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* ''Film/{{Outbreak}}'': Donald Sutherland and Creator/MorganFreeman's characters, despite knowing how deadly the Motaba virus is, play clueless so they can use the version they have a cure for as a germ warfare weapon. There's even a scene in the WarRoom where they watch a projection of Motaba's contagion spread and death toll, indicating the president is on board. There are repeated examples of the government telling people who are sick that they'll be just fine -- right before [[KillItWithFire dropping a Fuel Air Bomb]] on the infection.
to:
* ''Film/{{Outbreak}}'': Donald Sutherland and Creator/MorganFreeman's characters, despite knowing how deadly the Motaba virus is, play clueless so they can use the version they have a cure for as a germ warfare weapon. There's even a scene in the WarRoom TheWarRoom where they watch a projection of Motaba's contagion spread and death toll, indicating the president is on board. There are repeated examples of the government telling people who are sick that they'll be just fine -- right before [[KillItWithFire dropping a Fuel Air Bomb]] on the infection.
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* The 2015 ''ComicBook/SecretWars'' event had some of this going on as well. The governments of the world didn't know that there were multiversal incursions happening, all destroying the universes as worlds collided, but there were a handful of superheroes (and supervillains) who knew. They kept it secret to the point of mindwiping several other heroes who found out and disagreed with their methods, causing a schism amongst superheroes right as the last incursion between Earth 616 and earth 1610 began.
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* The 2015 ''ComicBook/SecretWars'' ''ComicBook/{{Secret Wars|2015}}'' event had some of this going on as well. The governments of the world didn't know that there were multiversal incursions happening, all destroying the universes as worlds collided, but there were a handful of superheroes (and supervillains) who knew. They kept it secret to the point of mindwiping several other heroes who found out and disagreed with their methods, causing a schism amongst superheroes right as the last incursion between Earth 616 and earth 1610 began.
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* [[Creator/NealStephenson Neal Stephenson's]] ''Seveneves'': The Moon has broken up (a week is wasted wondering why) and Earth is facing a serious bombardment of rubble. We can't hide the fact that the Moon is gone, and we can't suppress the realisation that everyone's about to be pounded back to the Precambrian. But we can try to get as many of the best and brightest out of the firing line, and pack as much of the fruits of human civilisation away with them. At least, that's the line that's delivered by the powers that be. In reality, they've decided that it's a lost cause but giving people a year thinking that something is being done about the catastrophe by putting on a show is a year not spent collapsing into mass panic. Those aware of the subterfuge go along with it in the name of peace and sanity. Ironically, some are genuinely working to mitigate the disaster but find themselves hampered by others only concerned with the palliative spectacle.
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* [[Creator/NealStephenson Neal Stephenson's]] ''Seveneves'': The Moon has broken up (a week is wasted wondering why) and Earth is facing a serious bombardment of rubble. We can't hide the fact that the Moon is gone, and we can't suppress the realisation that everyone's about to be pounded back to the Precambrian. But we can try to get as many of the best and brightest out of the firing line, and pack as much of the fruits of human civilisation away with them. At least, that's the line that's delivered by the powers that be. In reality, they've decided that it's a lost cause but giving people a year thinking that something is being done about the catastrophe by putting on a show (and You Too Can Contribute!) is a year not spent collapsing into mass panic. Those aware of the subterfuge go along with it in the name of peace and sanity. Ironically, some are genuinely working to mitigate the disaster but find themselves hampered by others only concerned with the palliative spectacle.
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to:
* [[Creator/NealStephenson Neal Stephenson's]] ''Seveneves'': The Moon has broken up (a week is wasted wondering why) and Earth is facing a serious bombardment of rubble. We can't hide the fact that the Moon is gone, and we can't suppress the realisation that everyone's about to be pounded back to the Precambrian. But we can try to get as many of the best and brightest out of the firing line, and pack as much of the fruits of human civilisation away with them. At least, that's the line that's delivered by the powers that be. In reality, they've decided that it's a lost cause but giving people a year thinking that something is being done about the catastrophe by putting on a show is a year not spent collapsing into mass panic. Those aware of the subterfuge go along with it in the name of peace and sanity. Ironically, some are genuinely working to mitigate the disaster but find themselves hampered by others only concerned with the palliative spectacle.
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* During the ArabSpring of the early 2010s, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak shut down his country's entire Internet infrastructure, in an attempt to take the wind out of protesters using social media to spread word of the protests. It [[InternetCounterattack backfired massively]], and before long Mubarak resigned under pressure.
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* During the ArabSpring UsefulNotes/TheArabSpring of the early 2010s, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak shut down his country's entire Internet infrastructure, in an attempt to take the wind out of protesters using social media to spread word of the protests. It [[InternetCounterattack backfired massively]], and before long Mubarak resigned under pressure.
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* During the ArabSpring of the early 2010s, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak shut down his country's entire Internet infrastructure, in an attempt to take the wind out of protesters using social media to spread word of the protests. It [[InternetCounterattack backfired massively]], and before long Mubarak resigned under pressure.
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* For most of the 20th century, the British political establishment had recourse to the "D-Notice" system -- if all other attempts at persuading a newspaper not to publish had failed, the editor would be hit by a D-Notice officially prohibiting publication on grounds of state security. The system has never been repealed, but has fallen into obselescence, as the rise of the Internet meant British people curious to discover what they are barred from knowing can get it off the Net.
to:
* For most of the 20th century, the British political establishment had recourse to the "D-Notice" system -- if all other attempts at persuading a newspaper not to publish had failed, the editor would be hit by a D-Notice officially prohibiting publication on grounds of state security. The system has never been repealed, but has fallen into obselescence, obsolescence, as the rise of the Internet meant British people curious to discover what they are barred from knowing can get it off the Net.Net.
* In November 1979, the Masjid al-Haram - the holiest site in Islam - was captured by extremist insurgents calling for the House of Saud to be overthrown. In a desperate attempt to prevent word from getting out that the self-appointed "custodians of Mecca" had, in fact, lost control of Mecca, the Saudi government shut down the phones and put heavy restrictions on the media. This backfired terribly, as rumors swirled around that the Grand Mosque had been seized either by Iran-backed Shiites or Americans, which led to riots throughout the Islamic world.
* In November 1979, the Masjid al-Haram - the holiest site in Islam - was captured by extremist insurgents calling for the House of Saud to be overthrown. In a desperate attempt to prevent word from getting out that the self-appointed "custodians of Mecca" had, in fact, lost control of Mecca, the Saudi government shut down the phones and put heavy restrictions on the media. This backfired terribly, as rumors swirled around that the Grand Mosque had been seized either by Iran-backed Shiites or Americans, which led to riots throughout the Islamic world.
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* Averted in the Isaac Asimov short story "The Dead Past": When a pair of scientists reinvent a Forbidden Technology that has Unforeseen Consequences, the government agents tasked with keeping it a secret are stymied by the fact that it's SO secret they don't technically have the authority to censor it. They try threats of imprisonment without trial (or worse) only to be told "This isn't the Twentieth Century".
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* Averted in the Isaac Asimov short story "The Dead Past": When a pair of scientists reinvent a Forbidden Technology that has Unforeseen Consequences, the government agents tasked with keeping it a secret are stymied by the fact that it's SO ''so'' secret they don't technically have the authority to censor it. They try threats of imprisonment without trial (or worse) or worse, only to be told "This isn't the Twentieth Century".
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All the other countries agreed offscreen as well: To prevent worldwide panic and the breakdown of society that would come with it they must keep the disaster quiet until it's solved...or until it's too late to do anything about it. They will enforce it by any means necessary, including dispatching the military or any other big gun type {{mooks}} to keep the secret, right on up to disappearing anyone, such as an IntrepidReporter who might blow the whistle. The government is not above killing to keep the secret either.
to:
All the other countries agreed offscreen as well: To prevent worldwide panic and the breakdown of society that would come with it it, they must keep the disaster quiet until it's solved...or until it's too late to do anything about it. They will enforce it by any means necessary, including dispatching the military or any other big gun type {{mooks}} to keep the secret, right on up to disappearing anyone, such as an IntrepidReporter who might blow the whistle. The government is not above killing to keep the secret either.
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The Apocalypse or some great [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt world-destroying]] disaster is coming. Various governments of the world have already seen it coming, and are working on some way to counter it and save us all. Several governments may even be agreeing to work together despite previous animosities, just because if there's no world they can't go back to saber-rattling at each other afterward.
In many Hollywood movies, it begins with [[AmericaSavesTheDay the President]]. S/he may or may not have an onscreen conference with all the other world leaders, but the order comes from the White House. If we don't see the President giving the order we see the government acting on orders from the White House.
In many Hollywood movies, it begins with [[AmericaSavesTheDay the President]]. S/he may or may not have an onscreen conference with all the other world leaders, but the order comes from the White House. If we don't see the President giving the order we see the government acting on orders from the White House.
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The Apocalypse or some great [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt world-destroying]] disaster is coming. Various governments of the world have already seen it coming, and are working on some way to counter it and save us all. Several governments may even be agreeing to work together despite previous animosities, just because if there's no world world, they can't go back to saber-rattling at each other afterward.
In many Hollywood movies, it begins with [[AmericaSavesTheDay the President]]. S/he may or may not have an onscreen conference with all the other world leaders, but the order comes from the White House. If we don't see the President giving theorder order, we see the government acting on orders from the White House.
In many Hollywood movies, it begins with [[AmericaSavesTheDay the President]]. S/he may or may not have an onscreen conference with all the other world leaders, but the order comes from the White House. If we don't see the President giving the
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* ''Film/{{Outbreak}}'': Donald Sutherland and MorganFreeman's characters, despite knowing how deadly the Motaba virus is, play clueless so they can use the version they have a cure for as a germ warfare weapon. There's even a scene in the WarRoom where they watch a projection of Motaba's contagion spread and death toll, indicating the president is on board. There are repeated examples of the government telling people who are sick that they'll be just fine -- right before [[KillItWithFire dropping a Fuel Air Bomb]] on the infection.
to:
* ''Film/{{Outbreak}}'': Donald Sutherland and MorganFreeman's Creator/MorganFreeman's characters, despite knowing how deadly the Motaba virus is, play clueless so they can use the version they have a cure for as a germ warfare weapon. There's even a scene in the WarRoom where they watch a projection of Motaba's contagion spread and death toll, indicating the president is on board. There are repeated examples of the government telling people who are sick that they'll be just fine -- right before [[KillItWithFire dropping a Fuel Air Bomb]] on the infection.
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* Ironically, ''China'' is not one of the countries with a gag order-their official word is simply that they will release the information if it ever becomes necessary, and say to the world "YouDidntAsk" if someone questions why.
* In 1942, the British government tried to supress the news of the sinking of flagship battleship HMS Barham, on the grounds that this would be one disaster too many for the British people to take. Unfortunately the news had already reached the ship's home port, and rumour spread which combined with official denial to make the situation look even worse. One victim of this fallout was a fraudulent medium making a living out of Navy families in Portsmouth. She got hold of the story through non-psychic channels (the Royal Navy rumour mill) and then pretended to have got the news via her guides and the spirits of the dead sailors. As the ship had not officially been sunk at this time, the British authorities silenced her by using the centuries old Witchcraft Act - making her the last official witch to be tried and found guilty in a British court. [[note]]She was not burnt at the stake - merely imprisoned.[[/note]]
* For most of the 20th century, the British political establishment had recourse to the "D-Notice" system - if all other attempts at persuading a newspaper not to publish had failed, the editor would be hit by a D-Notice officially prohibiting publication on grounds of state security. The system has never been repealed, but has fallen into obselescence, as the rise of the Internet meant British people curious to discover what they are barred from knowing can get it off the Net.
* In 1942, the British government tried to supress the news of the sinking of flagship battleship HMS Barham, on the grounds that this would be one disaster too many for the British people to take. Unfortunately the news had already reached the ship's home port, and rumour spread which combined with official denial to make the situation look even worse. One victim of this fallout was a fraudulent medium making a living out of Navy families in Portsmouth. She got hold of the story through non-psychic channels (the Royal Navy rumour mill) and then pretended to have got the news via her guides and the spirits of the dead sailors. As the ship had not officially been sunk at this time, the British authorities silenced her by using the centuries old Witchcraft Act - making her the last official witch to be tried and found guilty in a British court. [[note]]She was not burnt at the stake - merely imprisoned.[[/note]]
* For most of the 20th century, the British political establishment had recourse to the "D-Notice" system - if all other attempts at persuading a newspaper not to publish had failed, the editor would be hit by a D-Notice officially prohibiting publication on grounds of state security. The system has never been repealed, but has fallen into obselescence, as the rise of the Internet meant British people curious to discover what they are barred from knowing can get it off the Net.
to:
* Ironically, ''China'' is not one of the countries with a gag order-their order--their official word is simply that they will release the information if it ever becomes necessary, and say to the world "YouDidntAsk" if someone questions why.
* In 1942, the British government tried tosupress suppress the news of the sinking of flagship battleship HMS Barham, on the grounds that this would be one disaster too many for the British people to take. Unfortunately the news had already reached the ship's home port, and rumour spread which combined with official denial to make the situation look even worse. One victim of this fallout was a fraudulent medium making a living out of Navy families in Portsmouth. She got hold of the story through non-psychic channels (the Royal Navy rumour mill) and then pretended to have got the news via her guides and the spirits of the dead sailors. As the ship had not officially been sunk at this time, the British authorities silenced her by using the centuries old Witchcraft Act - -- making her the last official witch to be tried and found guilty in a British court. [[note]]She was not burnt at the stake - -- merely imprisoned.[[/note]]
* For most of the 20th century, the British political establishment had recourse to the "D-Notice" system- -- if all other attempts at persuading a newspaper not to publish had failed, the editor would be hit by a D-Notice officially prohibiting publication on grounds of state security. The system has never been repealed, but has fallen into obselescence, as the rise of the Internet meant British people curious to discover what they are barred from knowing can get it off the Net.
* In 1942, the British government tried to
* For most of the 20th century, the British political establishment had recourse to the "D-Notice" system
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* In ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' China does a regular version in face of a ZombieApocalypse, with the addition of creating a military crisis with Taiwan to provide a cover for their press clampdown and army mobilization. The U.S. government gets in on the action with a variation: Although several outbreaks have made the news, the government presents it as a form of rabies, and helps a CorruptCorporateExecutive with marketing his rabies vaccine so that people will remain calm and assume the problem is under control. Once the vaccine is revealed to be useless and the outbreaks become more frequent The Great Panic begins.
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Changed line(s) 36 (click to see context) from:
* ''Film/DeepImpact'': The IntrepidReporter actually thought she was chasing a cheating scandal or a disgraced politician scandal. But the President's people thought that she knew the truth about the incoming comet and treated her as such. The President shows some knowledge that something this huge is impossible to keep secret for long, and takes the appearance of the reporter to mean the jig is up: even if they manage to silence her, another one will come along shortly. When the information finally does go public, the President issues orders on national television intended to keep society together as long as possible: no price gouging on gas, water, or other necessities.
to:
* ''Film/DeepImpact'': The IntrepidReporter actually thought she was chasing a cheating scandal or a disgraced politician scandal. But the President's people thought that she knew the truth about the incoming comet and treated her as such. The President shows some knowledge that something this huge is impossible to keep secret for long, and takes the appearance of the reporter to mean the jig is up: people are beginning to notice something's going on, and even if they manage to silence her, this reporter, another one will come along shortly. When the The information finally does go public, goes public a couple of weeks later, and the President issues orders on national television intended to keep society together as long as possible: no price gouging on gas, water, or other necessities.
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Changed line(s) 36 (click to see context) from:
* ''Film/DeepImpact'': The IntrepidReporter actually thought she was chasing a cheating scandal or a disgraced politician scandal. But the President's people thought that she knew the truth about "Ellie" and treated her as such. Some months later, the truth comes out, and people have to make peace with the fact that if they aren't on the lottery to survive, they're goners. When the information finally does go public, the President issues orders on national television intended to keep society together as long as possible: no price gouging on gas, water, or other necessities.
to:
* ''Film/DeepImpact'': The IntrepidReporter actually thought she was chasing a cheating scandal or a disgraced politician scandal. But the President's people thought that she knew the truth about "Ellie" the incoming comet and treated her as such. Some months later, the truth comes out, and people have to make peace with the fact The President shows some knowledge that something this huge is impossible to keep secret for long, and takes the appearance of the reporter to mean the jig is up: even if they aren't on the lottery manage to survive, they're goners.silence her, another one will come along shortly. When the information finally does go public, the President issues orders on national television intended to keep society together as long as possible: no price gouging on gas, water, or other necessities.
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Changed line(s) 32 (click to see context) from:
* ComicBook/{{Superman}} wouldn't exist without this trope. His father, Jor-El, warned the Kryptonian council that their world was going to explode from geothermic activity. They dismissed him and prevented him from making any noise about his findings, so all he and his wife could do was send their baby to safety in a ship.
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* ComicBook/{{Superman}} Franchise/{{Superman}} wouldn't exist without this trope. His father, Jor-El, warned the Kryptonian council that their world was going to explode from geothermic activity. They dismissed him and prevented him from making any noise about his findings, so all he and his wife could do was send their baby to safety in a ship.
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* In ''Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead'' the previous film ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead'' is presented as VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory - the government tried to hush it up but some news leaked out, so they let a movie be made but insisted that the filmmakers change certain aspects and claim it was fiction.
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* In ''Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead'' the previous film ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead'' ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' is presented as VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory - the government tried to hush it up but some news leaked out, so they let a movie be made but insisted that the filmmakers change certain aspects and claim it was fiction.
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[[AC: {{Anime}} and Manga]]
* The ZombieApocalypse in ''Manga/GakkouGurashi'' subverts the trope. The government knew. The characters' school was set up as a shelter.
* In ''Manga/SchoolLive'' the Japanese government knew of the upcoming ZombieApocalypse beforehand. They even sent out emergency manuals to government officials for when the day comes.
* The ZombieApocalypse in ''Manga/GakkouGurashi'' subverts the trope. The government knew. The characters' school was set up as a shelter.
* In ''Manga/SchoolLive'' the Japanese government knew of the upcoming ZombieApocalypse beforehand. They even sent out emergency manuals to government officials for when the day comes.
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[[AC: {{Anime}} and Manga]]
* The ZombieApocalypse in ''Manga/GakkouGurashi'' subverts the trope. The government knew. The characters' school was set up as a shelter.
{{Manga}}]]
* In ''Manga/SchoolLive'' the Japanese government knew of the upcoming ZombieApocalypsebeforehand. They even sent out beforehand and the main characters' school was set up as a shelter. [[spoiler:Megu-nee was given an emergency manuals to government officials for when manual on her first day of being a teacher however it wasn't known it was zombie related until after the day comes.
epidemic hit.]]
* The ZombieApocalypse in ''Manga/GakkouGurashi'' subverts the trope. The government knew. The characters' school was set up as a shelter.
* In ''Manga/SchoolLive'' the Japanese government knew of the upcoming ZombieApocalypse
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proper header markup
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!Examples
'''GLOBAL THREAT'''
'''GLOBAL THREAT'''
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'''GLOBAL THREAT'''
!!!Global Threat
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'''LOCAL THREAT'''
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* Largely averted in ''Film/Contagion'' where the government is up-front about just how bad things are, but they do try to keep a lid on the Chicago quarantine because they're trying to avoid carriers leaving to infect others, but they're foiled by Dr. Cheever's attempt to warn his wife.
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* Largely averted in ''Film/Contagion'' ''Film/{{Contagion}}'', where the government is up-front about just how bad things are, but they do try to keep a lid on the Chicago quarantine because they're trying to avoid carriers leaving to infect others, but they're foiled by Dr. Cheever's attempt to warn his wife.
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** This was actually the [[LeftHanging thread]] fans wanted resolved when the series ended. It was never resolved becasue there were spinoff shows that relied on the gag order.
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** This was actually the [[LeftHanging thread]] fans wanted resolved when the series ended. It was never resolved becasue because there were spinoff shows that relied on the gag order.
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* For most of the 20th century, the British political establishment had recourse to the "D-Notice" system - if all other attempts at persuading a newspaper not to publish had failed, the editor would be hit by a D-Notice officially prohibiting publication on grounds of state security. The system has never been repealed, but has fallen into obselescence, as the rise of the Internet meant British people curious to discover what they are barred from knowing can get it off the Net.
to:
* For most of the 20th century, the British political establishment had recourse to the "D-Notice" system - if all other attempts at persuading a newspaper not to publish had failed, the editor would be hit by a D-Notice officially prohibiting publication on grounds of state security. The system has never been repealed, but has fallen into obselescence, as the rise of the Internet meant British people curious to discover what they are barred from knowing can get it off the Net.Net.
----
----
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* A particularly egregious example in ''Film/TwentyTwelve''. The IgnoredExpert warns what's going to happen, but is blown off. The secret is kept pretty well. The hero only finds out because of who he's working for. And the "save humanity" ships are pretty much meant only for those who can afford to chip in and have them built.
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* A particularly egregious example in ''Film/TwentyTwelve''.''Film/TwoThousandTwelve''. The IgnoredExpert warns what's going to happen, but is blown off. The secret is kept pretty well. The hero only finds out because of who he's working for. And the "save humanity" ships are pretty much meant only for those who can afford to chip in and have them built.
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The lower budget version of this is the small town threatened by monster or disaster, and the local government with the support of {{ObstructiveBureaucrat}}s wants to keep it quiet because it'll scare off the tourists.
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The lower budget version of this is the small town threatened by monster or disaster, and the local government with the support of {{ObstructiveBureaucrat}}s {{Obstructive Bureaucrat}}s wants to keep it quiet because it'll scare off the tourists.
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Naturally common to {{DisasterMovie}}s of all types; usually part of ThePlague scenario or the ZombieApocalypse as well.
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Naturally common to {{DisasterMovie}}s {{Disaster Movie}}s of all types; usually part of ThePlague scenario or the ZombieApocalypse as well.
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* Largely averted in ''Film/Contagion'' where the government is up-front about just how bad things are, but they do try to keep a lid on the Chicago quarantine because they're trying to avoid carriers leaving to infect others, but they're foiled by Dr. Cheever's attempt to warn his wife.
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Moved to local threats.
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* In ''Film/TheRock'', the government keeps a lid on the terrorists' threat (launching VX gas rockets at San Francisco) for fear of creating a mass panic.
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* In ''Film/TheRock'', the government keeps a lid on the terrorists' threat (launching VX gas rockets at San Francisco) for fear of creating a mass panic.
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Moved to local threats.
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* Intel items in ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' reveal that the UAE government knew the cataclysmic sandstorm which destroys Dubai was coming, but hushed it up to allow the wealthy to escape first.
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[[AC: Video Games]]
* Intel items in ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' reveal that the UAE government knew the cataclysmic sandstorm which destroys Dubai was coming, but hushed it up to allow the wealthy to escape first.
* Intel items in ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' reveal that the UAE government knew the cataclysmic sandstorm which destroys Dubai was coming, but hushed it up to allow the wealthy to escape first.
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** This was actually the [[LeftHanging thread]] fans wanted resolved when the series ended. It was never resolved becasue there were spinoff shows that relied on the gag order.
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* Implied in ''Film/BattleLosAngeles''. The government was all ready to take pictures and scan the landing spacecraft and in no time was sending a unit to plant explosives in the command center - however the rest of the world is surprised to see aliens arrive.
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* RollingUpdates
'''HATS?'''
'''HATS?'''
to:
'''HATS?'''
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The Apocalypse or some great [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt world-destroying]] disaster is coming. Various governments of the world have already seen it coming, and are working on some way to counter it and save us all. Several governments may even be agreeing to work together despite previous animosities, just because if there's no world they can't go back to saber-rattling at each other afterward.
In many Hollywood movies, it begins with [[AmericaSavesTheDay the President]]. S/he may or may not have an onscreen conference with all the other world leaders, but the order comes from the White House. If we don't see the President giving the order we see the government acting on orders from the White House.
All the other countries agreed offscreen as well: To prevent worldwide panic and the breakdown of society that would come with it they must keep the disaster quiet until it's solved...or until it's too late to do anything about it. They will enforce it by any means necessary, including dispatching the military or any other big gun type {{mooks}} to keep the secret, right on up to disappearing anyone, such as an IntrepidReporter who might blow the whistle. The government is not above killing to keep the secret either.
While the scary people with the guns are grabbing and disappearing anyone who might talk, the government also gives strict and explicit commands to the media and the press: "you can tell the public this particular comforting platitude until we say different; dire consequences if you step out of line".
It is not necessarily confined to the government either; sometimes people who have other types of power take it upon themselves to protect the world regardless of what the government thinks.
The lower budget version of this is the small town threatened by monster or disaster, and the local government with the support of {{ObstructiveBureaucrat}}s wants to keep it quiet because it'll scare off the tourists.
Inevitably despite the governments' best efforts, the secret gets out one way or another, and the world at large finds out. Usually by this time it's too late.
A common variation is the President or leader person wanting to go public only to be advised against it by weaselly assistants or well intentioned staff.
Naturally common to {{DisasterMovie}}s of all types; usually part of ThePlague scenario or the ZombieApocalypse as well.
Compare InformationWantsToBeFree and GasLeakCoverup. Related to GovernmentConspiracy. Subtrope of TheMasquerade and TheWorldIsNotReady.
* RollingUpdates
'''HATS?'''
----
!Examples
'''GLOBAL THREAT'''
[[AC: {{Anime}} and Manga]]
* The ZombieApocalypse in ''Manga/GakkouGurashi'' subverts the trope. The government knew. The characters' school was set up as a shelter.
* In ''Manga/SchoolLive'' the Japanese government knew of the upcoming ZombieApocalypse beforehand. They even sent out emergency manuals to government officials for when the day comes.
[[AC: ComicBooks]]
* ComicBook/{{Superman}} wouldn't exist without this trope. His father, Jor-El, warned the Kryptonian council that their world was going to explode from geothermic activity. They dismissed him and prevented him from making any noise about his findings, so all he and his wife could do was send their baby to safety in a ship.
* The 2015 ''ComicBook/SecretWars'' event had some of this going on as well. The governments of the world didn't know that there were multiversal incursions happening, all destroying the universes as worlds collided, but there were a handful of superheroes (and supervillains) who knew. They kept it secret to the point of mindwiping several other heroes who found out and disagreed with their methods, causing a schism amongst superheroes right as the last incursion between Earth 616 and earth 1610 began.
[[AC: {{Film}}]]
* ''Film/DeepImpact'': The IntrepidReporter actually thought she was chasing a cheating scandal or a disgraced politician scandal. But the President's people thought that she knew the truth about "Ellie" and treated her as such. Some months later, the truth comes out, and people have to make peace with the fact that if they aren't on the lottery to survive, they're goners. When the information finally does go public, the President issues orders on national television intended to keep society together as long as possible: no price gouging on gas, water, or other necessities.
* ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'': The amateur astronomer who found the meteor after NASA did got to name it. He chose to call it after his wife, Dottie. Despite the roughnecks' blabbing at a strip club about their top secret world saving mission for NASA, the lid is kept on the secret until a meteor hits a major city; then the NASA guy gets a text that lets him know that Dottie has gone public. Even '' then'', news reports for the first few days complain that the government is still not telling the public much.
* ''Film/{{Outbreak}}'': Donald Sutherland and MorganFreeman's characters, despite knowing how deadly the Motaba virus is, play clueless so they can use the version they have a cure for as a germ warfare weapon. There's even a scene in the WarRoom where they watch a projection of Motaba's contagion spread and death toll, indicating the president is on board. There are repeated examples of the government telling people who are sick that they'll be just fine -- right before [[KillItWithFire dropping a Fuel Air Bomb]] on the infection.
* ''Film/TheCrazies'': Not only did the government keep a lid on the sickness, but they tracked survivors and targeted them before they could get to safety and either blow the whistle or spread the infection.
* A particularly egregious example in ''Film/TwentyTwelve''. The IgnoredExpert warns what's going to happen, but is blown off. The secret is kept pretty well. The hero only finds out because of who he's working for. And the "save humanity" ships are pretty much meant only for those who can afford to chip in and have them built.
* ''Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow'': The scientist is ignored by the vice president, who refuses to fund research about the climate. By the time the weather changes, it's obvious to humanity at large. It all happens too fast to do anything but evacuate people down to the southern hemisphere, and lots of people die deaths of lacking in common sense because they don't take the problem as seriously as merited. The Vice President, who was an {{Expy}} of Dick Cheney, had pooh-poohed the seriousness of the threat.
* ''Film/IndependenceDay'' plays with the trope. Averted, in that the global countdown and the arrival of alien ships all over the world caused the panic before the governments could put a lid on it. Regarding the rumors of Area 51, though, the military kept the President himself in the dark for plausible deniability reasons. He was not pleased.
* In ''Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead'' the previous film ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead'' is presented as VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory - the government tried to hush it up but some news leaked out, so they let a movie be made but insisted that the filmmakers change certain aspects and claim it was fiction.
* In ''Film/TheRock'', the government keeps a lid on the terrorists' threat (launching VX gas rockets at San Francisco) for fear of creating a mass panic.
[[AC: {{Literature}}]]
* ''Literature/{{Newsflesh}}'': In the ''Countdown'' Novella, the [=CDC=] and the governments of the world fed the news comforting platitudes to tell the world about the sickness sweeping the globe. One [=CDC=] scientist breaks the true story on his tween daughter's blog.
* Averted in the Isaac Asimov short story "The Dead Past": When a pair of scientists reinvent a Forbidden Technology that has Unforeseen Consequences, the government agents tasked with keeping it a secret are stymied by the fact that it's SO secret they don't technically have the authority to censor it. They try threats of imprisonment without trial (or worse) only to be told "This isn't the Twentieth Century".
* The US government attempts this in the face of an impending asteroid collision in ''Literature/{{Remnants}} #1: The Mayflower Project''. [[spoiler:This ends in TheUnmasquedWorld when a fragment of the asteroid, knocked off by a comet it ran over on its way in, hits Los Angeles a few days ahead of the main event and is livestreamed on the Internet; massive riots ensue.]]
* In ''Literature/TheMidwichCuckoos'', the UsefulNotes/OfficialSecretsAct is invoked to cover up the initial incident at Midwich. Practically no details are known anyway, since everyone inside was mysteriously unconscious at the time and nobody outside could see what was going on.
* ''Literature/TheStand'' has the government trying to cover up the spread of the superflu. One guy with a camera gets shot, and newsrooms are taken over to make sure the reporters don't talk about flu-related stuff on the air. When it's admitted there's an outbreak, the government insists there'll be a vaccine soon.
[[AC: LiveActionTelevision]]
* ''Series/FearTheWalkingDead'': Implied, but never shown onscreen. All the main characters know is that there's some weird bug going around and that people are staying home for fear of catching it. The news has a couple of disturbing shots on video with rumors flying online. But the fact that the ZombieApocalypse has started is not common knowledge as of the series' first two episodes. It's obvious that the news has trickled down through the government though. The Police, already know to use BoomHeadshot, are starting to desert to prepare for the worst.
* Season 3 of Marvel's ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' has the American government creating the Advanced Threat Containment Unit to secretly detain anyone who has Inhuman-like powers and cover up any news regarding the spread of Terrigen on a global scale.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'' has a couple of incidents where a Goa'uld attack against Earth gets a gag order, due to [[OverTheTopSecret the secrecy of the stargate program]]. Due to it being done by the ''protagonists'', they use non-violent measures to enforce it and the crisis always passes. It doesn't become an issue until the season 6 ClipShow "[[Recap/StargateSG1S6E17Disclosure Disclosure]]" when the Chinese government threatens to go public with information contradicting one of the SGC's cover stories.
** "[[Recap/StargateSG1S2E1TheSerpentsLair The Serpent's Lair]]" has the US government gag the appearance of two Goa'uld motherships in Earth orbit, which they manage to maintain even when other governments query why the United States just launched two ballistic missiles at them.
** "[[Recap/StargateSG1S5E17Failsafe Failsafe]]" opens with an amateur astronomer on the phone with somebody saying he's located an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, just as several cars worth of government agents drive up on him. After the opening credits, Samantha Carter explains that the Air Force took his footage and convinced him to keep quiet.
** "[[Recap/StargateSG1S6E11Prometheus Prometheus]]" has the President himself intervene to shut down a TV story about "Project Prometheus", which the TV crew mistakenly thinks is a fusion reactor (it's Earth's first attempt at a spacegoing warship to counter Goa'uld motherships). In return, they're guaranteed an exclusive when the project goes public.
** Done after the fact in "[[Recap/StargateSG1S8E8Covenant Covenant]]" when a billionaire to whom the SGC subcontracted parts of the F-302 SpaceFighter tries to go public about the battle between the SGC and Anubis over Antarctica. The SGC releases a different cover story, then has their Asgard friend Thor beam all the evidence right out of the billionaire's office building.
[[AC: {{Webcomics}}]]
*In ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'' the world governments pretended that the "rash sickness" was infectious but mostly harmless and that the [[PatientZero patients zero]] were responding well to treatment, and said that they were closing borders to travel simply because an epidemic would temporarily cripple the workforce. Of course, even they probably didn't know that the Illness could infect ''all'' mammals including wild vermin and whales, or that it occasionally [[ZombieApocalypse zombified its victims rather than killing them...]]
*In one arc of ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', a man-eating shark appears on a terraformed planet that wasn't supposed to have any sharks, and killed one of the Toughs and mauled another as they vacationed there. When Der Trihs called the cops, they ''arrested him'' because they [[InsaneTrollLogic decided he must be trying to sabotage their tourism industry with a robotic shark]]. It wasn't until the police chief personally witnessed a MadScientist confess to releasing the thing ''and then get eaten by a giant squid he'd also released'' that he decided to close the beaches.
* In ''Webcomic/QuantumVibe'' the ultra-Libertarian L-5 City's Board of Directors orders Nicole to keep [[spoiler: her FTL drive a secret for at least a year, since it could be used to teleport nukes anywhere, destroying civilization again. So she invents an interdiction device.]]
[[AC: VideoGames]]
* One of the functions of the title organization in ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' is to keep the world public unaware of the real scale of the on-going alien invasion. Failing to deal with alien attacks discretely and to hide the evidence results in panic levels going up across the globe, which is bad all around.
* In the ''VideoGame/MassEffect'' series, the Citadel Council pointedly refuses to acknowledge the Reaper threat until it's too late because they want to preserve the Council races' military dominance.
* Intel items in ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' reveal that the UAE government knew the cataclysmic sandstorm which destroys Dubai was coming, but hushed it up to allow the wealthy to escape first.
'''LOCAL THREAT'''
[[AC: {{Anime}} and Manga]]
* In ''Anime/PersonaTrinitySoul'', the mysterious cases of Apathy Syndrome, due to Shadow Extraction attacks by Marebito, are not made public by Superintendent Ryo Kanzato, the chief of the Ayanagi City Police Station, in order to investigate and prevent the city's populace from being affected. It's implied that top officials in Ayanagi City are privy to the details alongside Superintendent Kanzato, but also choose not to make them known to the public and to most of the force. This leads to resentment from some of the officers since their affected colleagues don't recover from Apathy Syndrome.
[[AC: Film]]
* Almost every Creator/IrwinAllen movie had some variety of ObstructiveBureaucrat or SuitWithVestedInterests who was more concerned about making money than saving it, only to have the disaster completely wipe out their pet project (as an example, ''Film/WhenTimeRanOut'' and the disregarding of the warnings about the volcano in order to keep the hotel open).
* ''Film/{{Jaws}}'': Amityville wanted to keep the giant great white shark a secret because they didn't want to lose summer tourism dollars. A small child ended up losing his life with a huge crowd watching.
* ''Film/{{Volcano}}'': The scientists' concern of a volcano in Los Angeles are blown off by a guy who controls the subway. RedemptionEqualsDeath when he finds out that they were right. He dies performing a HeroicSacrifice to rescue the civilians who passed out on the train. By the time they've accepted "okay, it's a volcano," a sizeable portion of Los Angeles is lost to lava or on fire by proximity.
* ''Film/DantesPeak'': The guy sent from the National Geological Survey warns of a volcano. There are all the signs. The local government doesn't want to lose the tourism dollars because the town just won a "greatest places to live" award, and his boss thinks he's overreacting from a previous bad experience with a volcano. By the time they can be convinced to share it with the town, the volcano is already in the process of erupting.
* In ''Night Claws'' there's a Bigfoot killing people in a national forest next to a town. The mayor tells the sheriff to keep things quiet or they'll scare off the tourists coming into town. Spoony splices in footage of the first Jaws movie where something similar happens, only substitute "killer shark" for "Bigfoot" and "beach" for "forest." Oh, and "scientist played by Roy Scheider" for "sheriff played by Reb Brown."
* Creator/SyFy has a metric ton of movies with the small town version of the trope (with the application of ObstructiveBureaucrat, SuitWithVestedInterests, or worse yet, ArmiesAreEvil (as in whatever is the MonsterOfTheWeek is some kind of secret GovernmentConspiracy project)). For example: ''Film/LakePlacid: The Final Chapter''.
[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* In ''Literature/TheMidwichCuckoos'', the UsefulNotes/OfficialSecretsAct is invoked to prevent news of the Midwich Dayout from spreading. This leads some to suspect that it was the doing of a GovernmentConspiracy, especially since The Grange, a Ministry research facility, was at the epicenter of the incident. However, before the BizarreBabyBoom kicks in, very little is known about what happened except that everyone in Midwich fell mysteriously unconscious for the duration of the incident and nobody from the outside world could get within a mile of the town.
[[AC: RealLife]]
* Ironically, ''China'' is not one of the countries with a gag order-their official word is simply that they will release the information if it ever becomes necessary, and say to the world "YouDidntAsk" if someone questions why.
* In 1942, the British government tried to supress the news of the sinking of flagship battleship HMS Barham, on the grounds that this would be one disaster too many for the British people to take. Unfortunately the news had already reached the ship's home port, and rumour spread which combined with official denial to make the situation look even worse. One victim of this fallout was a fraudulent medium making a living out of Navy families in Portsmouth. She got hold of the story through non-psychic channels (the Royal Navy rumour mill) and then pretended to have got the news via her guides and the spirits of the dead sailors. As the ship had not officially been sunk at this time, the British authorities silenced her by using the centuries old Witchcraft Act - making her the last official witch to be tried and found guilty in a British court. [[note]]She was not burnt at the stake - merely imprisoned.[[/note]]
* For most of the 20th century, the British political establishment had recourse to the "D-Notice" system - if all other attempts at persuading a newspaper not to publish had failed, the editor would be hit by a D-Notice officially prohibiting publication on grounds of state security. The system has never been repealed, but has fallen into obselescence, as the rise of the Internet meant British people curious to discover what they are barred from knowing can get it off the Net.
In many Hollywood movies, it begins with [[AmericaSavesTheDay the President]]. S/he may or may not have an onscreen conference with all the other world leaders, but the order comes from the White House. If we don't see the President giving the order we see the government acting on orders from the White House.
All the other countries agreed offscreen as well: To prevent worldwide panic and the breakdown of society that would come with it they must keep the disaster quiet until it's solved...or until it's too late to do anything about it. They will enforce it by any means necessary, including dispatching the military or any other big gun type {{mooks}} to keep the secret, right on up to disappearing anyone, such as an IntrepidReporter who might blow the whistle. The government is not above killing to keep the secret either.
While the scary people with the guns are grabbing and disappearing anyone who might talk, the government also gives strict and explicit commands to the media and the press: "you can tell the public this particular comforting platitude until we say different; dire consequences if you step out of line".
It is not necessarily confined to the government either; sometimes people who have other types of power take it upon themselves to protect the world regardless of what the government thinks.
The lower budget version of this is the small town threatened by monster or disaster, and the local government with the support of {{ObstructiveBureaucrat}}s wants to keep it quiet because it'll scare off the tourists.
Inevitably despite the governments' best efforts, the secret gets out one way or another, and the world at large finds out. Usually by this time it's too late.
A common variation is the President or leader person wanting to go public only to be advised against it by weaselly assistants or well intentioned staff.
Naturally common to {{DisasterMovie}}s of all types; usually part of ThePlague scenario or the ZombieApocalypse as well.
Compare InformationWantsToBeFree and GasLeakCoverup. Related to GovernmentConspiracy. Subtrope of TheMasquerade and TheWorldIsNotReady.
* RollingUpdates
'''HATS?'''
----
!Examples
'''GLOBAL THREAT'''
[[AC: {{Anime}} and Manga]]
* The ZombieApocalypse in ''Manga/GakkouGurashi'' subverts the trope. The government knew. The characters' school was set up as a shelter.
* In ''Manga/SchoolLive'' the Japanese government knew of the upcoming ZombieApocalypse beforehand. They even sent out emergency manuals to government officials for when the day comes.
[[AC: ComicBooks]]
* ComicBook/{{Superman}} wouldn't exist without this trope. His father, Jor-El, warned the Kryptonian council that their world was going to explode from geothermic activity. They dismissed him and prevented him from making any noise about his findings, so all he and his wife could do was send their baby to safety in a ship.
* The 2015 ''ComicBook/SecretWars'' event had some of this going on as well. The governments of the world didn't know that there were multiversal incursions happening, all destroying the universes as worlds collided, but there were a handful of superheroes (and supervillains) who knew. They kept it secret to the point of mindwiping several other heroes who found out and disagreed with their methods, causing a schism amongst superheroes right as the last incursion between Earth 616 and earth 1610 began.
[[AC: {{Film}}]]
* ''Film/DeepImpact'': The IntrepidReporter actually thought she was chasing a cheating scandal or a disgraced politician scandal. But the President's people thought that she knew the truth about "Ellie" and treated her as such. Some months later, the truth comes out, and people have to make peace with the fact that if they aren't on the lottery to survive, they're goners. When the information finally does go public, the President issues orders on national television intended to keep society together as long as possible: no price gouging on gas, water, or other necessities.
* ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'': The amateur astronomer who found the meteor after NASA did got to name it. He chose to call it after his wife, Dottie. Despite the roughnecks' blabbing at a strip club about their top secret world saving mission for NASA, the lid is kept on the secret until a meteor hits a major city; then the NASA guy gets a text that lets him know that Dottie has gone public. Even '' then'', news reports for the first few days complain that the government is still not telling the public much.
* ''Film/{{Outbreak}}'': Donald Sutherland and MorganFreeman's characters, despite knowing how deadly the Motaba virus is, play clueless so they can use the version they have a cure for as a germ warfare weapon. There's even a scene in the WarRoom where they watch a projection of Motaba's contagion spread and death toll, indicating the president is on board. There are repeated examples of the government telling people who are sick that they'll be just fine -- right before [[KillItWithFire dropping a Fuel Air Bomb]] on the infection.
* ''Film/TheCrazies'': Not only did the government keep a lid on the sickness, but they tracked survivors and targeted them before they could get to safety and either blow the whistle or spread the infection.
* A particularly egregious example in ''Film/TwentyTwelve''. The IgnoredExpert warns what's going to happen, but is blown off. The secret is kept pretty well. The hero only finds out because of who he's working for. And the "save humanity" ships are pretty much meant only for those who can afford to chip in and have them built.
* ''Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow'': The scientist is ignored by the vice president, who refuses to fund research about the climate. By the time the weather changes, it's obvious to humanity at large. It all happens too fast to do anything but evacuate people down to the southern hemisphere, and lots of people die deaths of lacking in common sense because they don't take the problem as seriously as merited. The Vice President, who was an {{Expy}} of Dick Cheney, had pooh-poohed the seriousness of the threat.
* ''Film/IndependenceDay'' plays with the trope. Averted, in that the global countdown and the arrival of alien ships all over the world caused the panic before the governments could put a lid on it. Regarding the rumors of Area 51, though, the military kept the President himself in the dark for plausible deniability reasons. He was not pleased.
* In ''Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead'' the previous film ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead'' is presented as VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory - the government tried to hush it up but some news leaked out, so they let a movie be made but insisted that the filmmakers change certain aspects and claim it was fiction.
* In ''Film/TheRock'', the government keeps a lid on the terrorists' threat (launching VX gas rockets at San Francisco) for fear of creating a mass panic.
[[AC: {{Literature}}]]
* ''Literature/{{Newsflesh}}'': In the ''Countdown'' Novella, the [=CDC=] and the governments of the world fed the news comforting platitudes to tell the world about the sickness sweeping the globe. One [=CDC=] scientist breaks the true story on his tween daughter's blog.
* Averted in the Isaac Asimov short story "The Dead Past": When a pair of scientists reinvent a Forbidden Technology that has Unforeseen Consequences, the government agents tasked with keeping it a secret are stymied by the fact that it's SO secret they don't technically have the authority to censor it. They try threats of imprisonment without trial (or worse) only to be told "This isn't the Twentieth Century".
* The US government attempts this in the face of an impending asteroid collision in ''Literature/{{Remnants}} #1: The Mayflower Project''. [[spoiler:This ends in TheUnmasquedWorld when a fragment of the asteroid, knocked off by a comet it ran over on its way in, hits Los Angeles a few days ahead of the main event and is livestreamed on the Internet; massive riots ensue.]]
* In ''Literature/TheMidwichCuckoos'', the UsefulNotes/OfficialSecretsAct is invoked to cover up the initial incident at Midwich. Practically no details are known anyway, since everyone inside was mysteriously unconscious at the time and nobody outside could see what was going on.
* ''Literature/TheStand'' has the government trying to cover up the spread of the superflu. One guy with a camera gets shot, and newsrooms are taken over to make sure the reporters don't talk about flu-related stuff on the air. When it's admitted there's an outbreak, the government insists there'll be a vaccine soon.
[[AC: LiveActionTelevision]]
* ''Series/FearTheWalkingDead'': Implied, but never shown onscreen. All the main characters know is that there's some weird bug going around and that people are staying home for fear of catching it. The news has a couple of disturbing shots on video with rumors flying online. But the fact that the ZombieApocalypse has started is not common knowledge as of the series' first two episodes. It's obvious that the news has trickled down through the government though. The Police, already know to use BoomHeadshot, are starting to desert to prepare for the worst.
* Season 3 of Marvel's ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' has the American government creating the Advanced Threat Containment Unit to secretly detain anyone who has Inhuman-like powers and cover up any news regarding the spread of Terrigen on a global scale.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'' has a couple of incidents where a Goa'uld attack against Earth gets a gag order, due to [[OverTheTopSecret the secrecy of the stargate program]]. Due to it being done by the ''protagonists'', they use non-violent measures to enforce it and the crisis always passes. It doesn't become an issue until the season 6 ClipShow "[[Recap/StargateSG1S6E17Disclosure Disclosure]]" when the Chinese government threatens to go public with information contradicting one of the SGC's cover stories.
** "[[Recap/StargateSG1S2E1TheSerpentsLair The Serpent's Lair]]" has the US government gag the appearance of two Goa'uld motherships in Earth orbit, which they manage to maintain even when other governments query why the United States just launched two ballistic missiles at them.
** "[[Recap/StargateSG1S5E17Failsafe Failsafe]]" opens with an amateur astronomer on the phone with somebody saying he's located an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, just as several cars worth of government agents drive up on him. After the opening credits, Samantha Carter explains that the Air Force took his footage and convinced him to keep quiet.
** "[[Recap/StargateSG1S6E11Prometheus Prometheus]]" has the President himself intervene to shut down a TV story about "Project Prometheus", which the TV crew mistakenly thinks is a fusion reactor (it's Earth's first attempt at a spacegoing warship to counter Goa'uld motherships). In return, they're guaranteed an exclusive when the project goes public.
** Done after the fact in "[[Recap/StargateSG1S8E8Covenant Covenant]]" when a billionaire to whom the SGC subcontracted parts of the F-302 SpaceFighter tries to go public about the battle between the SGC and Anubis over Antarctica. The SGC releases a different cover story, then has their Asgard friend Thor beam all the evidence right out of the billionaire's office building.
[[AC: {{Webcomics}}]]
*In ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'' the world governments pretended that the "rash sickness" was infectious but mostly harmless and that the [[PatientZero patients zero]] were responding well to treatment, and said that they were closing borders to travel simply because an epidemic would temporarily cripple the workforce. Of course, even they probably didn't know that the Illness could infect ''all'' mammals including wild vermin and whales, or that it occasionally [[ZombieApocalypse zombified its victims rather than killing them...]]
*In one arc of ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', a man-eating shark appears on a terraformed planet that wasn't supposed to have any sharks, and killed one of the Toughs and mauled another as they vacationed there. When Der Trihs called the cops, they ''arrested him'' because they [[InsaneTrollLogic decided he must be trying to sabotage their tourism industry with a robotic shark]]. It wasn't until the police chief personally witnessed a MadScientist confess to releasing the thing ''and then get eaten by a giant squid he'd also released'' that he decided to close the beaches.
* In ''Webcomic/QuantumVibe'' the ultra-Libertarian L-5 City's Board of Directors orders Nicole to keep [[spoiler: her FTL drive a secret for at least a year, since it could be used to teleport nukes anywhere, destroying civilization again. So she invents an interdiction device.]]
[[AC: VideoGames]]
* One of the functions of the title organization in ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' is to keep the world public unaware of the real scale of the on-going alien invasion. Failing to deal with alien attacks discretely and to hide the evidence results in panic levels going up across the globe, which is bad all around.
* In the ''VideoGame/MassEffect'' series, the Citadel Council pointedly refuses to acknowledge the Reaper threat until it's too late because they want to preserve the Council races' military dominance.
* Intel items in ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' reveal that the UAE government knew the cataclysmic sandstorm which destroys Dubai was coming, but hushed it up to allow the wealthy to escape first.
'''LOCAL THREAT'''
[[AC: {{Anime}} and Manga]]
* In ''Anime/PersonaTrinitySoul'', the mysterious cases of Apathy Syndrome, due to Shadow Extraction attacks by Marebito, are not made public by Superintendent Ryo Kanzato, the chief of the Ayanagi City Police Station, in order to investigate and prevent the city's populace from being affected. It's implied that top officials in Ayanagi City are privy to the details alongside Superintendent Kanzato, but also choose not to make them known to the public and to most of the force. This leads to resentment from some of the officers since their affected colleagues don't recover from Apathy Syndrome.
[[AC: Film]]
* Almost every Creator/IrwinAllen movie had some variety of ObstructiveBureaucrat or SuitWithVestedInterests who was more concerned about making money than saving it, only to have the disaster completely wipe out their pet project (as an example, ''Film/WhenTimeRanOut'' and the disregarding of the warnings about the volcano in order to keep the hotel open).
* ''Film/{{Jaws}}'': Amityville wanted to keep the giant great white shark a secret because they didn't want to lose summer tourism dollars. A small child ended up losing his life with a huge crowd watching.
* ''Film/{{Volcano}}'': The scientists' concern of a volcano in Los Angeles are blown off by a guy who controls the subway. RedemptionEqualsDeath when he finds out that they were right. He dies performing a HeroicSacrifice to rescue the civilians who passed out on the train. By the time they've accepted "okay, it's a volcano," a sizeable portion of Los Angeles is lost to lava or on fire by proximity.
* ''Film/DantesPeak'': The guy sent from the National Geological Survey warns of a volcano. There are all the signs. The local government doesn't want to lose the tourism dollars because the town just won a "greatest places to live" award, and his boss thinks he's overreacting from a previous bad experience with a volcano. By the time they can be convinced to share it with the town, the volcano is already in the process of erupting.
* In ''Night Claws'' there's a Bigfoot killing people in a national forest next to a town. The mayor tells the sheriff to keep things quiet or they'll scare off the tourists coming into town. Spoony splices in footage of the first Jaws movie where something similar happens, only substitute "killer shark" for "Bigfoot" and "beach" for "forest." Oh, and "scientist played by Roy Scheider" for "sheriff played by Reb Brown."
* Creator/SyFy has a metric ton of movies with the small town version of the trope (with the application of ObstructiveBureaucrat, SuitWithVestedInterests, or worse yet, ArmiesAreEvil (as in whatever is the MonsterOfTheWeek is some kind of secret GovernmentConspiracy project)). For example: ''Film/LakePlacid: The Final Chapter''.
[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* In ''Literature/TheMidwichCuckoos'', the UsefulNotes/OfficialSecretsAct is invoked to prevent news of the Midwich Dayout from spreading. This leads some to suspect that it was the doing of a GovernmentConspiracy, especially since The Grange, a Ministry research facility, was at the epicenter of the incident. However, before the BizarreBabyBoom kicks in, very little is known about what happened except that everyone in Midwich fell mysteriously unconscious for the duration of the incident and nobody from the outside world could get within a mile of the town.
[[AC: RealLife]]
* Ironically, ''China'' is not one of the countries with a gag order-their official word is simply that they will release the information if it ever becomes necessary, and say to the world "YouDidntAsk" if someone questions why.
* In 1942, the British government tried to supress the news of the sinking of flagship battleship HMS Barham, on the grounds that this would be one disaster too many for the British people to take. Unfortunately the news had already reached the ship's home port, and rumour spread which combined with official denial to make the situation look even worse. One victim of this fallout was a fraudulent medium making a living out of Navy families in Portsmouth. She got hold of the story through non-psychic channels (the Royal Navy rumour mill) and then pretended to have got the news via her guides and the spirits of the dead sailors. As the ship had not officially been sunk at this time, the British authorities silenced her by using the centuries old Witchcraft Act - making her the last official witch to be tried and found guilty in a British court. [[note]]She was not burnt at the stake - merely imprisoned.[[/note]]
* For most of the 20th century, the British political establishment had recourse to the "D-Notice" system - if all other attempts at persuading a newspaper not to publish had failed, the editor would be hit by a D-Notice officially prohibiting publication on grounds of state security. The system has never been repealed, but has fallen into obselescence, as the rise of the Internet meant British people curious to discover what they are barred from knowing can get it off the Net.
