History Main / InvisibilityFlicker

** As terrifyingly effective as cloaked Elites can be, they can be spotted by the ripple they leave in the air, which becomes more more visible if they're moving.

--->'''Scotty''': Go to them with WHAT? That the Klingons have a new weapon that is invisible? Raving lunatics, that's what they'll call us!

* ''Franchise/MetalGear'' has these for a couple of the main characters. Cyborg Ninja, being a [[ConservationOfNinjitsu lone ninja out for blood]], seems to blink back into view whenever he does anything more exciting than strolling down a hallway. And sometimes even then.

*** The ''Countdown'' comic (prequel to the ''Film/StarTrek'' film) shows that this ''Scimitar'' was only the first of many. Apparently, the Remans have made at least two more. It is unknown if all of them are equipped with impenetrable cloaks that allow a ship to fire, engage shields, and enter warp without becoming visible. It can be assumed they lack the thalaron weapon, though.

** Related: SAM sites during Vietnam were most easily detected with radar-detecting devices, meaning that you could only see them from the air when they were about to shoot you. This led to airplanes with [[WildWeasel crack pilots trying to make the enemy shoot at them and miss]] in order to give their compatriots a clean shot.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', attacking enemies with your weapons causes the invisibility given by Shade to break. Very annoying when you're trying to BackStab and sneak. For some reason, your abilities don't break cloak. Averted by the invisibility from Loki and Ash, though, which allows you to attack with impunity.

* Reptile from ''MortalKombat'' uses a cloak ability in later games.

* Once your cover is blown in any ''VideoGame/SplinterCell'' game, everyone sees you, regardless of how dark the surroundings still are, and anything you do that doesn't involve killing or finding a better hiding place.
** That's not ''quite'' true. In the first two games, yes, enemies develop a magical "see you anywhere" ability. But in ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCellChaosTheory Chaos Theory]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCellDoubleAgent Double Agent]]'', they'll continue to shoot at the spot you just were at, or somewhere nearby and ''won't'' track your movements with superhuman seeing, allowing you to salvage the situation by skulking away and then coming up from behind.

* ''{{Starcraft}}'' has various units (Ghosts, Wraiths, Scouts, Dark Templars, etc.) that are temporarily or permanently cloaked, i. e. invisible. You may catch a glimpse of an odd ripple where they are if you're lucky (many games, movies, and shows use this, in fact), but your units won't see 'em... unless they walk too close to a building or unit that is a Detector, which reveals them for all to see. (Using certain special abilities on the area also reveals them for a while.) Same goes, of course, for the cases when you're using them. Plenty of base defense tactics involve not leaving yourself vulnerable to cloaked attackers.

* [[CthulhuMythos Star Vampires.]] Invisible, chittering creatures, full of bloodsucking tentacles. Once they've drained a victim dry, they will momentarily become visible - and catching a glimpse of one during that moment is enough to drive most people mad.

* The eponymous monster from the ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'' series.

* Franchise/StarTrek's Klingon and Romulan combat starships have cloaking fields that must be turned off in order to attack. The Klingons managing to overcome this technical difficulty is a major plot point of ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'': the ship in question is only partially visible for a split second due to being backlit by the glowing torpedo it fires.
-->'''Scotty''' "Go to them with WHAT? That the Klingons have a new weapon that is invisible? Raving lunatics, that's what they'll call us!"

* In ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheTwoThrones'', there is an enemy who is invisible (but makes a very obvious metallic sound) until you hit them. This is unbalanced somewhat by the combat lock on system still working even if the Prince can't see his enemy, so you can swipe your sword around randomly until you hit them.
** And this is different from what you could do if you couldn't detect them at all how?
*** If you couldn't detect them at all, your swinging wouldn't automatically be in their direction no matter what. You can't tell how far away from you they are, but you sure know what direction they're in, even turning to follow them if they try to sidle around you.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'''s Infiltrator class can cloak nearly perfectly, until the first shot is fired. This works great with sniper rifles, but leaves you exposed while both working the action on the notoriously slow weapons and waiting for the cloak to cool down for reuse.

* In ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', attacking while cloaked would cause your cloak to disappear, although ceasing your attack makes it reappear. This has obvious gameplay balance advantages, of course.
** The cloaking Elites were often terrifyingly effective. They did leave a ripple in the air behind them, and flashy weapons like the energy sword were still clearly visible, resulting in strange fights where a seemingly magical sword would swish its way through the air and slaughter a bunch of the squishy humans you were fighting alongside.
** The Active Camouflage in ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' partially drops while the user is moving.
** Subverted in the webseries ''Halo4ForwardUntoDawn''. When an Elite cloaks, it's completely invisible.

** It's been said that while the B-2 has a very stealthy signature most of the time, as soon as the bomb-doors open, it shows up on radar the same size as the B-52.

* In Creator/SandyMitchell's ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' novel ''Duty Calls'', the inability of a psyker to prevent this is what lets Cain survive long enough for Jurgen's return. (And the cover story is that it was let him kill his assassin.)

* In ''EternalDarkness'', a vampire-zombie-critter-thing with invisibility magic has this trait, which, combined with its complete lack of strategic ability, makes it pretty easy to defeat even without casting the Reveal Invisible spell.
* In ''[[VideoGame/{{Battlefield}} Battlefield 2142]]'', the Recon soldiers use a very noisy cloaking device. It must be stowed away in order to use any other item, and stops working when you climb a ladder or fall from a good height. The actual blinkery happens when the cloaker is struck with EMP: the cloaking continues, albeit with bright flashes of ultraviolet and static. Or, if a cloaking squad leader forgets to stash his perfectly visible [[RobotBuddy helper drone]].

* Inverted in ''SamuraiJack'' with an ultra-powerful robot that has a cloaking device that activates only [[FightUnscene whenever it is kicking ass]].

* The ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'' {{Spinoff}} ''TenchiMuyoGXP'' has an episode where [[BewareTheNiceOnes Kiriko shows her stuff]]. She changes into a skintight battlesuit with a cloaking device, which seems to do the traveling blink right after every pirate she kills. This very nicely shows how much blood she's managed to get herself covered in, and just how damn scary her scowling face looks.

* The Id Monster from ''ForbiddenPlanet'' gets an early - and truly badass - blink [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k97JZHTCVbM during its climactic attack]].

** Not to mention that if the bomb or missile being launched isn't ''also'' a stealthed design, it will show up clear as day on enemy radar once revealed.

* Cloaking devices in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' work on the same principle: you have to decloak, if only for a moment, if you want to open fire. Similarly, the Jem'Hadar on ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space 9]]'' have a biological invisibility power which seems to deactivate when they attack. If they're capable of staying invisible while they strangle you, we never saw it.

** Subverted also in ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'' with the ''Scimitar'', which can fire while cloaked; there's a whole scene devoted to Picard figuring out how to counteract this.

** Solid Snake not only disrupts his cloaking device, but outright wrecks it during the opening sequence of the second game. He casually tossed his rain jacket aside, lept off a bridge, and made a 10 point landing on the boat below; the cloak completely dies in a flurry of discharged electricity. This entrance also made it into ''SuperSmashBros. Brawl''.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Melee'', invisible characters (either by playing Invisible Melee or using a cloaking device item) will flicker visible whenever he or she is attacking.

An InvisibilityFlicker is when an InvisibilityCloak or other form of ability appears to drop momentarily, allowing the cloaked person to be seen for a split second. While VisibleInvisibility is another common way to clue the audience in that there is something invisible around, it has issues with not giving much suspense due to the audience already knowing where it is. With an InvisibilityFlicker, instead of having some flaw with the actual invisibility, the invisibility will just flicker on and off for a second or two, allowing both the audience and the characters to get a quick glimpse of something that wasn't there before.

* Using the Phase Cloak in ''{{Oni}}'' allows you to be briefly visible, but you reappear when you touch someone or fire a weapon.