History Main / BluffingTheAdvanceScout

* 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 warships, and the human they've captured 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.

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* In ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' #2, the first appearance of the [[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 ''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.

* ''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. It doesn't take long for them to give up.

* ''Series/TheGoodies''. In "U-Friend of U-Foe", 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. It doesn't take long for them to give up.

* In ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'' #2, the first appearance of the [[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 one issue of the [[WestCoastTeam West Coast]] [[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 fairly recent ''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.
* ''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 appart, 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 ''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 ''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 [[PhysicalGoddess Xadhoom]] hates them and has a tendence to come on Earth every few months.

* "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 [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens immense, even supernatural powers]], and the aliens are frightened off.

* 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.

* 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]].

* 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 TheDeterminator 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.

* [[CalvinAndHobbes Calvin]] 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.

* 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 [[CurbStompBattle curb stomping]] [[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.]]

* ''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?"
* ''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 ''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.

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* In one issue of the [[WestCoastTeam West Coast]] [[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 MoonKnight, who is empowered by the ancient Egyptian moon god. And they're testing the heroes ''in a dimension filled with moons''.

** This works in large part due to the BizarreSexualDimorphism found on Mars, where the women are the stereotypical GreenSkinnedAlienSpaceBabe, but the males are 2-foot tall balls of fur with [[GagPenis hilariously oversized "equipment"]].

* Happens by accident in 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.

* An episode of ''Arthur'', "The Contest", has a short story by Buster called "The Day the Earth Was Saved" ([[ParentalBonus which contains several references to]] ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', including the animation style) where aliens capture Arthur [[ToServeMan with the intent of eating him]] but first subject him to brief medical testing. They then toss him out of their spaceship and leave Earth, assuming all humans are as high in cholesterol as Arthur is. The real Arthur is not amused.

* ''The Demon Breed'', a FederationOfTheHub story 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.

* A fairly recent ''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.

* 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. 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 episode of ''Arthur'', "The Contest", has a short story by Buster called "The Day the Earth Was Saved" ([[ParentalBonus which contains several references to]] ''SouthPark'', including the animation style) where aliens capture Arthur [[ToServeMan with the intent of eating him]] but first subject him to brief medical testing. They then toss him out of their spaceship and leave Earth, assuming all humans are as high in cholesterol as Arthur is. The real Arthur is not amused.

* ''Superboy'' (1960s {{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?"

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general during the AmericanCivilWar, was quite fond of this trope. In one instance he had his soldiers march in plain sight of the enemy, then as soon as they were out of view they would loop back around, making his forces look much larger than they really were. He was also known to make fake cannons out of logs.
* Various techniques for this exist in RealLife, including building camps that are bigger (or smaller) than they normally should be for a given force, building multiple campfires at night, and setting up fake decoys to resemble equipment or weapons.
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[[folder:ComicBooks]]

* In the ''{{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.

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]
* "The Best Policy" by Creator/RandallGarrett: Alien advance scouts kidnap a human, stick him in a {{lie detector}}, 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 [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens immense, even supernatural powers]], and the aliens are frightened off.

* SpiderRobinson's ''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. 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.

* In the short story ''Iron Inferno'' from the {{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]]''.

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[[folder:NewspaperComics]]

[[folder:VideoGames]]

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

[[folder:RealLife]]

* ''The Demon Breed'' by 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.
** And inverted in ''Geest Gun'' by the same author: the advance recon party has come and gone--finding the world easy pickings--and the protagonists essentially have to blackmail the government into getting the fleet ready.