Real After All / Live-Action TV

• The Basil Brush Show 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 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 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.
• 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 complete silence.
  • In another, a murderer uses a myth about a witch in the woods (an intentional parody of The Blair Witch Project) 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 to escape the ship requires physical strength beyond that of a single person. The next day Brennan interacts with the same apparent ghost.
• The Brittas Empire: 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 No Intelligent Life Here and warp out in front of a shocked Colin.
• 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 Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane ending. However, there are two notable exceptions:
  • In the 6th season episode "Time Will Tell", an episode about (gasp) time travel, Beckett 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 "the invisible man". (Well, an invisible woman). 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 CASUAL+Y pulls this one once. In one episode Colin Baker plays a patient who claims he's 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.
• Day Break (2006): Well, the loop itself is definitely not in Hopper's head, but he also comes across a man named Jared who appears to be 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. The last seconds of the series imply that he may even be responsible for the loop, actually being some sort of Guardian Angel for Brett who gave him an opportunity to put his life back together.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Abominable Snowmen": An explorer looking for yeti in the Himalayas runs afoul of some yeti that are actually robots controlled by an Eldritch Abomination. 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 "Flesh and Stone" that he'll next see her when "the Pandorica opens", he dismisses the Pandorica as a fairy tale. When he comes face-to-face with the legendary 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 a trap set for the Doctor by a Legion of Doom, effectively making the myth true.
  • In "The Impossible Planet"/"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.
  • "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 Hope Bringer for the peasants as part of their ruse... until the Sheriff points out the impracticality of creating an enemy that could ruin their plans. Upon learning that the future will believe he was only a myth, Robin's okay with that.
  • "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 Don't Eat the Neighbours, 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.
• Eerie, Indiana:
  • 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 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.
• Family Matters 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 Fantasy Island as a guest will assume they're in an elaborate 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 Gilligan's Island, 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.
• The Golden Girls 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...
• The Greatest American Hero, "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 Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, Vanessa is romanced by a man (Don Cheadle) 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.
• The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries:
  • "Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula": In the episode, the Hardy Boys suspect a man of being Dracula, but this is apparently disproven. 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 disproven 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 Henry Danger/Game Shakers 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 419 Scam 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 an ugly look as he answers with an "Oops?" expression.
• Subverted in Heidi, bienvenida a casa. 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.
• Home Improvement:
  • Played for laughs in an episode, complete with The X-Files-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 Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 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 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."
• 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.
• I Love Lucy: 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?
• 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 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 ghosts, 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 Just Roll With It, 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 L.A. Law was representing a home owner who claimed his house was haunted. She got her assistant to make the lights in the house go off 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.
• Lois & Clark: 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 Superman is actually standing right beside her...
• The Lucky Luke Live-Action Adaptation had an episode about a fake ghost train that used the "helpful person was dead all along" variant.
• MacGyver:
  • 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 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.
• Matt Houston 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.
• Midsomer Murders:
  • 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 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...
• Played for Laughs in one episode of Monk where Sharona doesn't believe resident Butt-Monkey Randy has a model for a girlfriend, and that he only made it up. The clues are there: she thought it was a Line-of-Sight Name, 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).
• Mrs. Brown's Boys 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.
• The Munsters, "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 the destruction of Earth, Herman learns what he heard was actually just a couple of kids playing spacemen, with the clincher being the Flying Saucer he photographed being marked "Made In Japan". At the end of the episode, when Herman hears someone else claiming to be a Martian, 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 The Outer Limits).
  Martian: My, those Earth people are getting rude.
• Murdoch Mysteries:
  • In "The Curse Of Beaton Manor" Murdoch scolds George that voodoo is not real. It’s revealed that 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 Voodoo Doll.
  • 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, 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.
• My Hero (2000): 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 Christmas Episode of The Nanny, after Maxwell 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: (Climbing onto the bed) I gotta lie down.
• Naomi (2022): In "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.
• NCIS has Abby awkwardly lie about "bowling nuns" in the episode "Shalom", only it's revealed in a later episode that they're actually real (she's friends with them) and become a Running Gag.
• In the Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn 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.
• Night Court:
  • In the first season Christmas Episode "Santa Goes Downtown", a man that Harry Stone takes for a street corner Santa turns out to be the real thing.
  • Another Christmas Episode 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 Clip Show 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 Near-Death Experience (and a 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 series of convoluted events that what Bull actually heard wasn't God, but Art the handyman shouting to him. Distraught, Bull has a mild Rage Against the Heavens 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 sorry about the underwear" typed on the screen.
• On Nip/Tuck, 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 Person of Interest, 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 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 Stalker with a Crush 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 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 Split Personality 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.
• Quantum Leap:
  • "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 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.
• Raven's Home 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.
• In The Saint in the episode “The Convenient Monster” the villain is committing murders and blaming them on the Loch Ness Monster. While attempting to escape in a rowboat, the the water starts to roil around the boat and the villain begins to scream. The villain's body is later found badly mutilated, which is attributed to the ferry boat catching the body in its propeller, only for Templar to point out that the ferry wasn’t running that night...and then the episode ends.
• This was always the ultimate joke in the "Penelope" sketches on Saturday Night Live. Kristen Wiig 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 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, then she's actually 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 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 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 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 Smallville episode "Lexmas", Clark uses his Super-Speed 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 Stealth Hi/Bye, 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 Stargate SG-1, a "malfunction in the ventilation systems" is implied to be Daniel Jackson looking after his old team.
• Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye:
  • 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 The Suite Life of Zack & Cody 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 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 Tales from the Darkside 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 Tales of the Gold Monkey episode "Legends Are Forever,' Jake meets his old friend Grandy Dancer, an Adventurer Archaeologist who has a bad case of Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality. He truly believes James Hilton visited Shangri-Li and that H. Rider Haggard really did find King Solomon's Mines. 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 That's So Raven. 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 Show Within a Show that uses spies to discover talented teens. This leads to 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, who's working for "Undercover Superstar".
• The Twilight Zone:
  • 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. 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. 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, but every time he tries to tell someone, the creature disappears. 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. 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 Two and a Half Men has Charlie experimenting with marijuana. He ends up having hallucinations of his ex-girlfriends (and ZZ Top). After he makes a date with Rose, it's revealed she is the only one who's real.
• Most of the season 3 premiere of Under the Dome takes place in an artificial reality. 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 Veronica Mars it is clear that our titular heroine's 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.
• Victorious: Cat's date Tug in "Prom Wrecker", though it isn't until a disbelieving Robbie bails on her that he actually shows up.
• Walker, Texas Ranger 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 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.
• The Wishbone episode "Halloween Hound: The Legend of Creepy Collars" has an appropriately mild example. Joe is afraid of a local old manor, which is believed to be a Haunted House, because when he was a kid, he went inside and saw a pair of glowing eyes, the incident leaving him scared since. Towards the end of the episode, Joe and his friends see the eyes, 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 appear for the audience to see.
• Xena: Warrior Princess: 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.
• The X-Files:
  • In "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.
  • In "The Lost Art Of Forehead Sweat". Mulder and Scully are approached by a strange man named Reggie who insists he is the founder of the X-Files and was their former partner before their memories were erased. At the end, Reggie is revealed to be a mentally ill former government agent and Mulder and Scully sadly witness him being led into an ambulance...when suddenly Skinner arrives and asks "Where the hell are they taking Reggie?"