History Main / ScoobyDooHoax

*** Also zig-zagged in the episode "Haunted House Hang-Up". The heroes spend the episode chasing (and being chased by) one monster, who turns out to just be a man who dressed up to protect his own property from would-be thieves. The real criminal, who is indeed after the treasure the owner is protecting, is unmasked at the end.

* In ''ComicBook/RiversOfLondon: Night Witch'', the supposed kidnapping of a RussianMafia boss's daughter by a [[Myth/RussianMythologyAndTales leshy]] is naturally assumed to be a "falcon" case, ie one requiring the attention of the wizard cops at the Folly. However it turns out she was just taken by her mother to get away from him, and she (unaware that London had wizard cops) made up the bit about the leshy to confuse everything. As Peter puts it "Question: When is a falcon case not a falcon case? Answer: When there's no bloody falcon."

* The Literature/AgentPendergast novels usually start with a murder that has some supernatural element surrounding it. Often, there is something distinctly unnatural going on, but the villain is almost always human. The two straightest examples are ''Literature/{{Brimstone}}'' and ''Literature/CemeteryDance''.

** In ''Bitter Gold Hearts'', Garrett recalls investigating one of these cases, in which a murder was rigged to look like a werewolf attack.

* ''Manga/BootyRoyaleNeverGoDownWithoutAFight'': Misora meets a newbie model, Daidai Reon, during a shoot, who later lets slip by text that the agency doesn't let her leave that apartment. She goes to agency president Sanada Hikaru about it in a rage, only to be told that [[DeadAllAlong Reon hanged herself a month ago in that apartment after a porn shoot]]. In the next chapter, after Misora has been pestered with text messages from the "dead" Reon for several days, Misora's girlfriend and coworkers reveal it was all a candid camera prank for the TV station and the very-much-alive Reon is just a normal newbie they roped into it.

* Played with in the French supernatural thriller ''Film/{{Vidocq}}'': powerful men die one after another from a lightning strike, bursting into flames in the process. It turns out that they were narcissistic perverts with a desire for young virgins. A sophisticated lightning rod mechanism along with a piece of gold in each of the men's hats, and gunpowder dust on their coats resolves that somebody simply wants to make a demonstration of divine retribution on these horrible people. Then it turns out that the killer 'is'' a supernatural creature all along, and used this method to hide his true nature, and the true motivation for the murders.
* In ''Film/TheVillage2004, the creatures lurking in the forest were originally a hoax concocted by the Elders to prevent the younger residents from venturing outside and learning that they're not actually living in pioneer times. One of the young villagers co-opts this hoax to cover up his own psychopathic misdeeds.

* Rather confusingly subverted in an episode of ''Anime/PokemonTheOriginalSeries''. The heroes and Team Rocket encounter a festival at which the ghost of a [[TheLostLenore heartbroken maiden]] is believed to possess young men. After James and Brock are affected, they discover that the true culprit is a Gastly (a Ghost Pokémon, which apparently doesn't count). However, towards the end of the episode it is revealed to the viewers that there is indeed a true ghost of the maiden, and the Gastly is keeping the legend alive out of respect for her (and to make a few bucks).

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E155TheFear The Fear]]", tiny aliens use a balloon of a 500 foot alien, magnetism and fabricated giant footprints to fool Charlotte Scott and Robert Franklin into believing that Earth is being invaded by giants. Their ultimate goal is to trick humanity into surrendering.

* In "The Search for Pappy" arc of ''Thimble Theater'', Franchis/{{Popeye}} buys a ship that he's told is haunted. Sure enough, there's a ghost lurking about, with a detachable head to boot. It later transpires that the 'head' is actually a very short man who hides the rest of his body behind his long beard, pulling a combination BedsheetGhost TotemPoleTrench with normal sized partner- Popeye's father! Also, they have a full-grown gorilla hiding under the sheet with them, which leads Popeye to assume that there's "Gorilla-riding ghosts".

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' had a small band of [[APirate400YearsTooLate oddly anachronistic pirates]] who actually used this trope fairly successfully to raid ships (unfortunately, mostly cargo ships, and since they were stuck in the Sargasso Sea they had little value) -- at least, until the Ventures showed up and Brock kicked their asses and destroyed their ship when the pirates tried to pull the same stunt on them.

* In ''Film/TheVillage'', the creatures lurking in the forest were originally a hoax concocted by the Elders to prevent the younger residents from venturing outside and learning that they're not actually living in pioneer times. One of the young villagers co-opts this hoax to cover up his own psychopathic misdeeds.

** "Mr. Monk and the UFO" had a variant: Monk and Natalie are driving in the country when their car breaks down in a small Nevada town. While Monk is trying to get a cell phone signal, he sees a small UFO fly overhead. It hovers for a few seconds over them, then flies away. The next day, Monk files a report with the sheriff. The next night, Monk, Natalie and a hotel manager see the UFO.
** "Mr. Monk and the Voodoo Curse" is probably one of the top examples. Two random people are killed in freak accidents (an elderly power walker who gets hit by a baseball knocked over a fence, and a guy killed by lightning while golfing in a thunderstorm), and when people go to their apartments to pack their stuff up, they find voodoo dolls that are dated a few days before the recipient's death. Monk is brought in to investigate, due to the case being considered weird right away by Stottlemeyer and Disher, but even he is baffled by the circumstances. Shortly after he takes the case, a third doll victim occurs -- the wealthy founder of an electronics company -- and it is the first one to have a body; who died of an apparent heart attack. Then Natalie, who is afraid of voodoo, receives a doll in the mail that warns her she will be decapitated. Monk eventually finds that Angeline Dilworth, a paramedic and niece of the third victim, was responible for sending the dolls and was trying to cover up the death of her uncle, the only one of the three victims to actually be a murder. The other two victims were the freak accidents they were supposed to be, and Angeline had been the EMT who responded to both calls. She had stolen each accident victim's house key and used that to break into the respective victim's house to plant a customized voodoo doll.

* ''Literature/GhostInTheNoondaySun:'' The pirates kidnap Oliver because they superstitiously believe he can see ghosts. However, the only ghost sightings in the movie turn out to be faked by the ship's mates, John Ringrose and Jack o' Lantern, as part of their efforts to depose Captain Scratch and keep Oliver safe.

* The ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' episode "[[Recap/BoyMeetsWorldS5E17AndThenThereWasShawn And Then There Was Shawn]]", which serves as an homage to {{Slasher Movie}}s. Everything from the bloody message on the chalkboard to the haunting music on the PA system all the way down to the killer being unmasked [[spoiler:to be an [[EvilDoppelganger evil double]] of Shawn]].

* Poke fun at in ComicBook/EmilkaSza. When Justyna attempts to prove to Emilka that ghosts are real and finally encounters what appears to be a "real" ghost, a group strongly resembling the Scooby-Doo gang suddenly emerges from nowhere and unmasks the ghost. Justyna even yells "Meddling kids!" at them.

* One of ''The Whistler'''s stock plots was for someone to complain of ghosts in their bedroom and/or {{Prophetic Dream}}s. This could go one of two ways, both of which fit this trope. Another character might be {{Gaslighting}} the dreamer as a means to an end, as in "Shrunken Head" (the goal was to have the heroine declared legally insane so she couldn't marry and claim her inheritance). In other cases, the so-called dreamer was actually lying, as in "Death Comes at Midnight" (the goal was to [[SuicideNotMurder disguise a planned suicide as a foretold murder]]).

* In 1926 in North Stonington, Connecticut, there were sightings of an "ape-man" near a rural farm that two young orphaned girls had recently inherited from their deceased father. Initially it was believed that someone was trying to scare the girls into selling the farm, and the girl's neighbors rallied in support of them, camping out on the property with rifles to try and catch the prankster. But a police investigation eventually led to the revelation that the girls themselves were behind the sightings, having created a homemade apesuit to scare away unwanted solicitors looking to buy the property.

* The "Trick or Techrat" episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'' had Eric, Techrat, and a one-shot character attempting to pull off a "Scooby-Doo Hoax" to shut down a opera house.

* At least one episode of ''Manga/CaseClosed'' did this. The protagonists receive a letter from a dead man and investigate a series of murders framed on his ghost. In the end, it turned out to be his son who was supposedly killed along with him, posing as a woman, seeking revenge for the death of his father.