History Main / RealAfterAll

* In the ''Literature/TairenSoul'' series' last book, Lillis is trapped in an elaborate LotusEaterMachine, where all her loved ones are safe and happy. She talks with many of them, finding that they're [[UncannyValley all a little bit off...]]except her dead mother, who asks her to give a message to Ellysetta as "it will mean more [from you]". She also tells Lillis about Bess (something she would ''never'' have done while alive) and subtly encourages her to return to reality.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/TheBasilBrushShow'' had a Christmas episode where Santa gets food poisoning from the cafe and the gang is forced to make and deliver presents in one night. The next morning when Santa comes round, everyone finds out that he is a department store Santa. After everyone leaves they find the flat full of presents and hear a loud "ho-ho-ho!". It transpires the department store Santa was the real Santa after all.
* In the ''Series/{{Baywatch}}'' episode "Strangers Among Us", a group of half-crazy UFO believers cause problems for the lifeguards as they misinterpret water phenomena on the beach as signs of aliens and almost drown and so on. They are led by the more sensible Dr. Faye Taylor, who has a more scientific view on [=UFOs=]. All seems to be normal until the very last minutes of the episode, where she disappears without a trace during something resembling a strange weather phenomenon.
* One episode of ''Series/{{Benson}}'' involved a supposed UFO sighting. At the end, Benson and the Governor are out in a field and get flashed from overhead by a series of strange lights.
* ''Series/{{Bones}}'':
** In one episode, a person is found dead in the middle of nowhere by a ufologist. At the end of the episode, Brennan and Booth manage to find the real killer. They’re lying on the hood of a car in a field, stargazing and talking about whether or not aliens are real. Just then, all the crickets and other natural sounds disappear, leaving both of them a little freaked out in [[NothingIsScarier complete silence]].
** In another, a murderer uses a myth about a witch in the woods (an intentional parody of ''Film/TheBlairWitchProject'') to cover up the unintentional killing of his filmmaker brother. At the end though, Angela and Hodgins see what appears to be a ''real ghost'' on footage of the murder. They promptly decide to never mention it again.
** Booth is kidnapped and imprisoned on a derelict ship by the Gravedigger and interacts with a soldier who died by Booth's side in combat. This is initially presented as a hallucination but [[spoiler: to escape the ship requires physical strength beyond that of a single person. The next day Brennan interacts with the same apparent ghost.]]
* ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'': Colin spends the the duration of the episode “Body Language” believing that aliens not only exist but are about to invade the centre due to a series of misunderstandings. At the end of the episode however, it’s revealed that two plants bought in were actually aliens. They conclude that there is NoIntelligentLifeHere and warp out in front of a shocked Colin.
* ''Series/{{Castle}}'' has quite a number of episodes that pit Castle's child-like belief in the supernatural against Beckett's rational skepticism, but most of them usually go for the MaybeMagicMaybeMundane ending. However, there are two notable exceptions:
** In the 6th season episode "Time Will Tell", an episode about (gasp) time travel, Beckett [[spoiler:spills her coffee on a letter that had been a key piece of evidence in the case after the case is over. The murderer had been using a stained copy of that letter to try to track down an intended victim but the cops had used the pristine original to find him first. The stain Beckett made that afternoon matched the one on the murderer's copy even though his copy predated the spill of the coffee.]] The incident is not really "in your face" proof, but it’s chilling because the only possible explanations are "time travel" or "1 in a million coincidence".
** But the 7th season episode "Clear and Present Danger" takes the cake for playing this trope straight as an arrow when it turns out that the victim really was killed by [[spoiler:"the invisible man". (Well, an invisible ''wo''man). A scientist working for a shadowy government agency made a breakthrough and had created a functional invisibility suit which was then, in an ironic twist, used to murder him. Beckett adjusted reasonably quickly to the reality of invisible people walking about and Castle's paranoia and creation of an "invisible man trap" suddenly seemed unusually reasonable.]]
* British medical soap/drama ''Series/{{Casualty}}'' pulls this one once. In one episode Colin Baker plays a patient who claims hes an alien; the nurse treating him believes he's delusional until a power cut knocks out the lights and he's shocked at the sight of the patient's glowing green eyes.
* ''Series/DayBreak2006'': Well, the loop itself is definitely not in Hopper's head, but he also comes across a man named Jared who appears to be [[ThereIsAnother experiencing the same loop]], until Hopper discovers that Jared is just a paranoid schizophrenic with psychotic delusions and gets him the psychiatric help he needs. Or it seems so, until Jared mentions an event that only occurred in a previous loop. [[spoiler:The last seconds of the series implies that he may even be responsible for the loop, actually being some sort of GuardianAngel for Brett who gave him an opportunity to put his life back together.]]
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E2TheAbominableSnowmen "The Abominable Snowmen"]]: An explorer looking for yeti in the Himalayas runs afoul of some yeti that are actually robots controlled by an EldritchAbomination. At the end, as the explorer is saying farewell to the Doctor, a ''real'' yeti appears.
** When the Doctor is told by River Song in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E5FleshAndStone "Flesh and Stone"]] that he'll next see her when [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens "the Pandorica opens"]], he dismisses the Pandorica as a fairy tale. When he comes face-to-face with the legendary [[SealedEvilInACan can of Sealed Evil]] in the episode by that title, he's forced to admit it isn't a fairy tale. The Pandorica is actually [[spoiler:a trap set for the Doctor by a LegionOfDoom]], effectively making the myth true.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E8TheImpossiblePlanet "The Impossible Planet"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E9TheSatanPit "The Satan Pit"]], an entity claiming to be the literal Satan (or at least, the inspiration for him) appears, and claims to be older than time itself — something the Doctor says to be impossible. At the end of the episode, the Doctor all but admits that he doesn't have an explanation and can't dismiss the entity's claims quite so easily as he normally would.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E3RobotOfSherwood "Robot of Sherwood"]]: Clara has the Doctor take her to the time where Robin Hood existed, despite the Doctor saying that Robin Hood is merely a legend. Deciding to prove it, the Doctor takes her there... and comes face to face with Robin Hood. Throughout the remainder of the episode, the Doctor tries to find proof that Robin isn't real. Upon learning of the presence of robots, the Doctor becomes convinced that they used the legend of Robin Hood to create a HopeBringer for the peasants as part of their ruse... [[VillainHasAPoint until the Sheriff points out the impracticality of creating an enemy that could ruin their plans]]. Upon learning that the future will believe [[ShroudedInMyth he was only a myth]], Robin's okay with that.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E8TheHauntingOfVillaDiodati "The Haunting of Villa Diodati"]]: Most of the weirdness going on in the titular house is eventually revealed to be because of a powerful AI called the Cyberium defending itself. However, the two figures of a woman dressed as a maid and a young girl, who bring Graham food at one point, are implied by the end to be ''real'' ghosts.
* In one episode of ''Series/DontEatTheNeighbours'', Lucy ends up depressed after she learns that Old Father Bunny has not delivered the bicycle she wanted. So that night, the other adult male characters in the show get up onto the roof, each claiming to Lucy that they are Old Father Bunny and they have brought her the bike she wanted. The next morning Lucy has 7 bikes, but there were only 6 men up on the roof last night. She then finds a note attached to it from Old Father Bunny apologizing that it’s a day late, but he and his elves were busy painting it into a multicolour one.
* ''Series/EerieIndiana'':
** In "Marshall's Theory of Believability", Professor Nigel Zirchon has his assistant Claude plant a fake "space thing" in Eerie in order to fool the town's government into spending a fortune to buy it from him. However, it turns out that Claude never had the opportunity to plant the fake as he was frightened by a [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti female Bigfoot]]. The "space thing" that the Tellers, Simon and Professor Zirchon found was genuine. This is demonstrated when it lights up, levitates and returns to space. Simon manages to get a blurry photo of it before it disappears.
** In "The Hole in the Head Gang", Dash X convinces Marshall and Simon that Hitchcock Mill is haunted by the ghost of the bank robber Grungy Bill using a "flying" chair attached to a wire and pulley, projecting his voice through a pipe to give it an echo effect and wearing a monster mask. When Marshall and Simon return to investigate further, they meet Dash and discover the truth. Dash then finds an old gun under the floorboards and accidentally releases Grungy Bill's ghost, which had been trapped in the gun for over 100 years.
* ''Series/FamilyMatters'' did the Santa version in "Miracle on Elm Street", with Carl getting a space helmet he had wished for as a kid.
* Played with on ''Series/FantasyIsland'' as a guest will assume they're in an elaborate [[AndYouThoughtItWasAGame role-playing adventure]] only to realize they've truly gone back in time or chased by real spies. At the end, when returned to the present, they'll ask if it was real and Mr. Roarke will simply smile "What do you believe?"
* In an episode of ''Series/GilligansIsland'', on the first Christmas Eve they're stuck on the island, the Skipper shows up dressed as Santa Claus. He happily tells the castaways that they should be thankful that they are on an island with food and water, that they all get along with each other, etc. "Santa" then leaves into the jungle. An instant later, the Skipper, dressed normally, emerges -- from the opposite direction -- out the jungle, carrying the firewood that he went to get a moment ago. Even the professor was puzzled by this one.
* ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'' liked this trope.
** In one episode, Rose thinks she sees a UFO overhead, and even Dorothy is convinced when the U.S. Air Force confirms it. At the end of the episode, Sophia reveals that the "spaceship" was just an experimental aircraft that the military didn't want anyone knowing about. When Dorothy goes out to break the news to Rose, the two sit for a while on the lanai, and Dorothy drops off to sleep...just in time to miss the sky suddenly flood with light and sound. Rose sits back in her chair and smiles, convinced that she's seen the real thing.
** In a non-supernatural example, Sophia, who's been struggling with memory issues, clings to the fact that her late husband carved a big heart that read "SAL LOVES SOPHIA" on the pantry door in their apartment in Brooklyn. When Dorothy and Sophia visit, they find the Petrillo family height chart instead, which deeply upsets her. However, at the end of the episode--and after a visit from a ghostly version of Sal himself--Sophia discovers the heart in question on the door of the bedroom closet.
** Both Blanche and Sophia have ghostly visitations in a Season 7 episode. Blanche insists that she hears the voice of her dead grandmother in her old room at the family plantation, which is set to be torn down; at the end of the episode, a set of wind chimes Blanche took from the room swings in the breeze, suggesting that Blanche is right. Meanwhile, Sophia has a near-death experience and talks with Sal in Heaven, only to be revived. When Dorothy tries to explain this away as a hallucination brought on by lack of oxygen, Sophia teasingly calls her "Spumoni Face," a nickname which Sal told her about while she was temporarily deceased. Dorothy's shocked--she had ''never'' told her mother about that nickname...
* ''Series/TheGreatestAmericanHero'', "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea": The missing boats aren't due to the legendary sea monster "Carrie", but to pirates. The real sea monster appears at the end of the episode.
* On ''Series/HanginWithMrCooper'', Vanessa is romanced by a man (Creator/DonCheadle) claiming to be an African prince. The gang are dubious, thinking it's a con and confront him on how there's no record of his nation (the man says it's because they want to keep a low profile) and he's staying at a crummy hotel (he says he wants to be humble). The kicker is when they show his "diamond" is a fake with the man claiming he couldn't get a real diamond over in time. Vanessa doesn't believe him and kicks him out of the house. The next day, the gang are joking about the guy's bad act when they flip on the news and see a story revealing he really is a prince, boarding his private jet and talking of how sorry he is to have lost the love of his life. Cue a frantic futile dash to the airport.
* ''Series/TheHardyBoysNancyDrewMysteries'':
** "Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula": In the episode, the Hardy Boys suspect a man of being Dracula, but this is apparently dis-proven. At the end, the villain is in handcuffs and standing in front of a mirror, and Joe Hardy notices that the villain has no reflection, while the other characters conveniently not look at the mirror. The villain is taken away by the cops before Joe can get anyone else to notice.
** "House on Possessed Hill": The Hardy Boys have supposedly dis-proven a haunted house. Final scene is the brothers driving by the house in their van; Frank is giving logical common-sense explanations for all the haunted phenomena. Cue Joe looking towards the house just as they drive away, in time to see a ghostly figure walk out of the house...which disappears when Frank stops the van to look.
* In one subplot of the ''Series/HenryDanger''[=/=]''Series/GameShakers'' crossover, Piper asks her dad for a thousand dollars as she just got an e-mail from a prince saying whoever gives him that money can earn a million dollars. Jake naturally assumes this is a FourOneNineScam and refuses to give her the money, telling her if she wanted the money, she'd have to earn it herself. Piper begins doing various jobs and schemes while Jake continues to believe she's wasting her time. Later on, a news story reveals that the prince is real and the only person who was willing to send the money was Piper's archrival Jana, who's not only a millionaire now but is also dating the prince. Piper and Kris give Jake [[DeathGlare an ugly look]] as he answers with [[NiceJobBreakingItHero an "Oops?" expression]].
* Subverted in ''Series/HeidiBienvenidaACasa''. Mr. Sesemann leaves a cake out every year on his (dead) grandfather's birthday to be eaten by his ghost. At the end of the episode, Clara reveals that there is no ghost and she was eating the cake the whole time to make her father feel better. Then the birthday balloons all suddenly pop for no apparent reason, implying the ghost was real after all. However, the following episode reveals that it was just Diego, who was somehow popping them from offscreen.
* ''Series/HomeImprovement'':
** Played for laughs in an episode, complete with ''Series/TheXFiles''-parodying dream sequence. The episode starts out with Tim mocking Wilson for believing he'd been visited by aliens. The end implies that Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, and several other NBA players are, in fact, aliens--with "bluish-gray" immigrant cards.
** Wilson visited Mark as Santa Claus when he was told that Santa does not exist--or at least this was what Tim and Jill thought, as the REAL Wilson was revealed to be in his garden the whole time Santa was visiting.
* In a ''Series/HoneyIShrunkTheKids'' episode, a leprechaun appears and starts doing several tricks, which Wayne explains off as things easily done with some chemicals and sleight of hand, much to Nick's regret because he really believed it was a leprechaun. Then a bunch of leprechauns appear for real. And these cannot be explained.
* An episode of ''Series/{{Hustle}}'' has the con artists tricking a corrupt tabloid publisher into believing that the Queen Mother was killed in World War II and an actress was hired to keep up public morale. It works and the team laughs at how the publisher could believe such a crazy story. However, the final shot of the episode shows what is quite clearly Queen Elizabeth II placing flowers on the grave of that "actress."
* ''Series/{{ICarly}}'':
** Sam's twin sister Melanie at the very end of "iTwins". Interestingly, it isn't until than that we finally see the two together onscreen, and she shows up right after a still disbelieving Freddie leaves after he forces Sam to admit she's not real. In a subversion, the audience ''knows'' Sam is telling the truth, but Freddie doesn't.
** The beevecoon in "iBelieve in Bigfoot". Too bad nobody noticed it...
*** The ending implies Bigfoot might be real as well.
* ''Series/ILoveLucy'': The four adults each separately decide to dress up as Santa to amuse Little Ricky. But when they gather together in the kitchen afterward, who is the FIFTH Santa? The one who vanishes into thin air?
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': In an episode, a father kidnaps his son while he has him for weekend visitation because he is convinced the boy is the reincarnation of his old war buddy and has to take him to their cabin one last time. The episode consists of Harm trying to find him and convince him to turn himself in while authorities are also chasing them. The episode ends with Harm sitting on the porch step with the father and son, and the boy turns to them with a smile and thumbs up while flashing briefly into the form of the father's friend. Both of them see it, though the kid doesn't seem to be aware.
* An episode of ''Series/{{Jonas}}'' revolved around the ghost of a volunteer fire fighter who swore he would return from the grave so that he could once again "volunteerily [sic] fight fires." He also loved chili and plaid socks. After the episode, we see Joe sitting in a chair narrating, like Kevin had been doing for most of the episode. The two start arguing about which has a better evil laugh, when they suddenly hear another evil laugh, and run. Turns out it was Nick, who was using a voice changer. He tells us there's no such thing as ghost, winks at us then leaves....and we hear the laugh again, and see a nearby bowl of chili get emptied after a voice says "oh, chili".
* On ''Series/JustRollWithIt'', Blair is convinced the new neighbors are actually aliens due to weird behavior. She puts them through some humiliating "tests" that drive them off as she accepts she was letting her imagination get away from her. Owen goes to apologize, only for the "Daughter" to speak in a weird voice that they had come to warn Earth of a coming threat but "you're all such jerks" and they vanish in a flash of light. Owen simply blinks and remarks that the heatwave must be getting to him.
* C.J. Lamb on ''Series/LALaw'' was representing a home owner who claimed his house was haunted. She got her assistant to make the lights in the house go out and on, freaking out the jury when they visited the house. When C.J. and her assistant are outside, the lights in the house start going on and off on their own, causing the two to run away themselves.
* ''Series/LoisAndClark'': A Christmas episode sees Superman pull a Santa-suited Perry White around in a sleigh to distribute presents to children on Christmas Eve. Later, as Lois and Clark leave the Daily Planet, they hear sleigh bells and a jolly "Ho Ho Ho!" from high above, and Lois exasperatedly comments that Superman must still be dragging Perry around in the sleigh--unaware, of course, that [[ClarkKenting Superman is actually standing right beside her]]...
* The ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'' LiveActionAdaptation had an episode about a fake ghost train that used the "helpful person was dead all along" variant.
* ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'':
** In "Ghost Ship", [=MacGyver=] reveals that the monster is just a man in a suit and a prerecorded monstrous roar. At the end, [=MacGyver=] and Pete hear the exact same roar from somewhere out in the wilderness while they're looking at the stereo that isn't currently playing the tape.
** "The Visitor": After Mac exposes a couple of con artists claiming to be aliens to exploit a cancer patient and her husband, the oddball vacuum cleaner salesman that helped him suddenly disappears. He and the sheriff then see a UFO taking off...
* In the ''Series/{{Martin}}'' Halloween episode "The Night He Came Home," Martin's friends set up an elaborate haunting hoax based around a ghost story involving the former tenant of his apartment. Naturally, after the joke is played and he kicks them out, he begins to relax with Gina. The two become so wrapped up in each other, they just miss the real ghost lumbering across the room and shutting off the lights on his way out.
* ''Series/MattHouston'' had the titular detective abducted by real aliens in an episode where he's investigating a (fake) claim of abduction covering up a murder. Of course, he doesn't remember, no one else sees it, and the abduction has no relevance to the rest of the plot at all.
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'':
** In one episode, the villains organize a series of 'ghostly' appearances in order to try and drive their victim insane. Right at the end, after the hoax is revealed and all the characters have left the room, we see an empty rocking chair creaking back and forth...
** "Talking to the Dead" ends with the body of [[spoiler:Cyrus [=LeVanu=] (a purported psychic that may or may not be genuine)]] being discovered in the supposedly haunted Monks Barton woods. The medical examiner determines that the cause of death was parasympathetic rebound; which is a scientific way of saying someone literally died of fright.
** Another starts off when Barnaby's wife thinks she ran over someone crossing a road next to an old asylum, but can't find the body. At the end of the episode, Barnaby himself does the same, but where the previous one was explained by the presence of a door near the road, the door here had been walled off...
* PlayedForLaughs in one episode of ''Series/{{Monk}}'' where Sharona doesn't believe resident ButtMonkey Randy has a model for a girlfriend, and that he only made it up. The clues are there: she thought it was a LineOfSightName, her picture on Randy's wallet is actually an advert for the wallet, and when Captain Stottlemeyer once asked to meet her in person, Randy said that she was busy. The end of the episode reveals the girl to be very real, but none of the characters would still believe Randy. (since by the time Randy "introduces" them to her, she was already in a taxi leaving so it was a missed opportunity, too.)
* ''Series/MrsBrownsBoys'' has an episode where the parents of her grandson Bono want to know what Bono wished for when he wrote his letter to Santa, but Bono refuses to tell anyone, saying to Mrs Brown it’s to prove whether Santa is real or not. Buster, in a rare moment of brilliance, suggests that they get someone to dress up as Santa and Bono can tell "Santa" what he wished for, and "Santa" can then tell everyone else. So two days before Christmas, while Bono is staying with Mrs Brown, they go downstairs to the living room and find Santa waiting for Bono, who says that something has happened to Bono's letter, which means he can't read it and so needs Bono to tell him what he wished for. Mrs Brown goes into the kitchen while Bono is talking to Santa, only for Buster to arrive with another man who is supposed to be playing Santa. Mrs Brown then walks back to the living room, where Bono is now looking out the window up at the sky, sleighbells can be heard ringing and Santa yells "Ho Ho Ho" offscreen.
* ''Series/TheMunsters'', "If a Martian Answers, Hang Up": while on his new [=HAM=] radio, Herman thinks he's contacted Martians. After getting Grandpa involved, finding what they think is a [=UFO=], and being threatened by what he think is the Martian leader with [[EarthShatteringKaboom the destruction of Earth]], Herman learns what he heard was actually just a couple of kids playing spacemen, with the clencher being the FlyingSaucer he photographed being marked "[[MadeInCountryX Made In Japan]]". At the end of the episode, when Herman hears someone else claiming to be a Martian, [[WeAreNotGoingThroughThatAgain he tells them to lay off it]]. The audience then sees that this time, it was an ''actual'' Martian (With the alien costume having been originally seen in ''Series/{{The Outer Limits|1963}}'').
-->'''Martian:''' My, those Earth people are getting rude.
* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'':
** In "The Curse Of Beaton Manor" Murdoch scolds George that voodoo is not real. It’s revealed that [[spoiler:Timothy Beaton]] used pufferfish poison (from Haitian voodoo) to induce a near-death state and thus 'come back' from the dead. At the end of the episode the final Beaton suffers a fatal heart-attack from being pierced by a VoodooDoll.
** The Holy Grail in "Murdoch and the Temple of Death" is strongly implied to be the real thing. The killer jumps off a 60-foot cliff thinking it will save him, despite Murdoch telling the man to stop, and as Murdoch looks down on the man's corpse, a thunderclap sounds (seemingly in daylight) and Murdoch reacts to it. Later, [[spoiler:Dr. Iris Bajali]] steals it from the station house and flees with Murdoch in pursuit; he tells her it belongs to God, and when she shouts back, "There is no God," she’s struck by lightning and dies. Later still, a museum staffer accidentally knocks it over and disposes of the clay outer layer, leaving a metal chalice standing on the shelf that appears bathed in a (heavenly?) shaft of light.
** In "Murdoch and the Cursed Caves", after Murdoch has proved that the deaths were not caused by a native monster called a Headpiercer, the last scene features the actual Headpiercer.
* ''Series/MyHero2000'': George is dismayed by the increasing discontent at Janet's Christmas Day party, so he asks all the guests what they'd like. Dr. Crispin is dismissive, but the others answer honestly. He flies out, bringing in a man in a Santa costume (who complains about being very tired)... but just as the guests mock his charade, the man gives them all exactly what they asked for. At the end, Janet wonders how the man got the requested items, and George answers, "I'm glad he decided to help. Normally he sleeps all day today."
* At the end of a ChristmasEpisode of ''Series/TheNanny'', after Maxell [[ItsALongStory ends up in the hospital]], a guy dressed as Santa was wheeled into the same room, having been hit over the head by C.C with his own bell. After the clock strikes midnight, signaling it was Christmas, Fran decided the guy shouldn't be alone and pull back his curtain to have him join the Sheffields...only to find his bed empty and the window open, which she looked out to see something as the man cried out "Ho! Ho! Ho!".
-->'''Fran:''' I gotta lie down.
* ''Series/Naomi2022'': In "[[Recap/Naomi2022S1E1DontBelieveEverythingYouThink Don't Believe Everything You Think]]" everyone in Port Oswego apparently thinks Superman is just a fictional comic book character. When he actually shows up in town, they think it was some sort of publicity stunt.
* In the ''Series/NickyRickyDickyAndDawn'' episode "Quadbusters", Tom appears dressed as Sylvia the ghost to scare Jade, Zeus and Elijah. After this, the Quads and Tom were frightened by Anne, Mae and Miles, who get their revenge for the Quads blowing them off. Finally, the real ghost of Sylvia appears, causing the trio to run away in fear.
* ''Series/NightCourt'':
** In the first season ChristmasEpisode "Santa Goes Downtown", a man that Harry Stone takes for a street corner Santa turns out to be the real thing.
** Another ChristmasEpisode has Buddy handing out presents that were picked out by "his friend Nick". At the end he gives a present to the episode's antagonist, a man he'd never met before, and it turns out to be a specific yo-yo he had asked for as a child but never gotten. The cast is quick to be freaked out by it and wonder if "Nick" is Saint Nicolas a.k.a. Santa.
** Played with in a ClipShow when an auditor from the state board comes to ask about the huge costs of rebuilding and various other expenses the court has racked up over the years. After hearing their tales (mass food poisoning, a hurricane, women giving birth, a clown taking people hostage), the auditor snaps that there is no way in hell he can believe that one courthouse is home to so many bizarre occurances and this is obvious fraud by the entire staff. At which point, a huge crash is heard and everyone runs in to find an elephant standing in the courtroom (which is on the eighth floor). Harry looks to the auditor, who holds up his hands and backs up, announcing "I believe everything you say."
** In one episode, Bull gets a nasty electric shock which causes a NearDeathExperience (and a [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking bad underwear rash]]). When he's revived, he claims he had a vision of God telling him to give all his possessions to the poor, and promptly does so before anyone can talk him out of it. But shortly thereafter, it's revealed through a [[ItMakesSenseInContext series of convoluted events]] that what Bull actually heard wasn't God, but Art the handyman shouting to him. Distraught, Bull has a mild RageAgainstTheHeavens wondering why, if there was a God, he would play such a trick on him. Just then an insurance agent comes in and offers Bull a hefty check in return for signing a waiver preventing him from suing the city, which Bull happily accepts, then yells "Thank you!" at the sky. A few minutes later, Mac enters the now-empty courtroom, looks at his computer and sees the words "You're welcome and [[BrickJoke sorry about the underwear]]" typed on the screen.
* On ''Series/NipTuck'', Sean and Christian are met by an elderly man who wants them to remove a device from his body that he claims is alien technology so he can bring it for study. Before the surgery takes place, a pretty young blonde woman comes by, saying the man is her mentally addled father and the device is just a medical scanner. The man protests he doesn't know her ("my daughter is dark-haired and fat!") and the "doctors" with her are government agents. He's still screaming when he's led away. At the end of the night, the two talk on how sad it is to see someone losing their mind like that. At which point, an overweight brunette woman enters to ask if her father's surgery is done yet...
* On ''Series/PersonOfInterest'', Shaw is put through a series of very realistic virtual simulations with Greer pushing her on to cut loose. Greer takes her out of the Samaritan base with Shaw sardonically noting how real this virtual version of New York is. Greer shows her a scientist in a lab, saying that this woman will create a drug that can mutate into a virus. By now sick of these games, Shaw enters the lab and simply shoots the scientist dead. Back at the base, Shaw hears a doctor note how her wounds aren't healing as a report on the news plays of the scientist's death. To her horror, Shaw realizes that was no simulation and she murdered an innocent woman.
* In ''Series/{{Psych}}'' episode "Dead Air", Shawn and Gus investigate the murder of a DJ. During their investigation, they are lead to a girl named Laurie, one of the DJ's frequent callers. Laurie then mentions she has a StalkerWithACrush named Bob who might've killed the DJ out of jealousy. Shawn begins to doubt the existence of Bob when the artist depiction shows he looks like a comic book villain. Also, when tracing Bob's call, they discover [[TheCallsAreComingFromInsideTheHouse it's coming from Laurie's house]], but Jules doesn't get a chance to see him before he sneaks up behind her and knocks her out. Then, when Shawn discovers that Laurie's on medication, he becomes convinced that "Bob" is actually a SplitPersonality that Laurie has, despite Laurie's claims that he's real. It's only at the climax when he’s attacked by him does Gus find out that Bob really does exist.
* ''Series/QuantumLeap'':
** "A Portrait for Troian". Sam finds himself helping a young woman who seems to be haunted by the ghost of her late husband. The haunting turns out to be a hoax staged by [[spoiler:her brother]] to drive her to suicide, but at least one member of the episode's supporting cast turns out to be an actual ghost.
** Another was about a mummy's curse being faked. It ended with the mummy strangling the hoaxer.
** Yet another episode involved a creepy castle with several characters, including the one Sam leaps into, believing themselves to be vampires. One of them gets zapped by lightning, after which Sam triumphantly takes off the dead guy's fake vampire teeth. Just before leaping, he looks into a metallic tray and doesn't see his own reflection. The previous episode ended with Dr. Ruth being replaced in the waiting room by a man with vampire fangs. It doesn't seem likely that fake teeth would be transported there.
** There's also an episode where a Yeti helps rescue someone, they only see it at the very end.
** In "It's a Wonderful Leap", Sam leaps into a cab driver named Max in 1958 who's due to be murdered. Sam is thrown by the arrival of Angelita, who claims to be an angel. Sam and Al naturally assume she's a nutcase, especially given how she can see and hear Al (as mentally addled people can). In the end, Sam saves Max's life with Angelita telling him she has to leave and once she does, everyone in this time will forget she was ever here. She stuns him and Al by calling "Max" Sam and "who do you think I was sent here to help?" She goes as Al asks if Sam is going to follow her. "Follow who?" Sam asks and a stunned Al realizes Sam has absolutely no idea who Angelita is.
* ''Series/RavensHome'' has the episode "The Baxtercism of Levi Grayson" where Levi dresses up as the ghost girl to scare off a classmate into believing that the apartment is haunted, turns out it was all just a prank. But when they leave, the ghost girl appears.
* This was always the ultimate joke in the "Penelope" sketches on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive.'' Creator/KristenWiig plays the titular character, a passive-aggressive young woman who constantly one-ups everyone around her: if someone is going through a divorce, then she just divorced her husband in the hallway; if someone claims to be the inspiration for ''Film/TheCuriousCaseOfBenjaminButton'', then she's actually [[MerlinSickness aging in reverse right now]]. The sketches would end with Penelope making a truly outlandish claim, such as an ability to shrink or being best friends with Liza Minnelli and a tomato, and everyone [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere getting so angry that they storm away]]. After they left, that final claim would come true (Penelope shrinking down as she took a phone call, or Liza herself--carrying the tomato--bursting through the door and declaring that she wanted to have a girls' night out). It's unclear if ''all'' of Penelope's crazy stories were real, though.
* This trope occasionally appeared on ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}''.
** The plot of "The Library" centers on a copy of ''Tropic of Cancer'' that Jerry apparently never returned in high school; in a subplot, George discovers that an unstable homeless man on the New York Public Library steps is his and Jerry's old gym teacher Mr. Hayman. George and Jerry are never able to find the missing ''Tropic of Cancer'', but as the episode ends, we cut to Mr. Hayman muttering to himself in an alley, with the weather-beaten book at his side.
** The subplot of "The Bizarro Jerry" focuses on George gaining access to an exclusive secret club for models and other [[TheBeautifulElite wealthy, attractive people]] by using a picture of Jerry's current girlfriend. When the picture burns up, he tries to use a generic photo from a magazine as his entry pass--but the model from the photo is a member and immediately exposes him as a fraud. As he's kicked out, he drops the photo. When George brings Jerry to the club's location, they find a meatpacking plant instead, with absolutely no trace that the business ever existed...but as they leave, the camera pans down to the sawdust-covered floor, with the magazine picture still sitting there.
* In the ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' episode "[[Recap/SmallvilleS05E09Lexmas Lexmas]]", Clark uses his SuperSpeed to deliver presents to the children of Metropolis. Along the way, he meets a drunk man in a Santa suit and saves him when he falls off a roof. After a talk where Clark reveals he sacrificed his original plans for the day to deliver the presents, the man decides that the Christmas spirit isn't dead after all and departs. Later, the man comes to Chloe, who's looking after the last of the gifts until Clark gets to them, and says he will deliver them to pay Clark back for saving him. After Chloe gives him the last children's addresses, the man pulls a StealthHiBye, taking the huge pile of gifts (big enough to fill the room and reach the ceiling) with him.
* At the end of the fifth season of ''Series/StargateSG1'', a "malfunction in the ventilation systems" is implied to be Daniel Jackson looking after his old team.
* ''Series/SueThomasFBEye'':
** The gang's quirky informant Howie shows up in Sue's home, claiming someone is trying to kill him. Given Howie's...eccentric...attitude, they think this is one of his wild games until they realize he really did witness a mob hit.
** In "The Girl Who Signed Wolf," a young deaf girl claims she saw a kidnapping but her mother insists she has a very active imagination. At first thinking that, Sue still presses and realizes the girl did see a real kidnapping.
** The same episode has Myles told an author is coming to interview him for a book on the FBI. Myles assumes this is one of the team's practical jokes so, when the interviewer comes around, amps up his usual arrogant persona to insult and berate her as a fool ("I am Einstein with a gun!") and celebrates not falling for the "joke." It takes being hauled before his ''very'' angry supervisor for Myles to realize his huge mistake.
* An episode of ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody'' revolved around a haunted hotel room. They decide to spend the night in it, and weird stuff, including everyone but Zack disappearing, starts happening. Turns out it was all a prank to get back at Zack for the pranks he pulls. Later Zack and Cody go back to get Cody's blanket, and a woman (whose portrait is in the room) walks up to them and hands them the blanket. After they thank her, she walks into the portrait. The episode ends with Zack and Cody running and screaming. Interestingly, the portrait did come to life and speak to Zack while the prank was going on (she even said "''they're'' out to get you", in retrospect a warning that it was a prank by his friends), but Zack never brings this up while they're explaining the hoax to him.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Taggart}}'' the team are investigating a series of murders centering round an alleged medium. The medium claims to DCI Jardine that he is receiving messages for him from the late Jim Taggart and backs this claim up with a number of facts only someone who knew Taggart could know. Later on Jardine discovers that Taggart actually investigated a crime involving the medium. When confronted with this, the medium agrees but says that in fact he never met Taggart himself.
* In ''Series/TalesFromTheDarkside'' episode "Seasons of Belief," parents at a snowy cottage tell their kids of "the Grither," a twisted monster who comes closer whenever anyone says their name. They even sing a song about it with the kids, of course, playing along with what they assume is a joke. They get a scare from their dad dressed in the costume and laugh it off. Cue a pair of monstrous hands bursting through the windows to snap the necks of the mother and grandfather before the children's eyes and then vanish into the night.
-->'''Father''': What the hell was that?!
-->'''Daughter''': It was the---
-->'''Son''': No, don't say his name!
* On the ''Series/TalesOfTheGoldMonkey'' episode "Legends Are Forever,' Jake meets his old friend Grandy Dancer, an AdventurerArchaeologist who has a bad case of CannotTellFictionFromReality. He truly believes James Hilton visited [[Literature/LostHorizon Shangri-Li]] and that Creator/HRiderHaggard really did find Literature/KingSolomonsMines. He pulls Jake into an adventure to find the vast treasure he's convinced is kept by the humble Watusi tribe. The pair get into a wild fight with Gandy poisoned and moaning he's wasted his life and abandoned his daughter for a futile quest for treasure. Having tracked the clues to find an empty cavern, Jake tells the dying Gandy he saw a vast chamber of riches so his friend can die happy. Back in civilization, Jake tells friend Corky that he feels bad accepting a small bag from the Watusi for Gandy's daughter as those people can barely afford anything...and then opens it to show a pile of uncut diamonds worth a fortune.
-->'''Corky''': Jake...you don't think...
-->''(Jake just gives a slow shake of wonder)''
* A non-supernatural example from ''Series/ThatsSoRaven''. Raven has a vision that the high school's new janitor is "undercover", and guesses that he's actually a scout from ''Undercover Superstar'', a ShowWithinAShow that uses spies to discover talented teens. This leads to [[MusicalEpisode all of the main characters performing elaborate production numbers]] for the janitor...who turns out to be "undercover" in the sense that he's secretly searching the school for insects. After the truth comes out, another janitor approaches Raven and asks if anyone in the school is interested in music. Raven, who's sick of the whole idea by now, leaves... and misses the janitor removing "his" disguise and revealing herself to be Paula Abdul, [[GaveUpTooSoon who's working for "Undercover Superstar"]].
* ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'':
** In "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street", a town goes into a panic when they come to believe that aliens have landed nearby and that someone on their street might be helping them. [[spoiler:It turns out to be mass hysteria-- induced by the actual aliens, who want to turn the humans against each other by having them chase ''imaginary'' aliens.]] [[MagnificentBastard Tricky]].
** In "Nightmare At 20,000 Feet", a man who spent six months in an asylum is on a flight back home when he sees a strange creature on the wing of the plane. He becomes especially distressed when it begins tearing at the plane's engines, [[CassandraTruth but every time he tries to tell someone, the creature disappears]]. [[spoiler: After he steals a police officer's gun and opens the emergency exit to kill it, it gets him sent back to the asylum. However, as he's being carted off, the camera pans to reveal the damage the creature did to the wing.]]
** In "Mr. Garrity and the Graves," the titular Garrity is a traveling medicine man in the Old West who claims to be able to resurrect the dead. [[spoiler:He is a charlatan who counts on everyone deciding they'd rather let the dead stay buried and paying him a premium to do it. Naturally, his phony rituals and incantations end up being more effective than he thought...]]
* One episode of ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen'' has Charlie experimenting with marijuana. He ends up having hallucinations of his ex-girlfriends (and Music/ZZTop). After he makes a date with [[spoiler:Rose]], it's revealed she is the only one who's real.
* Most of the season 3 premiere of ''Series/UnderTheDome'' takes place in an artificial reality. [[spoiler:Christine and Eva]] appear to be manifestations of that reality, but it turns out that although everything else about them is a lie, they are in fact real.
* In ''Series/VeronicaMars'' it is clear that our titular heroine's [[DeadPersonConversation dreams and conversations with her dead friend Lilly]] are happening in her head, and after Lilly's murder is solved they stop. However the second season episode 'Normal is the Watchword' has Lilly briefly appear and save Veronica's life by distracting her at a key moment--the implication being that her (Lilly's) ghost intervened directly.
* ''Series/{{Victorious}}'': Cat's date Tug in "Prom Wrecker", though it isn't until a disbelieving Robbie bails on her that he actually shows up.
* ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' season 3 episode "Case Closed" was about an alleged government cover-up of an UFO several decades ago. A few unreliable accounts and an unfruitful search lead to nothing more than an empty chamber where it seemed the government had created a living environment for this so-called alien, which is empty. The episode then rolls into the average fight scene at the climax of the story like all others, and has a fairly mellow ending... until an old tape is found that was supposed to be destroyed by the government, and it shows evidence of a real alien being discovered, though only a hand to maintain some realism and avoid dipping into science fiction.
* There's a non-supernatural variation in ''Series/{{Weeds}}''. Shane claims he saw a mountain lion and shot it with a BB gun, but when Nancy finds out the neighbor's cat has disappeared, she finds the timing suspicious and thinks Shane's imagination has got the better of him. Shane insists he knows the difference between a mountain lion and a cat, but Nancy is unconvinced. Then at the end of the episode, she steps outside and finds herself face to face with a very real mountain lion.
* A HalloweenEpisode of ''Series/{{Wishbone}}'' had an appropriately mild example. Joe is afraid of a local old manor, which is believed to be a HauntedHouse, because when he was a kid, he went inside and saw [[TheDarknessGazesBack a pair of glowing eyes]], the incident leaving him scared since. Towards the end of the episode, Joe and his friends see the eyes, [[CatScare just before the stray black cat]] that Wishbone had been chasing throughout the episode came running out. Joe then comes to the conclusion that the cat had been what he saw all those years ago, ending his fear. However, after the kids leave, another pair of cat-sized eyes appeared for the audience to see.
* ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'': In "Altared States", Xena and Gabrielle go to a monotheistic kingdom and find that King Anteus has ordered his son Ikus to be sacrificed because God told him to. Xena and Gabrielle find the idea of the One God silly because they know and have met the Olympian Gods, but protect Ikus and investigate. They find out Anteus' other son, Mael, jealous of his brother, drugged his father and used a megaphone to fake God's voice and order the sacrifice. As Anteus captures Ikus and steels himself to do the sacrifice, Xena battles Mael while Gabrielle tries to reach the megaphone to imitate God and call it off. Just in time, God's voice tells Anteus not to kill his son and his faith is enough. As Xena defeats Mael, she congratulates Gabrielle on imitating the voice, but she says she was still trying to retrieve the megaphone. The two become scared and look up.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'', "[[Recap/TheXFilesS03E22Quagmire Quagmire]]". Mulder and Scully investigate a lake where a Nessie-like monster is rumored to exist. After narrowly surviving an encounter with and killing the "monster", they discover that it was a giant alligator all along. Moments after they leave to report a false lead to Skinner, the ''real'' monster mockingly pops up from the lake.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatiansTheSeries'':
** In the episode "Goose Pimples", Lt. Pug scares the pups with a story about a monster named Lockjaw. Throughout the episode, some characters believe that Lockjaw may be in the woods, while others think there's a rational explanation. In the end, what they thought was Lockjaw was just Captain the horse going around the woods trying to give the pups a hay ride. Although in the very last scene, it turns out that Lockjaw was real, and Cadpig is seen trying to mediate a conflict between him and Pug. Apparently Lockjaw didn't like all the mean stories Pug was spreading about him.
** In the episode "Invasion of the Doggy Snatchers", Spot believes that her friends have been replaced by aliens. Though that turns out to not be the case, one of the chickens that Spot befriends in the episode does turn out to be an alien.
* ''WesternAnimation/AaahhRealMonsters'': One episode had the ThreeAmigos trapped in a severely haunted house, the rub being that while monsters exist, ''ghosts'' do not (this is repeatedly stated by [[strike:Hermione]] Oblina). It turned out that the house was the bunker/battle ground for a soldier monster who caused all of the strange happenings--except one. [[spoiler:All four monsters [[ImpactSilhouette quickly leave]], and the house resumes ''all'' of its disturbing behavior.]]
* The ''WesternAnimation/AceVentura: Pet Detective'' AnimatedAdaptation, episode about "G.C." used the "helpful person was dead all along" variant.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAddamsFamily1992'' had an episode called "Puttergeist", which revolved around the legend of a golfer ghost with a giant golf ball for a head appearing every Halloween. It initially turns out that the Puttergeist is nothing more than a publicity stunt performed by the Normanmeyer family for generations, but the very end of the episode shows that the Puttergeist actually exists.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'':
** Subverted multiple times before being played straight in "Phantom of Retroville": The tale of a ghost at an amusement park is told, and Jimmy, being [[ArbitrarySkepticism Jimmy]], decides to disprove it. The first phantom encountered throughout the episode turns out to be [[BadButt Nick]] in a costume. Then another phantom shows up, but is quickly revealed to be Cindy and Libby, also in costume. Then ''another'' phantom shows up, this one having a [[LightIsNotGood sinister glow]], and succeeds in scaring the kids into running away, but turns out to be Judy Neutron in a more elaborate costume, with the goal of [[ScareEmStraight scaring the kids]] for sneaking out at night in mind. Then, while she and Hugh have an [[ItMakesSenseInContext argument about pie]], a fourth phantom rises out of the ground, this one translucent and glowing purple, scaring the two away.
--->"[[VoiceOfTheLegion Ohh,]] [[AffablyEvil what about cranberry?]]"
** Being a person of logic and science, Jimmy Neutron didn't believe in Santa Claus (it didn't help that he didn't get the present he wanted two years prior), but soon learns that there are some things that can't be proven with facts (except how the present he wanted needed five years before it was finally ready, and he feels silly for not realizing the process).
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'':
** In the episode "The Creeps", all the characters are seemingly killed one by one by an evil ghost. It is finally revealed that the whole thing was a practical joke organised by Jake that all the others helped with... and then Jake denies being responsible for the ghost sighting and poltergeist activity experienced by Finn after he thought that he was the sole survivor. A later episode returns to this and explains the nature and origins of the real ghost in detail.
** The episode "Fionna and Cake and Fionna" double-subverts this. Ice King's GenderBentAlternateUniverse character Fionna apparently turns out to be real when she arrives to visit him and has a video tape of one of her adventures as "proof". However, it turns out she was actually a rabbit woman who learned about Fionna and Cake when she caught some radio waves transmitting one of their adventures on her television, and she was scamming Ice King to try and find more "tapes" of Fionna and Cake, whom she believes must be from some old tv show. But then when Ice King goes to sleep that night, a strange red light starts beaming Fionna and Cake's adventures into his head, implying both his brain and the rabbit woman's television actually caught inter-dimensional images of the ''real'' Fionna and Cake's adventures.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "Christmas", Richard accidentally runs over a homeless man who he (and the children) believe to be Santa, who turns out to be the real thing.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "The Two Hundred", the eponymous Two Hundred was revealed midway through the episode to be just Roger, who admits he made them up and pretended to be the Two Hundred to scare people and collect the things they dropped, having amassed a large spoon collection by doing this. Towards the end of the episode, however, as the reunited Smith family are pitted against a mob of survivors, they are all suddenly attacked by the ''real'' Two Hundred, who turn out to be [[LiteralSplitPersonality a large group of Roger's many personas]]. Roger himself initially doesn't believe this until he remembers [[spoiler:he walked into a hadron collider demonstration, creating the Two Hundred and thus being responsible for TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt]].
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/AngelaAnaconda'' has the entire class teasing Angela about being in love with "Bob": a fictional kid on a flash card after she created the sentence "I love Bob and hot chocolate" with them. The episode ends with a kid who looks and dresses identically being transferred into the class, who is actually named Bob. He even becomes a [[RememberTheNewGuy background character]] from then on and even dons the "Bob" t-shirt from the flash card!
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'' episode "Omega Beaver", Daggett becomes convinced of the existence of the Howler Leeches from a conspiracy comic book, eventually being attacked by a group. After it's revealed that the leeches were actually Norbert and their friends playing a trick on Daggett ([[DeadlyPrank following him siccing a vicious leech-killing dog on them]]), it's revealed to the viewers that the leeches ''are'' real. Thankfully, they appear to be rather benign and instead leave with the frozen dog (who then proceeds to maul them in their spaceship as they leave Earth).
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'':
** In "D.W.'s Snow Mystery", it's revealed that aliens really did take the snowball D.W. was hiding in the freezer.
** In "The Fright Stuff", the girl in a ghost costume who played a prank on Binky and George turns out to be a real ghost.
** In a variant, Arthur and Buster have become convinced that there are dangerous exotic animals loose all over their town and a conspiracy is covering this up, partly by news stories about missing dogs, and a "tiger hunter" they see with a trap in a park. It turns out the whole thing was a social experiment by Brain - except that he had nothing to do with the "tiger hunter", who was a crazy person abducting people's dogs. At the end of the episode, he's arrested and the dogs are returned to their owners.
* In the Season 3 episode of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' titled 'The Painted Lady', the heroes encounter a small fishing village that is dying out because of pollution caused by the Fire Nation. Shenanigans occur while Katara masquerades as the Painted Lady, the patron spirit of the river and the village, and saves the day despite her ploy coming to light. Valuable lessons are learned regarding honesty and hard work, and it appears that the Painted Lady exists only in the hearts and imaginations of the village. The end! Oh, except for the part where after all this, right before they leave, the REAL Painted Lady appears to Katara to thank her for all that she's done.
* In "The Wisdom Toad" from ''WesternAnimation/BabarAndTheAdventuresOfBadou'', there's supposedly a toad called the Wisdom Toad that supposedly knows the right answer to everything. However, it turns out that says "Yep" every time a question is posed of it. When Crocodylus tries to use it to trick the crocodiles into making him leader, Badou discovers a whole pond of these toads and finds that some of them say "Yep" and some "Nope." He therefore pulls a swap, swapping the supposed "Wisdom Toad" for one of the ones that says "Nope," so that when Crocodylus asks it if he should be leader, this is what it says. Afterwards, he shows the pond of frogs to the true crocodile leader and everyone present agrees that it was never a good idea to let a toad choose the leader. Everyone clears out except for Badou and Babar, and Badou asks Babar if he thinks it's possible that there could be a ''real'' Wisdom Toad. A voice calls out from the pond: "Maybe."
* In the episode "Grundy's Night" of ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'', after Solomon Grundy is revealed to be Clayface in disguise, a real zombie hand reaches out of the swamp. Ooooh...
* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPugwash'' once came up with the brilliant idea of using a fake sea serpent to scare the crews of other ships into running for the lifeboats so that he and his crew could rob them blind. (ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything, the crew of the Black Pig most assuredly were not!) Just after the grand scheme had gone hilariously pear-shaped in a way that [[HypercompetentSidekick Tom the cabin-boy]] couldn't get his boss out of, a ''real'' sea monster showed up and succeeded where the fake had failed.
* ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'' has "Is Anybody Out There?" After the "ghost" is revealed to be a monster created by XANA, the episode ends with Sissi trying to summon the ghost after a Return to the Past. Sissi and her friends are scared off by a spooky voice, but it turns out to be Odd and Ulric playing a joke. But then they leave and we see the boiler door shut and hear a ghostly moan...
* ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'' has "The Prophecy". Stacy finds what she believes is a prophecy foretelling that one of the Deathmatch staff dies tonight. Throughout the episode it looks at several points like one of them will bite it (Nick gets shocked by a faulty microphone, Stone Cold gets run over by a moose, Mills Lane almost spontaneously combusts, and finally a plane crashes into Johnny), but they all survive. At the end, Stacy admits that she made a mistake. [[spoiler:Then she explodes, killing her.]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'' episode "Courage Under the Volcano", Courage has to save Muriel from being sacrificed by the natives to a volcano god. For most of the episode, we are given the impression that the volcano god isn't real and that the natives are just being superstitious. After the natives' leader Chief Wiki Wiki points out that Courage proved there is no volcano god, the volcano god proves that he actually does exist and in the process reveals to the natives that a man named Otto is trying to force them off the island in order to turn the place into a ski resort.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' episode "Quackpack!", Donald Duck accidentally traps the main cast in a stereotypical 90s sitcom set after making a wish for a "normal family" that was overheard by a genie that had been trapped in the lamp since 1990. Donald at first refuses to wish everything back to normal until Goofy, who had suddenly appeared as a result of his wish, has a heart-to-heart with Donald, convincing him to undo the wish and poofing everyone back where they started. To everyone's surprise, Goofy is still there with them, as the genie didn't create him, but instead teleported him to their location because (in his own words), "magic has nothing over the power of a big-name guest star".
* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'': After ten long years of [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane flirting with the idea that]] [[CompanionCube Plank]] may be more than just an ordinary piece of wood, WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddysBigPictureShow wraps up the mystery by ''[[NotSoImaginaryFriend confirming]]'' that Plank is indeed sapient and capable of moving around and interacting with his environment independently of Jonny (Plank ends up ''driving a bus'' around town).
* ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewSchool'': Yzma used fake aliens in a failed attempt to become Empress and she constantly told Kronk aliens didn't exist. In the end, Kronk met real aliens but didn't believe it.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "The Fat Guy Strangler" featured a particularly crude version of this. Lois discovers that she has a younger brother named Patrick who's been in an asylum for decades. She brings him home and he seems fairly well-adjusted...except for the fact that he has an [[ImaginaryFriend Imaginary Wife]]. Brian and Stewie have a field day with this, taking a cucumber and placing it on the couch (supposedly where the "wife" is sitting), joking that they're putting it inside "her" vagina to pickle. [[BrickJoke Later in the episode]], Lois is looking for Patrick when she notices something and calls out "Who left this pickle on the couch?" Stewie and Brian hear her and express utter delight.
* In ''WesternAnimation/FairlyOddParents'' episode "Crocker of Gold", Cosmo kept spouting about a being called [[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} the Great Potato]]. Towards the climax of the episode where Timmy and the fairies [[ItsALongStory were in danger of being boiled by angry leprechauns]], Cosmo claimed that the Great Potato would save them, to which Wanda snapped at him and told him there was no such thing as the Great Potato. At that moment, the Great Potato shows up to save them, [[TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight much to Wanda and Timmy's shock]].
* When Barney Rubble sees a sea serpent in the ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'', his response is to tell Fred "I was reading this article where this scientist says there's absolutely no proof for the existence of sea monsters". Fred says so what and Barney delivers a punch line of "So I wonder if that sea monster believes in scientists".
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFunkyPhantom'':
** At the end of the episode the "ghost" was usually shown to be a fake a la Franchise/ScoobyDoo, but in a couple of episodes one of the guest characters turned out to be a real ghost.
** An episode had a real Bigfoot running around in addition to the fraud.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', while searching for Nibbler in the sewers, the Planet Express crew discovers a tribe of mutants defending themselves from "El Chupanibre", a creature that has been stealing their [[SewerGator crocodiles]]. Knowing that Nibbler likes to eat crocodiles, the crew thinks that he's the one the mutants are referring to and offer to help catch him. Upon finding Nibbler, Bender presents the mutants their "El Chupanibre"...only for the mutants to tell him that El Chupanibre is actually the giant monster [[RightBehindMe standing right behind him]].
* ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'':
** In "Unidentified Flying Orson", Roy pranks Orson with a fake alien invasion. Real aliens show up at the end.
** "Barn of Fear" had the gang frightened in a barn by "ghosts" that turn out to be Orson's brothers trying to scare them off so they can steal the harvest. Then the brothers are attacked and driven out of the barn by floating objects. Orson dismisses the event as an earthquake, but after they all leave it is shown to be the spirits of departed farmers haunting the barn.
** In "Heatwave Holiday," Garfield, Jon, and Odie deal with the titular heatwave by setting up a Christmas display in the middle of July. Soon, everyone in town follows suit, and the group even exchanges presents--right before a news announcement reminds everyone that it's still, you know, ''July.'' That night, as Garfield sleeps, we hear sleigh bells; the fat cat wakes up and goes into the next room, where he speaks to someone just offscreen: "Oh, it's you...no, it's not Christmas. Sorry." Garfield goes back to bed and comments "You'd think of all people, ''he'' would know better"--and a loud "HO HO HO!" is heard outside the house.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow'':
** The special "Long Lost Lyman" revealed that the reason Jon's friend Lyman hasn't been seen in years was because he went missing searching for a cryptid known as the Zabadu. When Jon eventually reunites with his old friend, it at first appears that the Zabadu isn't real and was only a disguise used by Lyman and his predecessor to defend endangered wildlife by scaring away poachers. At the end of the special, the Zabadu turns out to actually exist when the creature shows up to scare off the special's villain Dirk Dinkum.
** The episode "The Very, Very Long Night" has Garfield, Odie, Drusilla and Minerva scared from watching a horror film about a monster known as the Creature with Tentacles. After they and Jon go to bed, the episode ends with the monster turning out to be real.
* ''WesternAnimation/GooberAndTheGhostChasers'' often featured the real ghost helping the gang against the fake ghost (sometimes the fake ghost is also pretending to be the real ghost).
* In ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', this trope would appear a lot since it's a show about kids who look for supernatural weird stuff in a creepy town, but they usually find out it's real in the middle of the episode. The only exception is in the episode "[[Recap/GravityFallsS1E2TheLegendOfTheGobblewonker The Legend of the Gobblewonker]]", where the titular sea serpent was revealed to be an automaton made by Old Man [=McGucket=]. [[spoiler:But at the end, the last disposable camera Dipper got to photograph the monster sinks to the bottom of the lake, passing a large sea serpent swimming around, making whale noises...]] Later in "[[Recap/GravityFallsS2E7SocietyOfTheBlindEye Society of the Blind Eye]]", [[spoiler:a recording shows [=McGucket=] freaking out about a monster he saw in the lake, implying he saw the real Gobblewonker and designed his robot after it.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/GrowingUpCreepie'', despite its short run pulled this often:
** In one episode, a "haunted" theater is revealed to have just had a termite infestation--except for the part where the termites are eventually revealed to actually be ghosts.
** In another episode, after Creepie and friends fail to find Bugfoot, the camera zooms out to show that the wilderness they're in is actually located on said giant arthropod's back.
** "Legend of the Locker" has Creepie hearing from Josh about the legend of a girl named Gina Red-Shoes, [[DisproportionateRetribution who was locked in the equipment room just for losing a game of baseball]]. Creepie goes to investigate it, only to find Josh behind it. To get revenge, she got a bunch of fireflies to go into the red shoes to scare him away, while a cicada make ghostly sounds. Creepie then goes about her business, only for Gina's ghost to spawn as soon as she leaves the scene.
** "Children of the Pumpkin Patch" has Creepie and friends going to a pumpkin patch, worried about the scarecrow nearby that reminds them of an antagonist from a horror flick. The scarecrow indeed appears to be haunted, only for it to be revealed to be some guy trying to scare away potential customers. At the end of the episode, the gang leave the pumpkin patch, only to see Chris-Alice's mom sitting in the back with them [[WhoIsDriving instead of behind the wheel]]. Cue the haunted scarecrow.
* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' was also very fond of this trope, having several horror-based episodes with this sort of ending. Heck, the fact that there are more examples listed below than anything else on this page in a SliceOfLife show than an actual show that's supernatural or science fiction in nature is '''really''' insane.
** "Haunted Train" was an episode where Arnold, Helga, and Gerald heard the story of a train that takes you straight to a "fiery underworld" with the ghost of the conductor who'd supposedly driven the original off the tracks and down into the underworld. The kids go check it out and sure enough a train shows up and takes them through a hellish scene, just like in the story. It turns out it was just an average train that passed through a steelworks. At the end the train races past with the ghost conductor sitting on the front, playing accordion and singing the urban legend.
** "Wheezin' Ed" tells the story of the gangster Wheezin' Ed and his treasure, located out on Elk Island and hidden in one of the caves. Intrigued by the promise of treasure, Arnold, Gerald, and several of the supporting characters head out to the caves where instead of a ghost they come across two counterfeiters. They end up saved and the counterfeiters arrested while the scene ends with the sound of Wheezin' Ed's laughter echoing through the cave.
** "Ghost Bride" finds Gerald telling the story of [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids a woman who, left on her wedding day by a groom in love with her sister, puts on her wedding dress, grabs an ax and kills both her ex-fiancee and sister before jumping out the window to her own death.]] Every year on the same day, the ghost of the bride returns to the cemetery looking for fresh victims, humming the wedding march the whole time. Of course the children decide to meet up that night at the cemetery. The boys are then chased through the graveyard by Helga dressed up as the bride, and later by Curly. After agreeing that there's no ghost bride, the group minus Curly leave...and then he hears humming.
** "Headless Cabbie" has the boys at the sleepover, telling scary stories. Arnold tells of a cabbie who finds himself approached by a woman, mourning the loss of her little dog. She asks for a ride through the park and gets into the carriage, offering the cabbie her scarf because it's such a cold night. When she hears barking she becomes mad, encouraging him to go dangerously fast, until a man with a golden hook for an arm causes him to swerve off the road, the scarf getting caught in the tree and taking his head off. When the boys go through the same park for ice cream later...they believe they're being chased by the cabbie who is eventually revealed to be Ernie, driving a carriage to earn more money. It ends with him being approached by the same woman, mourning the loss of her dog and offering him her scarf.
** In "Four-Eyed Jack", Grandpa tells Arnold and Gerald a story about a MadScientist who lived in the boarding house and was killed by an exploding bean experiment. Afterwards, weird things start to happen that fit the tale. After the events are revealed to be coincidental to Grandpa and his secret bathroom, the boys go to bed and Gerald (who had been dismissing it the entire time) wakes up to Four-Eyed Jack who had come back for his glasses and halfheartedly scares him.
--->[[FlatScare "Um... Boo.]]"
** In "Sid The Vampire Slayer", Sid thinks Stinky is a vampire, but is seemingly proven wrong when he notices Stinky has a reflection. At the very end when Stinky is alone with a bat, he grows fangs, meaning he ''is'' a vampire. This is [[GainaxEnding weird]] even by the standards of the ''other'' episodes, as those at least involved urban legends and not a significant character.
* Used as a DoubleSubversion in ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'', "The Chan Who Knew Too Much": Jackie tries to stop a villainous group of modern-day druids who believe Stonehenge is an ancient magical WeaponOfMassDestruction and intend to activate it; he dismisses their claim as a crackpot theory, along the same lines as people who think it's a landing beacon for [=UFOs=]. At the climax, they ''succeed''... but nothing happens. Later, after the disappointed druids are arrested by Interpol, [[BrickJoke a UFO appears]], drawn by the signal of the activation.
* In ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'' episode "Luck of the Irish", Gadget encounters a pair of [=MAD=] agents that short and dressed in green, in the disguise of leprechauns. Later on, when Penny is stuck in a hole without her backpack to help her escape, when it mysteriously falls down to her. After the [=MAD=] agents are captured and Dr. Claw's plan is foiled, Penny is still left wondering how her backpack was knocked down to her. The audience is then shown a trio of real leprechauns hiding nearby.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'', "Mardi Gras": Jem and the group are invited to stay at a haunted hotel where there are strange things happening. People assume it's the ghost of a pirate that loved Lily Rose. Jem is able to use a hologram of him to scare a boy band hired by the Misfits to screw up Jem's group. It turns out the stolen stuff was stolen by a descendant of the pirate's pet, a monkey named Francis. At the end, the ghosts of the pirate and Lily Rose appear.
* The ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'' episode "Tooth or Consequences" has Johnny tell Little Suzy that the ToothFairy isn't real. After feeling bad about shattering her hopes and dreams, Johnny tries to make things right by impersonating the Tooth Fairy. After his efforts to grant Suzy's wishes to prove he really is the Tooth Fairy end in him getting arrested and Suzy admitting she knew it was really Johnny all along, the real Tooth Fairy shows up. As a BrickJoke, the Easter Bunny also turns out to be real when Suzy had earlier stated that she knew the EasterBunny didn't exist and Johnny belted out a BigNo after [[DelayedReaction he grasps what Suzy said]].
* ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest'' [=TOS=]:
** In the episode "Monster in the Monastery", a group of Communists dress up as yeti to scare a group of monks. They're eventually discovered dead, ripped to pieces by an unknown force. At the end of the episode, a real yeti, the one that killed them, is seen walking into the mountains.
** In another episode, a con-man kidnapped half the protagonists and tried to convince the other half they'd vanished magically in the Bermuda Triangle, in an attempt to get at a sunken treasure. He does get it, and makes his escape. By boat. Through the Bermuda Triangle. [[LaserGuidedKarma Guess how that turned out.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuestTheRealAdventures'':
** In "AMOK", the main characters encounter a peaceful tribe in Borneo, living in hiding, who protect their village's secrecy via having someone dress as a local legendary monster, the titular Amok (which looks like a hybrid of a gorilla, baboon and sloth) to scare away outsiders. Later, everybody is captured by drug smugglers, who plan to execute the villagers for interfering in their business. Jonny escapes and together with, as he assumes, the guy in the Amok costume, manages to free everybody and capture the smugglers, except for their leader, James Compton, who escapes into the jungle. When Jonny thanks the guy in the costume for his help, he claims to have been captured alongside everybody else and was with them the whole time. As the episode ends, the characters suddenly hear Compton's terrified screams, as he begs for something to stay back, followed by a monstrous roar, coming from the jungle.
** In "The Spectre of the Pine Barrens", TheJerseyDevil appears to be just a descendant of the Minutemen in a costume. In the ending, the real Devil appears and passes Team Quest a container with the original Declaration of Independence.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', Kim and Ron find out they had [[IdenticalGrandson identical ancestors]] living in the 1800s. The episode turns out to be AllJustADream. WordOfGod said that it really did happen. Even ignoring this, it's still an example as afterwards, Kim and Ron find out they did have identical ancestors, albeit living in Ancient Rome.
* The ''Literature/LittleCritter'' cartoon "Just Me and My Dad" has a creature called [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti Bigpaw]], which is believed to be an urban legend. At the end of the cartoon, the creature is shown happily eating a bag of nuts.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheMask'' animated series, a crime wave perpetrated by criminals dressed as Santa Claus prompts the mayor to decree wearing a Santa costume ground for immediate arrest. This causes the real Santa to be thrown in jail.
* In the Goofy and Max segment of ''WesternAnimation/MickeysOnceUponAChristmas'', Max's faith in Santa is shaken. The real Santa shows up at the end.
* ''WesternAnimation/MovilleMysteries'': The local ConspiracyTheorist drags Mo into investigating the MysteryMeat in the school cafeteria, since it's really good (and cafeteria food that tastes good is unnatural) and it glows in the dark. He is convinced it's alien in origin, and all the evidence Mo finds seems to confirm this. The two of them confront the lunch lady while she is in a meeting with two guys from the mystery meat company. She reveals the heinous secret behind mystery meat: it's not made by aliens, it's made of tofu. All of the kids are immediately disgusted that they've been eating something that's ''healthy'' and renounce mystery meat for good, causing the distributors to cancel their contract with the school. After they leave, Mo asks the lunch lady why the mystery meat glowed in the dark. She says she didn't ''know'' it glowed in the dark. Cue a shot of the meat guys driving down the road, and their cars turning into [=UFOs=] and flying away.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''
** One episode revolves around a ruined castle supposedly haunted by the Pony of Shadows, but all the odd things in the castle turn out to have a mundane explanation. TheStinger reveals that the Pony of Shadows (or at least ''something'' strange, as the ''real'' Pony of Shadows was actually SealedEvilInACan) is real after all.
** The next episode revolves around the Mane 6 going off to meet the creator of their favorite fictional character, Daring Do. The shocker for them comes once they discover that the author and Daring Do are one and the same! And those villains she fights in her stories? They're real too!
** In the in-universe story in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS6E8AHearthsWarmingTail A Hearth's Warming Tail]]", Snowfall Frost is of the opinion that the Windigos are nothing but a myth. Turns out they're very much real.
** Season 7 has Twilight telling sick foals in a hospital a story about a monster named Grogar and how Gusty the Great defeated him. Season 9 reveals that not only were Grogar and Gusty the Great real, Grogar himself is now the ArcVillain. [[spoiler:Even with the later reveal "this" Grogar was just Discord in disguise, the existence of Grogar's [[ArtifactOfDoom magic bell]] sealed behind a powerful barrier created by Gusty is proof both of them did in fact exist.]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTales'' episode "Slumber Party", Patch tells a ghost story that scares the others and makes them check the attic for signs of the ghost, but find nothing but a cat. In the last scene, Patch is surprised when the ghost appears to her and thanks her for helping keep his legend alive.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfSuperman'': In "The Ghost of Castle Kilbane", two brothers stage a ScoobyDooHoax and pretend to be ghosts in order to drive Jimmy and Lois away from the castle. In doing so, they accidentally summon up a real ghost.
* In ''WesternAnimation/OggyAndTheCockroaches'' episode "The Ghost Hunter", Oggy kills the roaches after watching a horror movie. The ending is scarier as the monsters from the movie emerge from the floor!
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'':
** "That's the Spirit" [[LampshadeHanging Lampshades]] and then [[SubvertedTrope subverts it]]. After discovering the haunted house was just a Halloween hoax, Phineas says "Isn't this the moment in one of these things when someone really turns into a ghost?". Spooky music plays, the camera focuses on the family behind the hoax for a moment before Russell just says "Dude that's it", and they wander off.
** In the original airing, this episode was followed by "The Curse of Candace", where Candace spends most of the episode thinking she's a vampire due to some of Phineas's and Ferb's preset experiments. At the very end, they clear up the misunderstanding, she takes off her cloak... and then she crumples into ashen dust. So in a way, this is a [[DoubleSubversion double subverted]] BrickJoke.
* In ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' episode "Beach Blanket Brain", during a trip to the beach for Brain's latest plan to TakeOverTheWorld, Pinky goes on about wanting to meet sea chimps, which he read about in comics, much to Brain's consertation. At the end of the episode, when the pair is leaving, Pinky, who didn't see any sea chimps, figures that Brain was right. Brain then hesitantly tells him that when he went underwater while surfing, some''thing'' helped him get back to shore.
-->'''Pinky:''' Egad! Was it a sea chimp?\\
''(Cut to a shot of a trio of giggling sea chimps on rocks below Pinky and Brain's car)''
-->'''Brain:''' Either that, or I've spent too much time in the sun.
* In ''WesternAnimation/PoundPuppies2010'', it is a common twist whenever a supernatural/out of the ordinary element is involved that the supernatural element is actually real.
** The titular character in "Zoltron" initially appears to just be a dog who believes he's an alien, but after he's reunited with the family who owns him, the car they drive in starts flying into the sky.
** In the ChristmasEpisode "I Heard the Barks on Christmas Eve", Chris Jingles (the canine equivalent of Santa Claus) is revealed to be real in spite of Patches and Cupcakes' disbelief in him.
** The episode "No More S'mores" has Strudel inspired by one of the campers' stories to build a fake swamp monster disguise and use it to make Millard face his fears and rescue his perfect person Jennifer. While things don't go as planned, Millard does end up adopted by Jennifer and the Pound Puppies state how glad they are that swamp monsters aren't real. The very end of the episode shows an actual swamp monster, who isn't amused by the idea that his kind eats people.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'': In "Yes, Mikey, Santa Does Shave", Mikey has a crisis of faith about Santa, but rallies after an inspiring conversation with an old man who turns out at the end to be Santa himself.
* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'':
** In one episode, a bunch of wacky new characters ("Ghost in a Jar," "Reverse Giraffe," etc.) are introduced in RememberTheNewGuy fashion. Eventually, the Smiths discover that they are actually all alien parasites who can implant false memories, and start shooting them all to make them reveal their true forms. However, one new character ("Mr. Poopybutthole") doesn't turn back, showing that he actually was a close friend of the family.
** In the Season 3 premier, Rick shows his Galactic Federation interrogator a set of FakeMemories about the day he invented the Portal Gun in order to hack the Brainalyzer from the inside and escape the LotusEaterMachine, where supposedly an alternate version of himself killed his version of Beth and Diane. [[spoiler:The season 5 finale reveals the backstory to be completely real: an alternate version of him ''did'' kill his world's Beth and Diane, causing Rick to fall into a downward spiral, and the only fabricated part of the memory is that Rick invented the Portal Gun instantly after the incident, when it actually happened years later when he decided to go on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge.]]
** In the season 5 premiere, Rick uses a portal to a universe running on NarniaTime to [[MundaneUtility age wine for a dinner party]], periodically sending Morty through the portal to collect it. Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding, the inhabitants of the dimension see Morty as a demonic child who periodically appears in their world to wreak havoc. Due to the [[YearInsideHourOutside nature of time in the other dimension]], decades pass between Morty's visits, leading to a coup against the royal family out of belief they're squandering resources pursuing a legend...only for Morty to emerge from the portal seconds after the rebels have won, prompting the rebels to [[MassOhCrap freak out]] at the realisation the legend of the devil child was true after all before Morty kills them all.
-->'''Rebel leader''': [[MotiveRant I was born in the pits that made these stones. I lost my years building a temple to a lie. So I made lies my power. And what is power but a lie we]]... ''[the portal reopens and an extremely annoyed and heavily armed Morty emerges]'' Oh shit, he's real! He's real! I was wrong, so wrong! God is real-! ''[Morty shoots him]''
* In the ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' HalloweenEpisode, after Rocko and Heffer chase after a crazed Filbert to the cemetery, they encounter the legendary Hopping Hessian. Afterwards a one year TimeSkip, it shows that [[PunchClockVillain he's actually a nice guy when he's not on the clock]], with him, Gordon the Foot, Rocko and Heffer looking at slides from the previous year. The twist then comes when the group is leaving and a nervous Filbert asks where those slides came from, specifically the last one which shows all five of them.
-->'''Filburt:''' Who took those pictures?\\
'''The rest of the characters:''' ''[JawDrop]''
* ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'': In one "{{Fractured Fairy Tale}}s" take on "Snow White", upon being told by her MagicMirror that the Snow White was the fairiest, the Queen continously went to the seven dwarves' cottage to give her a poison apple, only for the dwarves to talk her into a deal each time under the assumption it would help her become the fairest. Turns out the whole thing was a con by the dwarves in order to swindle the Queen out of everything she owned, with the mirror even being operated by one of the dwarves inside it. At the end of the cartoon, however, a portly woman arrived at their cottage, revealing that ''she'' was Snow White, much to the surprise of the lead dwarf, followed by delight as the dwarves had "[[HereWeGoAgain another pigeon]]".
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'', "The Santa Experience". Drew hires someone to play Santa at the lodge where the Pickles are celebrating Christmas, but the guy flakes out on him. Then Drew does a double-take when he realizes this is ''after'' a guy dressed like Santa Claus came in and gave gifts to all the kids.
* The ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo'' franchise itself has done this in some of its shows. And some of the DTV movies.
** In "A Night of Fright is No Delight", the will said the house is haunted yet for most of the episode it's a hoax, until a bone comes floating out of nowhere at the end. This is one scare that doesn't bother Scooby, though.
** In "Scooby's Roots", Grandad Scooby says a ghost haunts Scooby Manor, and it's a BedsheetGhost. Until they unmask the fake ghost as the real ghost of Great Grandpa Scooby!
** ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMeetsTheBooBrothers'': With all the ghosts being revealed as a hoax, Scooby impersonates the ghost of Shaggy's Uncle. Then when driving away Shaggy sees him standing on the road and tells Scooby to knock it off, who then reveals himself to be in the back of the truck this time.
** ''WesternAnimation/APupNamedScoobyDoo'': In an episode where the gang goes trick or treating they find an evil ghost pirate haunting the house. It's a hoax, but the rumors about the house being haunted are true; the real ghost is actually nice and hires the Scooby Doo Detective Agency.
** ''[[WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheAlienInvaders The Alien Invaders]]'' is a unique case, where the gang ends up needing to save the real aliens (who had been tagging along with the gang for most of the movie disguised as unremarkable characters) from the humans who had been pretending to be aliens!
** The film ''[[WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooCampScare Camp Scare]]'' has the gang being menaced by a trio of monsters. While it turns out the first two were the same guy in disguise, the post-credits scene reveals that the third wasn't a disguise: it was a real ghost!
** ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndKISSRockAndRollMystery'' played with this trope. It's implied that there may be ''two'' Crimson Witches: the real one wanted to use the the 'rock of Kisstera' as a tool for unleashing the Destroyer, the fake one wanted to sell it as a priceless diamond.
** In ''WesternAnimation/WhatsNewScoobyDoo'' episode "Reef Grief!" a coral monster was believed to be pulling people under the beach, but it was actually an [[ItMakesSenseInContext engineer disguised as a hippie digging a tunnel to New Zealand using hypnotized slaves]]. The monster was real, but had nothing to do with the hippie's plot and was actually benevolent, saving Scooby from drowning. The only reason it appeared at all is because of its home being disturbed by the tunnel construction. Once the digging stops, it goes back home without a fuss.
** In ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheLochNessMonster'', the plot advances like what you would expect from ''Scooby-Doo'', with it turning out that the ''two'' Loch Ness Monsters appearing throughout were homemade submarines/robots made by the same person with the intent of using them to convince a colleague that the monster is real (her cohorts just wanted to do it as a prank). After the villain ([[spoiler:unaffiliated to the hoaxers]]) is arrested, the gang sees pictures taken by a previously lost underwater camera taken at a much greater depth than the submarines could have operated at, which show flippers and other body parts of a completely different entity. As the gang drives off in the Mystery Machine, the ''real'' Loch Ness Monster briefly comes to the surface in the foreground before diving underwater again, unnoticed by everyone expect Scooby.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E1TreehouseOfHorrorXI Treehouse of Horror XI]]" combines this with a parody of ''Series/TheBradyBunch''. Lisa and Bart, playing Hansel and Gretel, are captured by a witch, who claims she needs to get ready before her boyfriend comes over. She says that his name is "George Cauldron," a deliberate reference to Jan Brady saying she had a boyfriend named "George Glass" after [[LineOfSightName seeing a drinking glass on her nightstand]]. After Homer saves the children from the witch by pushing her into the oven, a man arrives--his name is George Cauldron, and he's looking for the witch so they can go to a concert.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS16E16DontFearTheRoofer Don't Fear the Roofer]]", Homer makes friends with a roofer called Ray Magini, but when asked to prove the man's existence, he can't - because he fails to appear whenever Homer is sure he will. The fact that [[SignificantAnagram "Ray Magini" is an anagram of "imaginary"]] definitely does not help his case. Homer is sent for psychological treatment (electroshock)... and right after the treatment is done, Ray appears in front of everyone, proving Homer was right.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS18E14YokelChords Yokel Chords]]", Bart makes up a story about a cook named Dark Stanley who cannibalized school children in the past in order to steal his schoolmates' lunches. Later in the episode, while Bart's counselor is discussing with her own psychiatrist, it turns out that Dark Stanley was in fact real.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS26E16SkyPolice Sky Police]]", after Reverend Lovejoy calls Apu a heathen, Apu says that's offensive to the Hindu god Hanuman, who mistook the Sun for a mango, only to then admit he was right. At the episode's end, Homer says he still believes in God, and Hanuman himself appears.
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
** Parodied in "[[Recap/SouthParkS15E5CrackBabyAthleticAssociation Crack Baby Athletic Association]]", which does this with Music/{{Slash|Musician}}.
** "[[Recap/SouthParkS6E16MyFutureSelfNMe My Future Self 'N Me]]" features a number of kids' future selves landing in the present, and all of them just so happen to be drug-addicted losers. It turns out that they were actually actors hired by the kids' parents to [[ScareEmStraight scare them away from doing drugs]]. At the end of the episode Cartman declares that he actually learned a lesson from this and promises to clean up his life, lose weight, and become nicer. A man in a nice suit then walks up congratulating him on this decision, and introduces himself as the future Cartman, who considers this to be the defining moment of his life and assures the present Cartman that if he continues on this path, he'll grow up to own a time travel business and be very rich. Present Cartman assumes he's just another actor trying to trick him and says he's now going to live his life even worse than before out of spite. After he walks away, the future Cartman turns into a fat mechanic.
** In "[[Recap/SouthParkS10E6Manbearpig Manbearpig]]", UsefulNotes/AlGore is depicted as being an idiot for believing in the title monster. In the later "Imaginationland" episodes, Manbearpig is depicted as an evil resident, showing that he is imaginary. In "Time To Get Cereal", he finally appears in the real world causing havoc.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'':
** In the very first episode, "Help Wanted", [=SpongeBob=] wants to become a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, which Mr. Krabs considers him unfit for due to his clumsiness and naivete. With Squidward's help, Krabs sends him on a SnipeHunt to find a seemingly nonexistent "hydrodynamic spatula with port and starboard attachments" ("And don't forget the turbo drive!"). It turns out said spatula actually does exist, and [=SpongeBob=] found the last one in stock at the Barg'N Mart, much to the shock of both Squidward and Mr. Krabs. It was also helpful because they had to attend to a sea of hungry anchovies that moment.
** In "Christmas Who?", after Squidward dresses as Santa and gives away all his stuff as gifts to the entire town, the real Santa comes and thanks him.
** In "Blackened Sponge", the character "Jack M. Crazyfish", who [=SpongeBob=] dreams about, and uses as a cover for his black eye, turns out actually exist.
** In "Yeti Krabs", Mr. Krabs tries to scare Squidward and [=SpongeBob=] into working harder by making up a story about a Yeti Krab who tracks down and eats lazy workers, along with anyone in the vicinity. When a real Yeti Krab coincidentally shows up after Mr. Krabs leaves, [=SpongeBob=] is terrified and runs around doing busywork to placate it, while Squidward, who never believed Mr. Krabs' story in the first place, simply assumes it's him in a costume. The Yeti Krab, who's merely hungry and was attracted to the Krusty Krab by the smell of food, eventually does try to eat all three of them out of desperation, but [=SpongeBob=] figures out the problem and wins it over with some fresh Krabby Patties.
** In "One Krab's Trash", Mr. Krabs makes up a story about how the soda drink hat he sold to [=SpongeBob=] is cursed to scare it off of him as he found out it's worth a lot of money. He claims it belonged to someone named [[SesquipedalianSmith Smitty WarbenJagerManJensen.]] It turns out the story he made up on the spot is true.
** In "Bubble Buddy", [=SpongeBob=] creates the title character and the episode treats him as a CompanionCube. In the end however, he turns out to really be animate.
** In "Scaredy Pants", it's implied the townsfolk believed the Flying Dutchman to be just a myth until he personally lays siege to the Krusty Krab.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS1E07MuchAdoAboutBoimler Much Ado About Boimler]]", the Farm is assumed to be a myth, since the patients have spent months on the ''Osler'', but it turns out that the journey just takes a while and the Farm really is as idyllic as people say.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'': The residents of Mewni celebrate "Stump Day" (their equivalent of Christmas). Little kids know that, if they're bad, '''the Stump''' will come and carry them off. Older kids know that the Stump is just a fable used to make little kids behave. Guess who's right?
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'': In one episode, a monster hunter comes to look for the "green man in the woods" after the turtles are spotted and videotaped; about halfway through the turtles discover that the green man is real and have to keep both it and themselves out of her reach.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCatsRoar'':
** "The Legend of Boggy Ben": Cheetara and Tygra make up a monster called Boggy Ben and Lion-O goes on a quest to face it. The Boggy Ben he faces turns out to be Tygra in a costume, as they were trying to teach Lion-O a lesson. Just as they explain this, the real Boggy Ben shows up and attacks them.
** "The Horror of Hook Mountain": Snowman rants about a monster called the Sparklemaw, but Tygra thinks he's making it up. It shows up at the end.
* Subverted in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheTick'': The villain of the episode is a robbing Santa impersonator who has managed to clone himself. This confuses the Tick, who refuses to fight even when his fellow superheroes are viciously attacked by a dozen guys in Santa costumes: "Odds are it wasn't the real Santa, but how can you ever be sure?" Santa later appears, with an Elf Secret Service team, compulsively hands out gifts such as pencil sets, and tells the Tick to get a grip.
* ''WesternAnimation/TimeSquad'': At the end of "White House Weirdness", Time Squad has just exposed a ScoobyDooHoax perpetrated by UsefulNotes/WilliamHowardTaft and his staff to make people belive that the White House was haunted by the ghosts of former Presidents to scare away any competition for the Presidential election. However, just as Taft is led away by the police, a ghostly moan echoes through the air...
* ''WesternAnimation/TUFFPuppy'':
** The episode "Hide and Ghost Seek" has Mayor Teddy Bear hire T.U.F.F. to rid a mansion of the ghost of Dr. Hyden Vonseek. Keswick repeatedly brings up that ghosts do not exist, and it eventually turns out that the Chameleon was impersonating both Mayor Bear and the ghost of Hyden Vonseek as part of a ruse to trick Dudley, Keswick and the Chief into staying in a building that's scheduled to be demolished, but Keswick gets the shock of his life when he finds out that the Ghost of Dr. Hyden Vonseek is actually for real.
** "Great Scott" has the Loch Ness Monster initially turn out to be a disguised Chameleon, but the creature in question turns out to exist after all at the end of the episode.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheWildThornberrys'':
** The episode "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yeti" takes place in the Himalayas, with Eliza searching for the Yeti who supposedly lived there. She eventually discovers that the "Yeti" is actually her father's old colleague Dr. [=McWhirter=], who [[ScoobyDooHoax dresses up like a monster]] to protect the region's endangered snow leopards. At the climax of the episode, a Yeti approaches and helps Eliza fight off some greedy land developers. Later, Eliza thanks [=McWhirter=], but he explains that he wasn't wearing his suit at the time, as he was instead tending to the snow leopards in their cave. Eliza ponders what this means, and a loud roar sounds from the mountains...
** Another episode, "Spirited Away," takes place in Mexico and has Eliza running into a friendly old woman who helps her solve her problem of the week. The episode's ending reveals that the woman has [[DeadAllAlong been dead for years.]] Fitting, as the episode was centered on the Day of the Dead. In fact, the woman had been helping Eliza because Eliza had [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe kindly decorated her gravestone with flowers,]] which no one had done in ages (these offerings of flowers are essential parts of the holiday and are said to encourage spirits to return to the world of the living for visits).
* ''Franchise/WinnieThePooh'': In the original books and all Disney iterations until the late '80s, Heffalumps and Woozles were just figments of Pooh and the gang's imaginations. Even their very names were implied to be just Tigger's [[TheMalaproper malapropism]] of "elephants" and "weasels." But starting with ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh'' and continuing with ''WesternAnimation/PoohsHeffalumpMovie'', Heffalumps and Woozles are portrayed as very real, usually as bumbling antagonists but sometimes as unexpectedly friendly.
[[/folder]]

* A HalloweenEpisode of ''Series/{{Wishbone}}'' had an appropriately mild example. Joe is afraid of a local old manor, which is believed to be a HauntedHouse, because when he was a kid, he went inside and saw [[TheDarknessGazesBack a pair of glowing eyes]], the incident leaving him scared since. Towards the end of the episode, Joe and his friends see the eyes, [[CatScare just before the stray black cat]] that Wishbone had been chasing throughout the episode came running out. Joe then comes to the realization that the cat had been what he saw all those years ago, ending his fear. However, after the kids leave, another pair of eyes appeared, just for us. Still cat-sized, though. ''(Oh my God, another cat).''

* In ''Series/VeronicaMars'' it is clear that our titular heroine's [[DeadPersonConversation dreams and conversations with her dead friend Lilly]] are happening in her head, and after Lilly's murder is solved they stop. However the second season episode 'Normal is the Watchword' has Lilly briefly appear and save Veronica's live by distracting her at a key moment--the implication being that her (Lilly's) ghost intervened directly.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': The story "Bees" seems like paranoid ramblings of a man [[SanitySlippage being driven insane by a diary]], but the end reveals the whole thing was real and is recorded by the Foundation.

* ''LightNovel/OniAi'' has an episode that begins with Arisa spotting green lights from inside forest. This leads the student council dorm members to look around the surrounding forest before returning to the dorm. When these 'green lights' appear in front of them, they conclude that those were just fireflies.. before they realize these are ''WillOTheWisp''. The light novel or anime never explain what their true nature is.

** In "It's a Wonderful Leap", Sam leaps into a cab driver named Max in 1958 who's due to be murdered. Sam is thrown by the arrival of Angelita, who claims to be an angel. Sam and Al naturally assume she 's a nutcase, especially given how she can see and hear Al (as mentally addled people can). In the end, Sam saves Max's life with Angelita telling him she has to leave and once she does, everyone in this time will forget she was ever here. She stuns him and Al by calling "Max" Sam and "who do you think I was sent here to help?" She goes as Al asks if Sam is going to follow her. "Follow who?" Sam asks and a stunned Al realizes Sam has absolutely no idea who Angelita is.

[[folder:Film - Animated]]

* This is PlayedForLaughs during ''Film/TheWaterHorseLegendOfTheDeep''. Unable to find the real creature to photograph, some journalists make and photograph a fake...with the real one watching the whole thing curiously.

* ''Literature/AccidentalDetectives'': In ‘’’Creature of the Mists’’, the hunt for the Ogopogo seems to be a dud (and was conducted in the first place merely as a trap to find out which member of the science team was stealing important equipment) but then at the end of the book there's a mysterious wake in a picture that Joel took at a time when there where no boats in the area that could have made it.

* In ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'', the residents of Mewni celebrate "Stump Day" (their equivalent of Christmas). Little kids know that if they're bad, '''The Stump''' will come and carry them off. Older kids know that The Stump is just a fable used to make little kids behave. Guess who's right?
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'', a monster hunter comes to look for the "green man in the woods" after the turtles are spotted and videotaped; about halfway through the turtles discover that the green man is real and have to keep both it and themselves out of her reach.

** In "The Legend of Boggy Ben", Cheetara and Tygra make up a monster called Boggy Ben and Lion-O goes on a quest to face it. The Boggy Ben he faces turns out to be Tygra in a costume, as they were trying to teach Lion-O a lesson. Just as they explain this, the real Boggy Ben shows up and attacks them.
** In "The Horror of Hook Mountain", Snowman rants about a monster called the Sparklemaw, but Tygra thinks he's making it up. It shows up at the end.

* A HalloweenEpisode of ''Series/{{Wishbone}}'' had an appropriately mild example. Joe is afraid of a local old manor, which is believed to be HauntedHouse, because when he was a kid, he went inside and saw [[TheDarknessGazesBack a pair of glowing eyes]], the incident leaving him scared since. Towards the end of the episode, Joe and his friends see the eyes, [[CatScare just before the stray black cat]] that Wishbone had been chasing throughout the episode came running out. Joe then comes to the realization that the cat had been what he saw all those years ago, ending his fear. However, after the kids leave, another pair of eyes appeared, just for us. Still cat-sized, though. ''(Oh my God, another cat).''

* A HalloweenEpisode of ''Series/{{Wishbone}}'' had an appropriately mild example. Joe is afraid of a local old manor, which is believed to be HauntedHouse, because when he was a kid, he went inside and saw [[TheDarknessGazesBack a pair of glowing eyes]], the incident leaving him scared since. Towards the end of the episode, Joe and his friends see the eyes, [[CatScare just before the stray black cat]] that Wishbone had been chasing throughout the episode came running out. Joe then comes to realization that the cat had been what he saw all those years ago, ending his fear. However, after the kids leave, another pair of eyes appeared, just for us. Still cat-sized, though. ''(Oh my God, another cat).''

* A HalloweenEpisode of ''Series/{{Wishbone}}'' had an appropriately mild example. Joe is scared of a HauntedHouse because when he was a kid, he saw [[TheDarknessGazesBack a pair of glowing eyes]] that left him scared since. Those same eyes are glimpsed stalking the main characters throughout the episode. At the end, [[CatScare they turned out to belong to a stray cat]] that Wishbone had been chasing, leading Joe to believe the cat had been what he saw all those years ago, ending his fear. However, after the kids leave, another pair of eyes appeared, just for us. Still cat-sized, though. ''(Oh my God, another cat).''

* On the streets of Liverpool there was told a legend of a man called "Purple Aki", this man would be described as an incredibly tall muscle bound black man who would appear from [[OffScreenTeleportation seemingly nowhere]] or perhaps [[BehindAStick from around objects that are impossible to hide behind]] before demanding to squeeze your muscles, or getting you to squat lift him. The stories were so ridiculously over the top and strange that the majority of people simply once thought he was some kind of urban legend used to scare children, key word being [[FameThroughInfamy once]].

* A HalloweenEpisode of ''Series/{{Wishbone}}'' had an appropriately mild example. Joe is scared of a HauntedHouse because when he was a kid, he saw a pair of glowing eyes that left him scared since. Those same eyes are glimpsed stalking the main characters throughout the episode. At the end, they turned out to belong to a stray cat, leading Joe to believe that it was just a cat he saw all those years ago, ending his fear. However, after the kids leave, another pair of eyes appeared, just for us. Still cat-sized, though. ''(Oh my God, another cat).''

* In ''Series/{{Psych}}'' episode "Dead Air", Shawn and Gus investigate the murder of a DJ. During their investigation, they are lead to a girl named Laurie, one of the DJ's frequent callers. Laurie then mentions she has a StalkerWithACrush named Bob who might've killed the DJ out of jealousy. Shawn begins to doubt the existence of Bob when the artist depiction shows he looks like a comic book villain. Also, when tracing Bob's call, they discover [[TheCallsAreComingFromInsideTheHouse it's coming from Laurie's house]], but Jules doesn't get a chance to see him before he sneaks up behind her and knocks her out. Then, when Shawn discovers that Laurie's on medication, he becomes convinced that "Bob" is actually a SplitPersonality that Laurie has, despite Laurie's claims that he's real. It's only at the climax when he is attacked by him does Gus find out that Bob really does exist.

** The Holy Grail in "Murdoch and the Temple of Death" is strongly implied to be the real thing. The killer jumps off a 60-foot cliff thinking it will save him, despite Murdoch telling the man to stop, and as Murdoch looks down on the man's corpse, a thunderclap sounds (seemingly in daylight) and Murdoch reacts to it. Later, [[spoiler:Dr. Iris Bajali]] steals it from the station house and flees with Murdoch in pursuit; he tells her it belongs to God, and when she shouts back, "There is no God," she is struck by lightning and dies. Later still, a museum staffer accidentally knocks it over and disposes of the clay outer layer, leaving a metal chalice standing on the shelf that appears bathed in a (heavenly?) shaft of light.

** In "The Curse Of Beaton Manor" Murdoch scolds George that voodoo is not real. It is revealed that [[spoiler:Timothy Beaton]] used pufferfish poison (from Haitian voodoo) to induce a near-death state and thus 'come back' from the dead. At the end of the episode the final Beaton suffers a fatal heart-attack from being pierced by a VoodooDoll.

* ''Series/MrsBrownsBoys'' has an episode where the parents of her grandson Bono want to know what Bono wished for when he wrote his letter to Santa, but Bono refuses to tell anyone, saying to Mrs Brown it is to prove whether Santa is real or not. Buster, in a rare moment of brilliance, suggests that they get someone to dress up as Santa and Bono can tell "Santa" what he wished for, and "Santa" can then tell everyone else. So two days before Christmas, while Bono is staying with Mrs Brown, they go downstairs to the living room and find Santa waiting for Bono, who says that something has happened to Bono's letter, which means he can't read it and so needs Bono to tell him what he wished for. Mrs Brown goes into the kitchen while Bono is talking to Santa, only for Buster to arrive with another man who is supposed to be playing Santa. Mrs Brown then walks back to the living room, where Bono is now looking out the window up at the sky, sleighbells can be heard ringing and Santa yells "Ho Ho Ho" offscreen.

* In one episode of ''Series/DontEatTheNeighbours'', Lucy ends up depressed after she learns that Old Father Bunny has not delivered the bicycle she wanted. So that night, the other adult male characters in the show get up onto the roof, each claiming to Lucy that they are Old Father Bunny and they have brought her the bike she wanted. The next morning Lucy has 7 bikes, but there were only 6 men up on the roof last night. She then finds a note attached to it from Old Father Bunny apologizing that it is a day late, but he and his elves were busy painting it into a multicolour one.

** Booth is kidnapped and imprisoned on a derelict ship by the Grave Digger and interacts with a soldier who died by Booth's side in combat. This is initially presented as a hallucination but [[spoiler: to escape the ship requires physical strength beyond that of a single person. The next day Brennan interacts with the same apparent ghost.]]

** In the 6th season episode "Time Will Tell", an episode about (gasp) time travel, Beckett [[spoiler:spills her coffee on a letter that had been a key piece of evidence in the case after the case is over. The murderer had been using a stained copy of that letter to try to track down an intended victim but the cops had used the pristine original to find him first. The stain Beckett made that afternoon matched the one on the murderer's copy even though his copy predated the spill of the coffee.]] The incident is not really "in your face" proof, but it is chilling because the only possible explanations are "time travel" or "1 in a million coincidence".

* ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'': Colin spends the the duration of the episode “Body Language” believing that aliens not only exist but are about to invade the centre due to a series of misunderstandings. At the end of the episode however, it is revealed that two plants bought in were actually aliens. They conclude that there is NoIntelligentLifeHere and warp out in front of a shocked Colin.

** In one episode, a person is found dead in the middle of nowhere by a ufologist. At the end of the episode, Brennan and Booth manage to find the real killer. They are lying on the hood of a car in a field, stargazing and talking about whether or not aliens are real. Just then, all the crickets and other natural sounds disappear, leaving both of them a little freaked out in [[NothingIsScarier complete silence]].

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': The 20th episode of the first season, ''The Ghost of Maiden's Peak'', concerned a hoax haunting. The spirit of a young bride-to-be [[IWillWaitForYou who died waiting for her deceased fiancee's return]] supposedly caused trouble for the protagonists, until the troubles were revealed to be caused by the spirit-like Pokemon Gastly. At the end of the episode, however, it is revealed that Gastly is actually a friend of the ''real'' ghostly maiden, who Gastly merely posed as in order to keep her legend alive.

* The ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid'' spin-off manga ''Kanna's Daily Life'' has a chapter where Kanna and her friends visit their school during the evening to investigate various occult tales that are usually associated with TheSevenMysteries. While investigating the final story, Kanna notices that Saikawa has disappeared, and, concerned about her location, she and her friends call her. As Saikawa answers the phone, it is then revealed that she has been sick all this time and had never left her home, causing Kanna and her friends to realize that the "Saikawa" that was with them that night was really a spirit haunting the school.

* RanmaOneHalf: One episode deals with the whole tendo household trying to figure out who ate all the takoyaki with seaweed that Kasumi bought. When Happosai is shown with pieces of seaweed on his mouth he tells the story about the "Seaweed child" which is a mysterious child-like monster that eats anything with seaweed in it and then puts pieces of seaweed on sleeping peoples' mouths so they will be blamed instead. Then Genma is shown to ALSO have seaweed in his mouth, to which he tells of the story of the "Seaweed monster", which is the exact same story, but with a big monster instead of a child. At the end, it was revealed that each member of the Tendo household had actually eaten a takoyaki each, making all of them decide to just ignre what happened and leave... then we see a final shot of the house and both the Seaweed Child and Seaweed Monster are on the roof, lamenting that all the takoyaki is already gone.