explosion that somehow resulted in no blast or debris of any kind. The media comments on this, but can't figure out what happened (after all, there's no reason to jump to "a human spaceship beamed it into space").
* ''Series/{{Haven}}'': The ''Herald'''s editors Vince and Dave Teague use this excuse whenever the Troubles strike. They do it so often that Haven, Maine has got to be the leakiest town in America. It's a wonder anyone still lives there.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'''s "Hinamizawa Disaster" is said to be an accidental gas leak, which has a ''grain'' of truth to it: [[spoiler:it was a real gas leak, but it [[GasChamber wasn't accidental]] and it killed the entire town]].

* Lampshaded in ''Series/{{Community}}'' when, in the Season 5 pilot, the (ex-)study group explains their strange behavior in season 4 by saying there was a gas leak. In reality, showrunner Dan Harmon had been fired at the end of Season 4, and many fans of the show felt that Season 4 was subpar and out of character. Dan Harmon rejoined the show for the final two season (5 and 6). Jeff, however, tells the group, "Don't blame everything on the gas leak year," perhaps acknowledging that characterizations and plots were slipping towards caricature even before Season 4.

* In ''VisualNovel/{{Nightbound}}, this is the explanation given for the Mardi Gras Incident at the end of the story when [[BigBad Thomas]], turned into the Bloodwraith, goes on an unholy killing spree intent on killing not just the party, but the magical world. It's only if Alex has romanced Vera and goes with her to confront her mother, Lady Smoke, do they find she's the one who whipped up the story.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOrigins'' states that Alan Rikkin's death in ''Film/AssassinsCreed2016'' was purported to be a gas leak -- a highly specific gas leak which killed one man in a packed room. Meanwhile, other Templar Isabel Ardant's death is blamed on some bad wiring at Buckingham Palace.

* ''Literature/TheColdestWar'' had some fun with this trope. British Intelligence knows a Soviet assassin with supernatural powers is going to murder someone in their custody, so they evacuate the entire street to avoid witnesses and collateral damage using the gas leak excuse. When the assassin does show up, he's disguised as a National Gas repairman. When the entire house and half the street burn up thanks to the assassin PlayingWithFire, the government has a ready-made explanation.

* In ''Film/TheLivingDaylights'', assassin Necros uses this to cover up his attack on the Blayden safehouse, before throwing tear gas grenades hidden in milk bottles. As everyone evacuates, he kidnaps his target under the guise of a medical evacuation.

* The official British government explanation for V-2 impacts was that the explosions were accidental and caused by leaking gas mains. Contrary to popular belief, they weren't trying to fool the British public, but rather the Nazis, whom they were already feeding inaccurate impact reports. Incidentally, legend has it that one landed near a bar where [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Interplanetary_Society the British Interplanetary Society]] were having a meeting, and ''they'' figured out what had really happened rather quickly.

* The whole "it was a weather balloon" coverup almost certainly comes from the Sky-hook balloon program, where this exact excuse was used countless times without being [[HalfTruth entirely wrong]] -- the program involved (more or less) using ''really'' big weather balloons for research and reconnaissance. Due to their secretive nature, few were told about them, even within the military, and the lack of control over where they went meant that many balloons landed near or drifted over populated areas, so they had to come up with something.

* In the ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode "[[Recap/MonkS2E1MrMonkGoesBackToSchool Mr. Monk Goes Back to School]]", Derek Philby gets rid of the school's groundskeeper by staging a gas explosion in his house: he makes a pinhole in the gas line so that fumes will come into the house, glues a match to the bottom of a door with the ends facing down, and puts a piece of flint on the floor. The matches strike the flint when the door opens, blowing up the house. Monk determines that said explosion was staged because the weather was unusually warm on the night it happened (meaning the victim should not have had any reason to be trying to manually light the pilot light for the fireplace), and the air conditioning unit was on.
* Played with in ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': an explosion is assumed to have been caused by a gas leak, but is then discovered to have in fact been a bombing.

* ''Series/TheXFiles'', "Jose Chung's ''From Outer Space''": Jesse Ventura plays a [[TheMenInBlack Man in Black]] who tries to persuade someone who saw a UFO into questioning his vision and perception and believing he only saw "the planet Venus".

* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. In "Old Dog with New Tricks", the gas leak excuse is lampshaded by Crowley as to why the street outside a hostage situation is deserted. However the goal is not to cover up what happened, but to remove witnesses to the ruthless ([[CowboyCop and illegal]]) tactics that [=CI5=] will use to end the situation.
* In the ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' episode "Snow Day" [[spoiler:a criminal gang]] uses a fake gas leak to [[spoiler:clear out the police building so they can recover the drugs that the police had confiscated (worth about a hundred million dollars)]].

* The trope is exaggerated and PlayedForLaughs in the first ''Film/MenInBlack'' movie; as evidenced by the page quote, the typical cover story for UFO sightings given by MIB agents takes multiple elements from every standard, individual variant of the trope (swamp gas, weather balloons, Venus) and combines them into a single cover story. They do have the added benefit of [[LaserGuidedAmnesia a memory-erasing device]], which apparently makes its victims very impressionable while the agents work their cover story. The brain seems rather desperate to fill in gaps in memory. Agent J, for his part, ''hates'' how stupid and standard the cover stories are and makes it a point to come up with things that will make more sense and make the witness feel better about themselves (''e.g.'' telling the bug man's wife that she left him because he was a {{Domestic Abuse}}r, which was probably pretty close to the mark).

** Season three ends with the deaths of [[spoiler:thirty or so people]] being given a cover story that could only work in TheEighties. According to the [[IfItBleedsItLeads sensationalist news broadcast]], we see during the epilogue, they were all victims of a [[HollywoodSatanism Satanic cult]] that was probably caused by ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', and was also probably behind Barb and Bob's deaths in prior seasons.

** Used in ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCellConviction Conviction]]'' by [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Black Arrow]] to evacuate the Washington Monument fairgrounds so that their men can move in to get Sam.
** Used in ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCellBlacklist Blacklist]]'' to cover up the vehicles Grim destroyed with a UAV in Tehran. [[BlatantLies Of course, a gas leak could destroy a dozen SUVs while leaving everything else around them okay]], but [[JustifiedTrope the Iranian government goes along with it]] since they are no more eager than Fourth Echelon to engage in a shooting war with the U.S.

* The trope is exaggerated and PlayedForLaughs in the first ''Film/MenInBlack'' movie; as evidenced by the page quote, the typical cover story for UFO sightings given by MIB agents takes multiple elements from every standard, individual variant of the trope (swamp gas, weather balloons, Venus) and combines them into a single cover story. They do have the added benefit of [[LaserGuidedAmnesia a memory-erasing device]], which apparently makes its victims very impressionable while the agents work their cover story. The brain seems rather desperate to fill in gaps in memory. Agent J, for his part, ''hates'' how stupid and standard the cover stories are and makes it a point to come up with things that will make more sense and make the witness feel better about themselves (''e.g.'' telling the bug man's wife that she left him because he was a DomesticAbuser, which was probably pretty close to the mark).

[[folder:Fan Works]]

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* In ''Comicstrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', when Calvin comes home from school after running out of his class, he tries to claim that the school let all of the children go home early because there was a gas leak and everyone was evacuated. His mother isn't fooled and calls the school.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''Film/JohnWickChapter2'': Jimmy the policeman takes one look at John's house, which is on fire from several grenades, and says "Gas leak?" It's made clear in both movies that Jimmy knows [[ProfessionalKiller exactly what John does for a living]], and is willing to accept any semi-plausible excuse to keep the rest of the police from getting involved.

** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', Voldemort's murder of a family of Muggles is attributed to a gas leak. Makes sense, as neither gas leaks nor Avada Kedavra leave marks. But gas leaks also don't leave Dark Marks floating in the sky.

* ''Literature/TheColdestWar'' had some fun with this trope. British Intelligence know a Soviet assassin with supernatural powers is going to murder someone in their custody, so they evacuate the entire street to avoid witnesses and collateral damage using the gas leak excuse. When the assassin does show up, he's disguised as a National Gas repairman. When the entire house and half the street burn up thanks to the assassin PlayingWithFire, the government has a ready-made explanation.

* Subverted in the ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' episode "Tabula Rasa": Noah uses a carbon monoxide leak as a cover-up for Jeremy Greer, who [[spoiler:accidentally killed his parents]] with his power. [[spoiler:Nobody is fooled, and, in the end, a group of vengeful cops murder the kid]].

** Season three ends with the deaths of [[spoiler:thirty or so people]] being given a cover story that could only work in TheEighties. According to the [[IfItBleedsItLeads sensationalist news broadcast]] we see during the epilogue, they were all victims of a [[HollywoodSatanism Satanic cult]] that was probably caused by ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', and was also probably behind Barb and Bob's deaths in prior seasons.

* In ''Comicstrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', when Calvin comes home from school after running out of his class, he tries to claim that the school let all of the children go home early because there was a gas leak and everyone was evacuated. His mother isn't fooled, and calls the school.

[[/folder]]

** Season three ends with the deaths of thirty or so people being given a cover story that could only work in TheEighties. According to the sensationalist news broadcast we see during the epilogue, they were all victims of a [[HollywoodSatanism Satanic cult]] that was probably caused by ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', and was also probably behind Barb and Bob's deaths in prior seasons.

* In ''Series/StrangerThings'', Nancy, Jonathan, and Murray make up a story about a chemical leak from the Hawkins Lab being the culprit of Barb's death as to make the situation more believable, and thus expose the crimes of the lab without revealing the supernatural side of Hawkins.

* In ''Comicbook/PS238'', when Suzie Fusion loses her temper and almost blasts a group of mean older girls, this is the excuse used to cover up the incident. In fact, the school turns out to have large quantities of empty pipes running around the entire campus. This is just so they can claim any one of them had burst to cover up things like the odd explosion, or people with radioactive superpowers (like Suzie) irradiating the playground.
* In ''Comicbook/{{Fables}}'', the first time Briar Rose falls asleep in the series, the Fables cover it up as a gas leak.

Are you a government official or similar authority who needs a quick, mundane excuse for a large number of mysterious, possibly supernatural deaths? Gas leaks are the way to go. They're accidental (no need to find a scapegoat!) and provide a good reason to keep people away from the site of the disaster (there might be lingering traces of gas there, after all!). You can even say that the gas was hallucinogenic, so that if any survivors or bystanders saw anything weird, well, [[SharedMassHallucination that's why]]. And as a very last resort, it leaves you with a plausible explanation for [[FieryCoverup the whole site conveniently exploding]].

The general populace [[WeirdnessCensor will always swallow this one hook, line, and sinker]], no matter how many times you use it or how implausible it is (maybe it's just that they're more comfortable believing in gas leaks than in demon attacks or the like). Watch out for [[ThoseMeddlingKids nosy teenage detectives]], though. Those are a bit harder to fool.

This excuse can also be used to clear a given area so that no ordinary citizens get caught up in the supernatural or otherwise dangerous activity to begin with.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'''s "Hinamizawa Disaster" is said to be a gas leak--[[spoiler:a bit of a borderline example, as gas really ''was'' released into the town...it just [[GasChamber wasn't accidental]]. And by "not accidental", we mean the town was herded into schoolrooms and killed with poison gas grenades]].

* Early in ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'', a Contractor completely [[PowerIncontinence lost control]], causing a couple of massive explosions. This being [[{{Deconstruction}} the show that it is]], the attempts to evacuate the area around the "gas leak" just made things worse, with the kid accidentally burning a friend to death who tried to get her to go to a shelter.

* The destruction caused by Kuesu and Shizuku's rooftop battle in ''Manga/OmamoriHimari'' is officially explained as a gas line rupture. When learning about this on the news, Kuesu dryly commented that she didn't know that people installed gas lines on the ''top'' of buildings.

* The Cybertronian Senate seems to have been fond of the phrase "faulty energon line" when it comes to explaining away various arsons and bombings in ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye''. It doesn't work in the long run, however; by the comic's present day, the Senate no longer exists.

* Subverted and mocked in ''Fanfic/FateZeroSense''. After the fight between Rider and Lancer was seen by whole areas of civilians in broad daylight, the cover-up used to calm down the population was to tell them that it was special effects used for a movie by Creator/JamesCameron. Kariya's reaction is to point out that it's still a better excuse than gas leaks.

* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/14997911/chapters/34760702 The Horsewomen Of Las Vegas]]'', in the chapter that flashes back to when Wrestling/CharlotteFlair was a college medical student with plans of being anything but a crime boss. After [[Wrestling/RicFlair her father]] and [[Wrestling/TheFourHorsemen his most trusted associates]] showed her evidence that her best friend, Santana Garrett, and her fiancee, Wrestling/ShaneDouglas, were undercover FBI agents, they leave her alone with them and leave a gun behind for her to shoot them. Once the deed is done, Tully Blanchard said , "Now it's time to arrange that gas leak" as they prepare a FieryCoverup.

* The trope is exaggerated and PlayedForLaughs in the first ''Film/MenInBlack'' movie; as evidenced by the page quote, the typical cover story for UFO sightings given by MIB agents takes multiple elements from every standard, individual variant of the trope (swamp gas, weather balloons, Venus) and combines them into a single cover story. Though the MIB do put more effort into making it seem legitimate (such as having a crew of cleanup agents use flamethrowers to both burn away evidence of aliens and scorch some of the nearby terrain) and they have the added benefit of [[LaserGuidedAmnesia a memory-erasing device]]. The neuralizer goes a long way for [[JustifiedTrope justifying]] the whole ordeal: the brain will invent new memories to fill the gap, during which time it becomes very impressionable.\\\
Subverted when [[Creator/TommyLeeJones Agent K]] tries to use such a coverup on a woman whose husband was killed and skinned by an alien. [[Creator/WillSmith Agent J]] calls his coverup garbage, and instead offers the explanation that she threw the husband out for being a {{Domestic Abuse}}r (what little we see of him pre-death suggests that this was pretty close to the mark).
* ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind'' has the government claiming a rail accident occurred with a train carrying nerve gas as a way to evacuate everyone from the area around Devil's Tower, Wyoming, where the Aliens are soon due to show up.
* Used in ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen''. Sort of. Here, it's used in the same ways as in ''Close Encounters'', right down to the excuse:

* ''Film/GhostbustersII'' contains three, and ''none'' of them work. It's the scene where Egon and Peter hold down the fort over a hole they dug while Ray abseils down it into the river of pink slime. First, Peter tries to convince the police that they're with [=ConEd=]; he then tries to convince them that they're with the phone company; finally, he pulls out the gas leak line. And then all of NYC goes into a blackout!

* In ''Film/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol'', half the Kremlin blowing up is put down to gas lines exploding, and an unexploded nuclear warhead plunging down on San Francisco is a meteorite. When half the planet believes in UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories, why bother coming up with a plausible explanation as long as you can disavow it officially? Indeed, the way the civilian news reports are phrased indicates that pretty much no-one believes the "accident with the gas mains" coverup.
* In ''Film/{{Godzilla 2014}}'', the Janjira incident was caused [[spoiler:by the male Muto burrowing into the plant's core and feeding off the radiation until it grew to maturity. The surrounding area wasn't evacuated due to radiation but to hide the existence of the Muto's cocoon]].
* In ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars: A New Hope]]'', Han Solo, answering the operator of a concerned nearby station following the dispatch of the Death Star detention block's guards and security cameras, attempts to buy time for Luke to find Princess Leia by claiming a ''reactor leak'' is in progress, asking for time to shut it down. It fails miserably.
* ''Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy''. FBI Director Tom Manning ''tries'' to use a gas leak story to cover up the BPRD's investigation of Prince Nuala's massacre of an antiquities auction. Then Liz uses her [[PlayingWithFire pyrokinesis]] to set off the corresponding explosion...and Hellboy ''intentionally'' positions himself where he'll be blown out a window into the midst of Manning's crowd of reporters.

** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'', the attack Sirius Black is accused of is described by Muggle authorities as a gas explosion.
*** Of course, the latter may be a legit consequence of the former, because ordinary spells don't blow up the whole street.
** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', Voldemort's murder of a family of Muggles is attributed to a gas leak. Makes sense, as neither gas leaks nor Avada Kedavra leave marks. But gas leaks do ''not'' leave Dark Marks floating in the sky....
* In the second ''{{Literature/Montmorency}}'' novel, an explosive terrorist attack at a train station is covered up in this manner. The truth is never made public, and the repairman blamed for the faulty line hanged himself a year later.
* This trope is used both literally and in the more general sense repeatedly in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' novels as a theme illustrating the hapless nature of non-magical humans.

* In the Creator/KimNewman ''Literature/DiogenesClub'' story "Moon Moon Moon", the area around a magical working is cordoned off by the police because of an "anthrax spill". Jeperson comments to his American counterpart that if every anthrax spill in Britain was genuine, the whole country would be awash with the stuff. She replies that her superiors prefer "experimental nerve gas"...unless it actually ''is'' experimental nerve gas, in which case they blame it on foot-and-mouth disease.

** In ''Broken Homes'', the near-total demolition of a small farm during a magical battle between two veteran combat wizards is written up as the result of some propane canisters exploding. As it happens, one such canister ''did'' blow up during the fight, but only accidentally and after the majority of the damage had already been done.
* Played with in ''Literature/TheLongDarkTeaTimeOfTheSoul''; in the aftermath of a mysterious explosion "The usual people tried to claim responsibility. First the IRA, then the PLO and the Gas Board."

* Played completely straight in ''Series/{{Oz}}''. The fourth season ended with an explosion, caused by a home-made bomb created by one of the prisoners, destroying Emerald City. The opening of the fifth season showed the warden reopening the rebuilt prison, explaining the destruction as a gas leak. And everyone buys it. This in a prison that by then has had a major riot, a sexual harassment suit against one the head wardens, and quite a massive number of in-prison maiming and murders--all heavily covered by the media.
** Except the explosion was caused by a gas leak. The bomb never went off.
* Subverted in the ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' episode "Tabula Rasa". Noah uses a carbon monoxide leak as a cover-up for Jeremy Greer who [[spoiler:accidentally killed his parents with his power]]. [[spoiler:Nobody is fooled, and, in the end, a group of vengeful cops murder the kid]].
* The government is fond of using explanations similar to this one in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', usually involving gangs on PCP, but the only time the actual "gas leak" excuse is used, it's by the heroes. SunnydaleSyndrome being what it is, it's a completely implausible and unanimously accepted explanation for what happened.

** In the season one episode "Bugs", Dean attempts to use this to get a family out of their house so they'll be out of the way of a curse, but the father doesn't buy it--Dean's on the phone impersonating a gas company employee that they met earlier in the episode and the father knows that employee's voice.
** Lampshaded in the next-to-last episode of the same season ("Salvation") when the boys are trying to figure out how to get another family out of their house:
--->'''Sam:''' Maybe we could tell 'em there's a gas leak. Might get 'em out of the house for a few hours.
--->'''Dean:''' Yeah, and how many times has that actually worked for us?
--->'''Sam:''' Yeah. ''[thinks some more]'' We could always tell 'em the truth.
--->''[skeptical pause]''
--->'''Dean and Sam:''' Nah.
** They pull the asbestos variation a few seasons later in "Family Remains" when they need to keep a family out of the house that they're moving into. A gas leak is mentioned, but the people they're talking to only really pay attention to the "asbestos" part. Unfortunately, the people moving into the house have someone who knows how to identify asbestos with them. He informs them that there's no asbestos in the walls and no gas leak, so they disregard what Sam and Dean said--including the truthful part: being there's a health hazard--and [[GenreBlindness all nearly die]] as a result.
* In the first episode of the second series of ''Series/{{Being Human|UK}}'', [[spoiler:the villains use a gas leak excuse to clear out a whole neighborhood so they can use a psychic to find out what house the heroes--one of whom is a ghost--live in]].
* The first episode of ''{{Series/Wiseguy}}'' had TheMafia doing this because they wanted everyone out of a motel so they could use it for an arms deal. Which is just as well, because everyone started shooting at each other.

* Subverted in ''{{Series/Fringe}}''. A gas explosion ''was'' the event; however, it was what ''caused'' said explosion that needed to be investigated.

* Played with in ''Series/{{Sherlock}}''--an explosion is assumed to have been caused by a gas leak, but is then discovered to have in fact been a bombing.
* Mundane variation: in an episode of ''Series/CriminalMinds'', the heroes tell a civilian that her neighbor's house, which contains samples of anthrax he was planning on releasing as a gas, has asbestos.

-->"Even the former leader of your United States of America, James Earl Carter, Jr., thought he saw a UFO once, but it's been proven he only saw ''the planet Venus''."

* On Nickelodeon's ''Series/TheTroop'', the gym is destroyed by enormous worm monsters during a big dance. The Troop destroys the monsters and uses their miniature memory zapper monster (the snark) on everyone. As everyone surveys the wreckage, the Troop's adult advisor cheerily tells them that there had been a simple plumbing leak. In a later episode, they open a portal to a monster dimension and cover it with a tent and a gas leak sign. Unfortunately, the sign looks like one used by a band named "Gas Leak" and the heroes find themselves surrounded by fans who won't let anyone explain they're talking about a leak instead of the band.

* Played with on ''Series/TheVampireDiaries''. [[spoiler:The Council]] are all killed in a gas explosion. The official explanation is that a gas pipe was busted and the house owner failed to notice; however, the audience knows that the man actually disconnected the pipe himself and triggered the explosion in a strange murder-suicide.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'' played with this trope (as with so many others) over the seasons, coming up with mostly-plausible explanations for strange events on Earth. However, when an office building vanishes from downtown Seattle in a flash of light in one of the last seasons, the U.S. Government desperately goes for the "gas explosion" explanation--an explosion that somehow resulted in no blast or debris of any kind. The media comments on this, but can't figure out what happened (there's no reason to jump to "a human spaceship beamed it into space" after all).
* ''Series/{{Haven}}'': The Herald's editors Vince and Dave Teague use this excuse whenever the Troubles strike so often that Haven, Maine has got to be the leakiest town in America. It's a wonder anyone still lives there.
* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. In "Old Dog With New Tricks", the gas leak excuse is lampshaded by Crowley as to why the street outside a hostage situation is deserted. However the goal is not to cover up what happened, but to remove witnesses to the ruthless ([[CowboyCop and illegal]]) tactics that [=CI5=] will use to end the situation.
* In the ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' episode "Snow Day" [[spoiler:a criminal gang uses a fake gas leak to clear out the police building so they can recover the drugs that the police had confiscated (worth about a hundred million dollars).]]

* In Creator/TheFiresignTheater's ''Everything You Know Is Wrong!'' Cox presents the audio from "the official stolen government training film of the secret plan to deal with an alien uprising." General Curtis Goatheart instructs troops to identify alleged sightings as:
--> '''One!''' Pie plates, or as reflections in the atmosphere.
--> '''Two!''' Dry cleaning bags filled with marsh gas, or:
--> '''Three!''' Mass insanity.

* In ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'', coincidental magic involved coming up with a plausible explanation for magic effects to avoid Paradox. One example given was justifying a fireball/explosion by saying it was a "natural gas explosion". This was a common tactic most of the supernatural conspiracies in the TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness relied upon to uphold TheMasquerade.
* In the ''TabletopGame/DarkMatter'' adventure "The Killing Jar", the bad guys use this ''modus operandi'' when killing more than two people. (They call it "a tragic fire".)

* ''VideoGame/SplinterCell'' uses this to cover up the removal of a dirty bomb.
** Used again in ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCellConviction Conviction]]'' by [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Black Arrow]] to evacuate the Washington Monument fairgrounds so that their men can move in to get Sam.
** Used again in ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCellBlacklist Blacklist]]'' to cover up the vehicles Grim destroyed with a UAV in Tehran. [[BlatantLies Of course a gas leak could destroy a dozen SUVs while leaving everything else around them okay]], but [[JustifiedTrope the Iranian government goes along with it]] since they are no more eager than Fourth Echelon to engage in a shooting war with the U.S.

** In the "Golden UFO" case in ''VideoGame/RaidouKuzunohaVsKingAbaddon'', the dragon Kohryu tells Raidou to make up an excuse to cover up sightings of him, suggesting swamp gases as a possibility.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' [[SubvertedTrope subverts this trope]] [[PlayedForLaughs as a joke]]. Upon entering "Area 52", the player sees a flash of light and is given a tooltip that persists for 30 seconds which says, "The flash of light you did not see has erased the memories you did not have."
* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOrigins'' states that Alan Rikkin's death in ''Film/AssassinsCreed2016'' was purported to be a gas-leak. A highly specific gas-leak which killed one man in a packed room. Meanwhile, other Templar Isabel Ardant's death is blamed on some bad wiring at Buckingham Palace.

* One story arc of ''Webcomic/TheWotch'' involved a conspiracy of militant mind-controlling feminists with an ElaborateUndergroundBase below the school. After everything has been resolved, most of the mind-control victims have no memory of what transpired, and them waking up groggy in the school basement is explained with...a gas leak, of course.

** For a while Nick the BlackHelicopter's CharacterBlog had the tagline "They said I was a weather balloon".

* Wiki/SCPFoundation: Three hours after her birth, the hospital [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-239 SCP-239]] (AKA "The Witch Child") was born in was destroyed by an explosion. The press was informed that the explosion was due to a gas leak.
* ''JustForFun/IfIAmEverHeadOfAnAlienMonitoringAgency'' on ''Wiki/ThisVeryWiki'' recommends avoiding covering alien/paranormal activity this way, as it's a bright neon "Something unusual happened here" sign to anyone even remotely GenreSavvy. Blame the damage on [[TerrorismTropes terrorism]] instead.

** At the end of "A Tale of Two Stans" [[spoiler: Grunkle Stan's long-lost brother]] manages to get TheMenInBlack out of town by claiming the energy caused by the Interdimensional Portal was actually from an unreported meteorite shower. [[spoiler: It works because the agents just had their recent memories wiped.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': The Duncan Hills Coffee Company, eager to capitalize on a cross-promotion program with Dethklok, covers up a series of terrorist attacks on their stores by The Revengencers by repeatedly referring to them as "natural gas coincidence explosions".
* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited''. Lex Luthor secretly hacks into the Watchtower and fires its [[WaveMotionGun binary fusion generator]] at a Cadmus hideout, which is hidden beneath an abandoned warehouse in the middle of a town. The civilians don't know what happened and the League doesn't make a statement on it, but some assumed it was an industrial accident, while others saw a bright light in the sky and figured out it was from the Watchtower since the League had previously used their BFG on a previous mission, leading to the League getting hit hard with HeroWithBadPublicity.

* The British Government explanation for V-2 impacts was that the explosions were accidental ones caused by leaking Gas Mains. Contrary to popular belief, this was mostly aimed at the Nazis - the British were using turned spies to feed them inaccurate impact reports and didn't want the public news to muddy the waters. Incidentally, legend has it that one landed near a bar where [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Interplanetary_Society the British Interplanetary Society]] were having a meeting, and ''they'' figured out what had really happened rather quickly.
* An odd, confusion-based example by the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun Paris Gun]] at the start of [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI WWI]]. When the first shell impacted, UsefulNotes/{{Paris}}ians thought that it was a gas main that had exploded, then, as more landed, that they were bombs from a zeppelin (as there was no engine noise). Eventually, it was realized that they were shells from a ''siege gun''.
* The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake was an odd aversion. After the quake and ensuing fire city officials stated that it was only a fire and ignored the Earthquake part. Many cities had had great fires by this point so it wasn't anything unusual. But an Earthquake was a new thing for most Americans to fear.

* The whole "it was a weather balloon" coverup almost certainly comes from the Sky-hook balloon program, where this exact excuse was used countless times without being [[HalfTruth entirely wrong]]. See, sky-hook balloons were a program to use (more or less) really ''really'' big weather balloons for research and reconnaissance. Due to their secretive nature, few were told about them, even within the military, and the lack of control over where they went meant that many balloons landed near or drifted over populated areas. And with them a lot of explanations from soldiers to civilians that they were just looking at weather balloons, even though the things were way bigger than a weather balloon.

Subverted when [[Creator/TommyLeeJones Agent K]] tries to use such a coverup on a woman whose husband was killed and skinned by an alien. [[Creator/WillSmith Agent J]] calls his coverup garbage, and instead offers the explanation that she threw the husband out for being a DomesticAbuser (what little we see of him pre-death suggests that this was pretty close to the mark).