History Main / BluffingTheAdvanceScout

* In ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' #2, the first appearance of the [[ComicBook/SecretInvasion Skrulls]], the FF bluff them into thinking that Earth is crawling with giant monsters by [[http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/10.jpg showing them pages from a comic book]], pretending they're real photographs.
* In ''ComicBook/JourneyIntoMystery'' #83, aka the issue that introduced Marvel's [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]], had this scenario. The Kronan aliens arrive on Earth with intention of invading, but the first human they encounter is Dr. Donald Blake having been transformed in Thor. He proves to be more than a physical match for them, and the Kronan flee, not wanting to fight a planet full of {{Physical God}}s like he.
* In one issue of ''Comicbook/WestCoastAvengers'', the aliens test the WCA line-up individually, putting their battle robot (and ship's power systems) under increasing stress. Then they finally get to Comicbook/MoonKnight, who is empowered by the ancient Egyptian moon god. And they're testing the heroes ''in a dimension filled with moons''.
* In one issue of ''Comicbook/{{Exiles}}'', the omniscient whatever-it-is that commands the Exiles sets up a chain of events that ends with some minor supervillain, feeling unappreciated, setting off a weapon that fills the Earth's atmosphere with foul-smelling gases for 72 hours. All because the omniscient whatever-it-is has foreseen that right as he sets off the weapon, an alien invasion fleet will arrive, scan the planet, and decide that humanity must have somehow seen them coming and decided to destroy their planet's atmosphere rather than let the aliens conquer them so they depart before anyone actually knows they're there.
* A ''WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse'' story had the mouse and his sidekick, Goofy, visiting an archaeologist-friend at Abu Simpel in Egypt, when they're abducted by AncientAstronauts - specifically, the old Egyptian gods and pharaohs, who left Earth back in the day after being insulted (and nearly accidentally fed to the crocodiles) by one of Goofy's ancestors. Now they've returned with an invasion-fleet to wipe out humanity in repayment! Mickey tricks them into believing that humanity has developed PsychicPowers in the meantime, by taking advantage of the knowledge that Abu Simpel contains their landing-beacon, and claiming that he was using his powers to affect their advanced navigation-equipment. Sure enough, the UFO crashes on approach, and the aliens are scared off. How did it work? Well, Abu Simpel was moved - in a massive engineering undertaking - back in the 1980s, to protect it from a flooding. The new location obviously screwed up the navigational calculations, but the aliens obviously didn't imagine that anyone would tear down something that huge, stone for stone, and then rebuild it exactly identically somewhere nearby.
* ''WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck'': One story has Scrooge [=McDuck=] make a bunch of money by producing and selling semi-sentient 'growing' cars to people. Things are already falling apart, however, when an alien race arrives and hits the planet with a shrink-ray, designed to leave the people of the planet helpless when the invasion-fleet shows up later... but since said aliens happens to be a race of sentient cars, they mistook the growing cars for the dominant species of Earth, and shrunk ''those'' instead of the people. Since there's NegativeContinuity, however, we never get to see the invasion-fleet show up, but presumably, they'd be in for a nasty surprise...
* In the ''[[Creator/PhilFoglio XXXenophile]]'' story "My Favorite Oitling", the human explorer convinces the Martian warrior women that the huge suit of power armour that arrives to rescue him is a typical Earth female and so Earth will be too tough to invade. This works in large part due to the BizarreSexualDimorphism found on Mars, where the women are the stereotypical GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe, but the males are 2-foot tall balls of fur with [[GagPenis hilariously oversized "equipment"]].
* Failed attempt in ''Comicbook/PaperinikNewAdventures''. The first story has Paperinik beating up the Evronian scouts to try and convince them that Earth is too tough to invade. In their next appearance, the Evronians recognize that if Earth has more people like him their invasion could be a failure... And, [[TaughtByExperience having a long experience in similar situations]], promptly send three commando teams to kill him and other scouts to check if there's others. Paperinik survives only because [[PhysicalGod Xadhoom]], who hates the Evronians, is passing by, and the invasion is prevented only by the combination of the devastation she visits on the Evronians preventing them to spare the forces necessary to break through Earth's defenses (the fact she decided to come to Earth every once in a while because she knows she'll find Evronians to kill there helps) and Paperinik preventing them from establishing a bridgehead.
* ''ComicBook/{{Superlopez}}'': ''Los alienígenas''.

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/{{Coneheads}}'' has an inverted example. When Beldar returns to Earth, this time with his planet's entire invasion force, he sends distressing messages over the radio about Earth's "advanced defenses" before self-destructing his ship and faking his death, which leads the invasion forces to believe that Beldar died a hero and that Earth was too dangerous to conquer.
* In ''Film/{{Battleship}}'', Earth found another planet in a "Goldilocks" zone around another star, not realizing that if they can actually come here, rather than merely sending a radio signal like us, they might want the planet instead of becoming friends. By stopping the advance scouting party from reporting back our weak defenses, a full scale invasion, which we had no chance of winning, was prevented.

* "The Best Policy" by Creator/RandallGarrett: Alien advance scouts kidnap a human, stick him in a LieDetector, and order him to describe Earth. He manages to give them a description in which every sentence is [[ExactWords technically true]], but the overall effect is a misleading picture of humans who possess [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien immense, even supernatural powers]], and the aliens are frightened off.
* "Ginger's Secret Weapons" by Peter Wingham, originally published in ''Story Teller'' magazine: A schoolboy named Ginger is abducted by froglike aliens, and uses the contents of his pockets -- which include itching powder, a [[HyperDestructiveBouncingBall small rubber ball]], and a [[BratsWithSlingshots slingshot]] -- to reduce them to a state where they're promising they'll go away and never return if he'll only just, please, leave them alone.
* ''Literature/TheDemonBreed'', by Creator/JamesHSchmitz: Aliens planning an invasion capture a remote scientific outpost to study what humanity is made of. The scientist at the outpost tries to sell them a story about humanity having secret mutant warlord protectors. This being a more dramatic take on the trope, the aliens don't immediately buy it, even though it was ''their'' theory in the first place, and it's up to the heroine to cause enough of the right kind of trouble to persuade them it's true.
* Creator/SpiderRobinson's ''Literature/CallahansCrosstimeSaloon'' story "The Guy With The Eyes": An alien is the advance scout for a race of extremely powerful aliens who plan to destroy the Earth. After deciding that (a) humans are decent after all but (b) his race won't believe him if he just tells them that, he comes up with the idea to render himself unconscious so the other aliens won't receive a transmission from him. Since he is exceptionally powerful himself, they'll conclude that humanity is too dangerous to attack and leave us alone.
* An inversion of sorts occurs in "Victory Unintentional" by Creator/IsaacAsimov: Humans send a team of highly advanced robots to negotiate with hostile aliens living on Jupiter. In order to be able to survive in the extremely high gravity, the robots have been built to be extremely strong and durable (the aliens themselves function more like deep sea fish and maintain their internal pressure the same as the outside in order to avoid being crushed). By the end of the story, the aliens surrender to humans, and after some confusion it's realised the humans never told them they were sending robots, leading them to assume that humans are a race of super-powered indestructible metallic beings.
* A short story called "Master Race" had the conquistadorial aliens' mighty armada of miles-long starships flee the Solar System in terror after their scout swiped some comic books from a boy's treehouse and the aliens concluded these were historical records of the awesome powers of humanity.
* In the short story ''Iron Inferno'' from the TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} anthology ''Fear the Alien'', a Lord General, of the [[RedShirtArmy PDF]] of a [[FantasyCounterpartCulture conspicuously Japanese system]], made a ploy against the [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Waaagh!]] that had just made planetfall. The plan was an elaborate deception to convince a vanguard force that a poorly defended hive was a veritable fortress with many more defenses and men guarding it than there actually were. After a brief battle, the deception had indeed worked, but the Lord General [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone was horrified]] that his goal [[GoneHorriblyRight met failure]]. Because of his inexperience with Orks, he didn't foresee that not only would they ''not'' avoid a costly and hard-fought battle, but they would ''[[BloodKnight jump right at it]]''.
* A story from an old issue of ''Boys' Life'' has a young boy doing this to a team of Martian scouts [[AccidentalHero completely by accident]]. He's just moved into the neighborhood and thinks the scouts are neighbor kids playing spaceman, and decides to play along. Through a series of {{contrived coincidence}}s he ends accidentally convincing the Martians that that all of humanity is fearless and morally incorruptible, and that humans far outmatch the Martians technologically. In the end the Martians decide to invade another planet.
* Creator/FredricBrown has two stories in which the aliens aren't scared off, but, instead, are convinced the humanity is useless. In the first, they take two apes out of a zoo (naturally, their intellect measuring device tells them to come again in two million years). In the other, an [[TheAlcoholic alcoholic]].
* Happens by accident in Creator/TomHolt's ''Only Human'', in which, by a [[ContrivedCoincidence suspiciously contrived chain of circumstances]], the advance scout manages to exclusively encounter humans with non-human consciousnesses - such as the guy with the soul of an industrial robot who manages to charm the machinery aboard the alien's ship, or the demon switched into the body of a clergyman who talks about meeting God at a barbecue once. The scout leaves with the impression that humans have incredibly close ties to both their devices and their deities, making them too risky to invade.
* In the novel ''[[Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark Consul Trevelyan]]'', humans discover that one of their earlier colonies, a lush paradise called Gondwana, has been a nature preserve of sorts for a race of HumanAliens called the Nil'hazi. They are really upset that their efforts have been marred by humans using the planet as a resort planet. A powerful Nil'hazi ship is detected in the system. In response, the Earth Federation sends one of its cruisers to intercept it with Consul Ivar Trevelyan aboard, who has recently acquired an ability to open portals to, pretty much, anywhere. Aboard the cruiser, Ivar meets an officer named Cro Light Water, who turns out to be a VoluntaryShapeshifting alien who has been living on Earth since the 13th century. The alien can make short-range teleports. When the two ships exchange first volleys, Ivar realizes the two sides are about even, and a war would lead to great bloodshed. So, he teleports aboard their ship and tries to convince them that all humans are capable of such feats. To their credit, they correctly assume he's unique in that regard. Ivar then signals Cro, who teleports aboard the Nil'hazi ship in full battle armor, claiming the rest of his force is waiting for his signal to board. The aliens are forced to put off their attack plans until a diplomatic solution is found, even after Ivar's deception is discovered.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* An Earth-bound variation on ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'': A pair of [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar Russian diplomats]] wish to visit a "typical American family." Out of the phone book they randomly choose the Addamses, who impress them so much (e.g. they think Lurch is a robot butler) that they decide they need to treat Americans with greater respect from now on.
* A version of this is attempted by Joshua in ''Series/FirstWave'' in order to prevent the invasion of Earth by the Gua or, at least, forestall the Second Wave. He continually brings up the experiment that resulted in Cade Foster ([=AKA=] Subject 117) becoming their greatest enemy. Joshua argues that, if every 117th human is the {{Determinator}} like Foster, then the invasion is doomed from the start or, at least, will be a PyrrhicVictory. Joshua does not succeed in cancelling the invasion, but it is put off indefinitely.
* ''Series/TheGoodies''. In "U-Friend or UFO", faced by an apparently hostile UFO, Graham declares that they must convince the aliens that [[HumansAreSuperior humans are a race of supermen!]] Cue [[VisualGag the Goodies ducking into a line of phone booths so they can put on superhero tights]], then a FailureMontage of them bulking up their phony muscles with bike pumps and attempting to fly with firework rockets or cranes. Finally they give up and decide to send up a more friendly ambassador, Tim crossdressing as ''Supernun'' (a parody of ''Series/TheFlyingNun'').
* Zigzagged in ''Series/Babylon5'' when a probe threatening to destroy the station unless humanity could prove itself advanced enough to be worthy was discovered instead to be on a mission to eliminate any civilization advanced enough to be a threat, and the cast defeated it by ''not'' responding.

* ''ComicStrip/ThePhantom'', the 1970s story "The Blue Giant": Alien advance scouts land to check out whether humans are a good prospect for invasion. After encountering the Phantom, they decide that if all humans are like him, the planet's best left alone.
* ComicStrip/{{Calvin|AndHobbes}} uses a variant of this, telling them he is the Supreme Potentate of the Earth when the aliens ask him where he is, then selling them the planet in exchange for them completing his homework. Additionally, he forgets to tell them about winter.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', ''Al-Qadim'' setting ''Land of Fate'' boxed set. A dragon comes to Zakhara from the cold northern regions of Faerun to find out if it would be a good place for dragons to colonize. He meets four genies (a djinni, a marid, a dao and an efreeti) who are masquerading as human beings. When he threatens them, they kick his butt thoroughly. This causes him to assume that all humans living in Zakhara are extremely powerful and that it's no place for dragons to live.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/OrionBurger''. An alien fast food company comes to Earth to administer a "sentience test" heavily rigged against humanity. Failing the test means humans have no rights and can therefore be harvested for burger meat. The goal of the game is to rig the tests yourself, convincing the scouts humans are too intelligent to eat.

* [[http://www.rpc-wiki.net/rpc-037 RPC-037]] are [[DirtyCommunists communist]] MoleMen with a SovietSuperscience [[EarthquakeMachine earthquake machine]] DoomsdayDevice designed to [[ChekhovsVolcano detonate the yellowstone caldera]] in the event of the Soviet Union's defeat, who were narrowly prevented from activating it by being told the United States had been overthrown and replaced with the fictitious Union of Socialist American Republics.

* ''Comicbook/{{Superboy}}'' (1960s Creator/{{Filmation}} series), episode: "Operation Counter Invasion": Aliens land and want to take over, and Superboy bluffs them with things like "Fly? Of course I fly, doesn't everyone?"
* ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'': Garfield tells the alien scout that Earthlings eat a lot of food and sleep a lot. The scout [[MistookTheDominantLifeform analyzes Garfield]] and becomes convinced that's Garfield telling the truth, then concludes that Earthlings will make terrible slaves.
* In ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'', the SpacePolice were prepared to [[ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure destroy Earth to get rid of Stitch]], but Pleakley insists against it because Earth is considered a nature reserve ''for mosquitoes''. [[spoiler:Turns out this was because of an enterprising CIA agent (better known as the social worker, Cobra Bubbles) convinced visiting aliens that mosquitoes were a rare and endangered species.]]

* In ''ComicBook/JourneyIntoMystery'' #83, aka the issue that introduced Marvel's [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]], had this scenario. The Krogan aliens arrive on Earth with intention of invading, but the first human they encounter is Dr. Donald Blake having been transformed in Thor. He proves to be more than a physical match for them, and the Krogans flee, not wanting to fight a planet full of {{Physical God}}s like he.

* Attempted in ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'' by the invading Tasen, who are themselves fleeing a species of genocidal aliens known as the Komato. When the Tasen kill a Komato scout team, they realize that their commanders will know that the Tasen are hiding on Earth when they don't report in, and {{curb stomp|Battle}}ing [[HilarityEnsues will ensue]]. So, they fake a report from the scout team claiming that before they went down, their planetary scans failed to reveal any sign of Tasen habitation. [[spoiler: Assuming Iji doesn't [[SummonBiggerFish contact the Komato]] herself, they realize the report is BS [[SpottingTheThread because the "planetary scan" technology never left the drawing board]], but the Tasen don't know that part. [[YouCantThwartStageOne Either way]], Curb Stomping Ensues.]]

* ''Journey Into Mystery #83'', aka the issue that introduced Marvel's {{ComicBook/Thor}}, had this scenario. The Krogan aliens arrive on Earth with intention of invading, but the first human they encounter is Dr. Donald Blake having been transformed in Thor. He proves to be more than a physical match for them, and the Krogans flee, not wanting to fight a planet full of {{Physical God}}s like he.
* In one issue of the {{West Coast|Team}} [[Comicbook/TheAvengers Avengers]], the aliens test the WCA line-up individually, putting their battle robot (and ship's power systems) under increasing stress. Then they finally get to Comicbook/MoonKnight, who is empowered by the ancient Egyptian moon god. And they're testing the heroes ''in a dimension filled with moons''.

* A ''MickeyMouse'' story had the mouse and his sidekick, Goofy, visiting an archaeologist-friend at Abu Simpel in Egypt, when they're abducted by AncientAstronauts - specifically, the old Egyptian gods and pharaohs, who left Earth back in the day after being insulted (and nearly accidentally fed to the crocodiles) by one of Goofy's ancestors. Now they've returned with an invasion-fleet to wipe out humanity in repayment! Mickey tricks them into believing that humanity has developed PsychicPowers in the meantime, by taking advantage of the knowledge that Abu Simpel contains their landing-beacon, and claiming that he was using his powers to affect their advanced navigation-equipment. Sure enough, the UFO crashes on approach, and the aliens are scared off. How did it work? Well, Abu Simpel was moved - in a massive engineering undertaking - back in the 1980s, to protect it from a flooding. The new location obviously screwed up the navigational calculations, but the aliens obviously didn't imagine that anyone would tear down something that huge, stone for stone, and then rebuild it exactly identically somewhere nearby.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Birdman}}'': In "Skon of Space", Birdman battles an alien scout named Skon and barely manages to defeat him. He sends Skon home claiming that everyone on Earth has powers like him. Later, Birdman tells Falcon 7 what happened and tells him to prepare for an invasion anyway, just in case Skon's superiors are not as gullible as him or decide the risk is worth the reward.

* [[http://www.rpc-wiki.net/rpc-037 RPC-037]] are [[DirtyCommunists communist]] MoleMen with a SovietSuperscience [[EarthquakeMachine earthquake machine]] DoomsdayDevice designed to [[ChekhovsVolcano detonate the yellowstone caldera]] in the event of the soviet union's defeat, who were narrowly prevented from activating it by being told the United States had been overthrown and replaced with the fictitious Union of Socialist American Republics.

* [[http://www.rpc-wiki.net/rpc-037 RPC-037]] are [[DirtyCommunists communist]] MoleMen with a SovietSuperscience [[EarthquakeMachine earthquake machine]] DoomsdayDevice designed to [[ChekhovsVolcano detonate the yellowstone caldera]] [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp in the event of the soviet union's defeat]], who were narrowly prevented from activating it by being told the United States had been overthrown and replaced with the fictitious Union of Socialist American Republics.

* A story from an old issue of ''Boys' Life'' has a young boy doing this to a team of Martian scouts completely by accident. He's just moved into the neighborhood and thinks the scouts are neighbor kids playing spaceman, and decides to play along. Through a series of {{contrived coincidence}}s he ends accidentally convincing the Martians that that all of humanity is fearless and morally incorruptible, and that humans far outmatch the Martians technologically. In the end the Martians decide to invade another planet.

* In one issue of ''Comicbook/{{Exiles}}'', the omniscient whatever-it-is that commands the Exiles sets up a chain of events that ends with some minor supervillain, feeling unappreciated, setting off a weapon that fills the Earth's atmosphere with foul-smelling gases for 72 hours. All because the omniscient whatever-it-is has foreseen that during those 72 hours an alien invasion fleet will arrive, scan the planet, and decide to move on to somewhere with a nicer atmosphere.

* In ''Disney/LiloAndStitch'', the SpacePolice were prepared to [[ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure destroy Earth to get rid of Stitch]], but Pleakley insists against it because Earth is considered a nature reserve ''for mosquitoes''. [[spoiler:Turns out this was because of an enterprising CIA agent (better known as the social worker, Cobra Bubbles) convinced visiting aliens that mosquitoes were a rare and endangered species.]]

* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': This almost happens by accident when the Yeerks first find Earth. They pick up a ''Series/StarTrek'' broadcast and freak the hell out because their technology is not up to the level depicted in the TV show. Unfortunately, they quickly realize that the broadcast is fiction, and upon assessing humanity's ''actual'' level of technological development, decide that the Earth is ripe for invasion.

* Failed attempt in ''Comicbook/PaperinikNewAdventures''. The first story has Paperinik beating up the Evronian scouts to try and convince them that Earth is too tough to invade. In their next appearance, the Evronians recognize that if Earth has more people like him their invasion could be a failure... And, [[GenreSavvy having a long experience in similar situations]], promptly send three commando teams to kill him and other scouts to check if there's others. Paperinik survives only because [[PhysicalGod Xadhoom]], who hates the Evronians, is passing by, and the invasion is prevented only by the combination of the devastation she visits on the Evronians preventing them to spare the forces necessary to break through Earth's defenses (the fact she decided to come to Earth every once in a while because she knows she'll find Evronians to kill there helps) and Paperinik preventing them from establishing a bridgehead.

* Failed attempt in ''Comicbook/PaperinikNewAdventures''. The first story has Paperinik beating up the Evronian scouts to try and convince them that Earth is too tough to invade. In their next appearance, the Evronians recognize that if Earth has more people like him their invasion will be a failure... And promptly send three commando teams to kill him and other scouts to check if there's others, and the invasion is prevented only by the fact that [[PhysicalGod Xadhoom]] hates them and has a tendency to come to Earth every few months.

It used to be a common trope in the Golden Age of Science Fiction, but not so much these days. Even then, it was frequently PlayedForLaughs.

* ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'': Garfield tells the alien scout that Earthlings eat a lot of food and sleep a lot. The scout analyzes Garfield and becomes convinced that's Garfield telling the truth, then concludes that Earthlings will make terrible slaves.
* In ''Disney/LiloAndStitch'', [[spoiler: an enterprising CIA agent (better known as the social worker, Cobra Bubbles) convinced visiting aliens that instead of destroying the planet they should declare it a nature reserve on account of mosquitoes being a rare and endangered species]]. It's a big BrickJoke, the trope part of this comes right at the end of the movie.

* Peridot is introduced to ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' surveying the Earth to report back to Gem Homeworld on whether it's worth re-colonising, while the Crystal Gems try to sabotage her efforts.

* Inverted in one short story where aliens discover the remains of a primitive human spacecraft drifting in interstellar space and determine its origin point was Earth. A recon team is sent to assess humanity as a potential new acquisition for their empire and discovers a peaceful, not very technologically advanced species or threatening species that has apparently pulled back from advanced technology and is certainly no threat. Then they uncover a secret bunker full of highly advanced and technologically ''superior'' human military equipment. The human they've captured (who turns around and captures ''them'') reveals that the derelict spacecraft they found was sent out as bait used to see what they would do, the recon team has been under observation the entire time to evaluate the aliens' psychology and capabilities, and having decided that having such a bunch of imperialist assholes as neighbors isn't acceptable, the human fleet is about to pay a visit to their homeworld.