History Main / GasLeakCoverUp

* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/14997911/chapters/34760702 The Horsewomen Of Las Vegas]]'', in the chapter that flashes back to when Wrestling/CharlotteFlair was a college medical student with plans of being anything but a crime boss. After [[Wrestling/RicFlair her father]] and [[Wrestling/TheFourHorsemen his most trusted associates]] showed her evidence that her best friend, Santana Garrett, and her fiancee, Wrestling/ShaneDouglas, were undercover FBI agents, they leave her alone with them and leave a gun behind for her to shoot them. Once the deed is done, Tully Blanchard said , "Now it's time to arrange that gas leak" as they prepare to blow up the building.

* In the first episode of the second season of ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'', after Scott Summers accidentally provokes a fire in a soccer game, Professor Xavier rewrites the memory of a nearby cop into thinking it was a leak in a propane can.

* The British Government explanation for V-2 impacts was that the explosions were accidental ones caused by leaking Gas Mains. Contrary to popular belief, this was mostly aimed at the Nazis, in hopes of leading them to believe the V-2 rockets were landing short of their intended targets. Incidentally, legend has it that one landed near a bar where [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Interplanetary_Society the British Interplanetary Society]] were having a meeting, and ''they'' figured out what had really happened rather quickly.

* The whole "it was a weather balloon" coverup almost certainly comes from the Sky-hook balloon program, where this exact excuse was used countless times without being [[HalfTruth entirely wrong]]. See sky-hook balloons were a program to use (more or less) really ''really'' big weather balloons intended to move material and troops well above the range of enemy radar and anti air. The American military really thought this would be next nuke since there was no way to counter against it ans so it was given a top secret status. However controlling the balloons proved troublesome and by the time they did (which took fifteen years) Soviet AA and radar had advanced to be able to shoot the balloons down. Which resulted in another five years or so of stealth balloon testing before people realized the whole thing was flop. Still the twenty plus years of testing after WWII resulted in a lot giant deflated balloons on the desert ground. And with them a lot of explanations from soldiers to civilians that they were just looking at weather balloon even though the thing was way bigger than a weather balloon.

* In ''MobileSuitZetaGundam'', the Titans' pumping of poison gas into a space colony, killing all the inhabitants, was covered up as a malfunction of the air recycling system.

* At the end of ''Literature/{{Sphere}}'', the three survivors decide to use the Power to make their discovery look like freak accident, even altering their own memories in the process.

* At the end of ''Literature/{{Sphere}}'', the three survivor decide to use the Power to make their discovery look like freak accident, even altering their own memories in the process.

* On Nickelodeon's ''Series/TheTroop'', the gym is destroyed by enormous worm monsters during a big dance. The Troop destroys the monsters and uses their miniature memory zapper monster (the snark) on everyone. As everyone surveys the wreckage, the Troop's adult advisor cheerily tells them that there had been a simple plumbing leak.

* ''Film/GhostbustersII'' contains three, and ''none'' of them work. It's the scene where Egon and Peter hold down the fort over a hole they dug while Ray abseils down it into the river of pink slime. First, Peter tries to convince the police that they're with ConEd; he then tries to convince them that they're with the phone company; finally, he pulls out the gas leak line. And then all of NYC goes into a blackout!

* In the ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode "Mr. Monk Goes Back to School", Derek Philby gets rid of the school's groundskeeper by staging a gas explosion in his house: he makes a pinhole in the gas line so that fumes will come into the house, glues a match to the bottom of a door with the ends facing down, and puts a piece of flint on the floor. The matches strike the flint when the door opens, blowing up the house. Monk determines that said explosion was staged because the weather was unusually warm on the night it happened (meaning the victim should not have had any reason to be trying to manually light the pilot light for the fireplace), and the air conditioning unit was on.

* In ''Film/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol'', half the Kremlin blowing up is put down to gas lines exploding, and an unexploded nuclear warhead plunging down on San Francisco is a meteorite. When half the planet believes in ConspiracyTheory, why bother coming up with a plausible explanation as long as you can disavow it officially? Indeed, the way the civilian news reports are phrased indicates that pretty much no-one believes the "accident with the gas mains" coverup.

* ''Film/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem'' contains a DoubleSubversion. A cop tries to claim the destruction at Kowalski's apartment is the result of a gas leak, only for all the witnesses to berate him and point out the lack of gas's scent. One man steps up to say that they all saw a magical beast cause the destruction, but before he can, Newt casts a spell over all of the witnesses and they frantically claim in agreement that it was a gas leak that caused everything.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'' played with this trope (as with so many others) over the seasons, coming up with mostly-plausible explanations for strange events on Earth. However, when an office building vanishes from downtown Seattle in a flash of light in one of the last seasons, the U.S. Government desperately goes for the "gas explosion" explanation--an explosion that somehow resulted in no blast or debris of any kind.

* ''Literature/TheColdestWar'': British Intelligence know a Soviet assassin with supernatural powers is going to murder someone in their custody, so they evacuate the entire street to avoid witnesses and collateral damage using the gas leak excuse. When the assassin does show up, he's disguised as a National Gas repairman. When the entire house and half the street burns up, thanks to the assassin PlayingWithFire, the government has a ready-made explanation.

* ''Film/JohnWickChapter2'': Jimmy the policeman takes one look at John's house, which is on fire from several grenades, and says "Gas leak?" It's made clear in both movies that Jimmy knows [[ContractKiller exactly what John does for a living]], and is willing to accept any semi-plausible excuse to keep the rest of the police from getting involved.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[MoveAlongNothingToSeeHere Move along, nothing to see here...]]]]

[[/folder]]
* The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake was an odd aversion. After the quake and ensuing fire city officials stated that it was only a fire and ignored the Earthquake part. Many cities had had great fires by this point so it wasn't anything unusual. But an Earthquake was anew thing for most Americans to fear.