History Main / InvisibleToAdults

%%* Angels in ''Film/WingsOfDesire''.
* In the Kirstie Alley tooth fairy movie ''Film/{{Toothless}}'', the tooth fairy can only be seen by children who have not yet lost all their baby teeth.
* In ''Film/{{Jumanji}}'', the Jumanji drums luring people to uncover the game can only be heard by kids. When Alan is a boy, he can hear them at a construction site but none of the workers seem to do. Aunt Nora doesn't hear anything when Peter and Judy hear the game's drums coming from the attic. The game's effects, however, are visible to everyone. And it doesn't matter how old you get during the course of the game: "Do not start unless you plan to finish," no matter how long it takes.

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

* ''Anime/SpiritedAway'' might fall under this, although it's difficult to say for certain since the only human adults around are completely oblivious at first and later under a spell.

* The entire world 'Nega Earth' is 'unavailable to adults in ''Anime/ElementHunters'' due to needing a particular portion of the brain which decays once they reach a certain age, and only shows up in a select few children. The adults are still far from useless though, as they're the ones sending children there in the first place.

[[folder: Comic Books]]

[[folder: Comic Strips]]

[[folder: Fairy Tales]]

-->''the witch changed her into a reindeer, and smuggled her own daughter into her place as the prince's wife. But now the child grew restless and cried, because it missed its mother's care. They took it to the court, and tried to pacify it in every conceivable way, but its crying never ceased. ''

[[folder: Film]]
* Angels in ''Film/WingsOfDesire''.
* In the Kirstie Alley tooth fairy movie ''Film/{{Toothless}}'', the tooth fairy can only be seen by children who have not yet lost all their baby teeth.

* In ''Film/{{Jumanji}}'', the Jumanji drums luring people to uncover the game can only be heard by kids. When Alan is a boy, he can hear them at a construction site but none of the workers seem to do. Aunt Nora doesn't hear anything when Peter and Judy hear the game's drums coming from the attic. The game's effects, however, are visible to everyone. And it doesn't matter how old you get during the course of the game: "Do not start unless you plan to finish," no matter how long it takes.
* In ''Film/ETTheExtraterrestrial'', Elliott first tries to convince Gertie that this is the reason she shouldn't tell their mom about the title alien hiding out in his room, but she's already too smart to fall for that. HeartwarmingInHindsight, though, that he doesn't want his five-year-old sister to find out [[TheyWouldCutYouUp the]] ''[[TheyWouldCutYouUp real]]'' [[TheyWouldCutYouUp reason he doesn't want adults finding out about E.T.]]

[[folder: Literature]]

* In [[Creator/StephenKing Stephen King's]] ''Literature/{{IT}}'', only children can deal with "It" because they have not lost the power of belief.

[[folder: Live-Action TV]]

[[folder: Tabletop RPG]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Web Comics]]

[[folder: Web Original]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]

** Of course, considering how often streets are needlessly ripped up, maybe ol' Sticky also works for the DOT.

[[folder: Real Life]]
* RealLife: There is an audio range that is primarily only heard by young people. [[http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/05/25/stealth-ringtone-can-only-be-heard-by-teens/ You can read an article about it here.]]
** Even if you have the hearing range to pick it up, sounds this high-pitched are still easy to overlook unless they're especially loud, because it sounds pretty much the same as tinnitus.
* In an experiment put on by the Washington Post, on Jan. 12, 2007, Joshua Bell (if not the top living violinist certainly in the top five) took his 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius down to a Metro substation in Washington D.C. and played classical music as a busker. It was captured on film by hidden camera. Of the thousands of people who passed him by, only seven adults sufficiently recognized that they were listening to something special and stopped to listen to him play (and only one recognized him). But on the film, you can see almost every child who heard him brightened up, looked around, and tugged desperately at their parents who - having places to go and things to do - relentlessly dragged them along. (He made $32 over about two hours, not counting $20 from the man who recognized him.)
* People with the kinds of brains that make them hypersensitive (Autism spectrum, Asperger's, AD/HD or Sensory/Auditory Processing Disorder Highly Sensitive People) often notice things others can't. Imagine being a kid and being fully aware of the blink and buzz of fluorescent lights, or the itchiness of certain kinds of fabric, or that almost inaudible whine from electronics (which itself falls into the range of high-pitched sounds that can usually only be heard by young people), and being driven slowly insane by something no one else, least of all adults, seems to notice. People without hypersensitivity may be able to perceive some of these things, but generally don't ''notice'' them, whereas the hypersensitive have great difficulty ignoring them, or are ''unable'' to ignore them. Some people even have this problem well into adulthood. This is why Irlen filters (the strangely colored "sunglasses") help people with these conditions; they're customized to block out whichever light frequencies disturb that person's brain.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' can be viewed by babies without triggering the need to go away forever.

* [[BrattyHalfPint Youngblood]] in ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' can only be seen by children.This seems to be at least partly psychological--after tormenting Danny for a whole episode without the rest of his family able to see him, Danny makes him visible to Jazz by annoying her enough to break through her maturity, leading her to realize that she thought she was an adult, but in reality, she is still only 16 years old, and thus still a kid.

* [[BrattyHalfPint Youngblood]] in ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' can only be seen by children.This seems to be at least partly psychological--after tormenting Danny for a whole episode without the rest of his family able to see him, Danny makes him visible to Jazz by annoying her enough to break through her maturity.

* ''Manga/HighSchoolInariTamamoChan'' is about a mystical inari fox, Tamamo, who [[{{Shapeshifting}} takes on human form]] to attend high school. However, the human form she takes is shown to only ever fool adults. Her schoolmates see Tamamo's true nature quickly, and pretend not to notice for her benefit. There are exceptions on both sides. The girl from the Public Morals Committee sees Tamamo as a human while Reiko, the resident SenseiChan, sees the fox.

* In ''ComicBook/LockeAndKey'', adults are generally incapable of perceiving magical things.

* In ''Series/QuantumLeap'' only children, the insane and animals can see Sam's holographic guide Al, and sometimes even Sam's real self, not the host body he's using in that moment. In reality, animals and toddlers couldn't be told to just ignore Al or Sam whenever they were on set, so the writers just worked it into the show, such as Al telling a black children's choir that the KKK was going to burn down their church and to warn the adults.

* The entire world 'Nega Earth' is 'unavailable to adults in ''Anime/ElementHunters'' due to needing a particular portion of the brain which decays once they reach a certain age, and only shows up in a select few children. The adults are still far from useless though.

* Elves and other creatures of the Spirit World in ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' can only be seen by those who haven't been taught by the Holy See to not believe in the existence of such creatures. This means children are usually the only ones that can see them, though adults who either follow pagan cults or simply don't believe in any religion (such as the protagonist Guts) may be able to see them as well, making this a zigzagged instance of this trope.

* In ''Film/{{Jumanji}}'', the Jumanji drums luring people to uncover the game can only be heard by kids. The game's effects, however, are visible to everyone. And it doesn't matter how old you get during the course of the game: "Do not start unless you plan to finish," no matter how long it takes.

* In Stephen King's ''Literature/{{IT}}'', only children can deal with "It" because they have not lost the power of belief.

* This becomes a minor plot point in the later part of Zilpha Keatley Snyder's ''The Changeling''. Little Josie, who [[ChildMage sees all kinds of things]], says she saw and talked with [[NotSoImaginaryFriend the ghost mother Annabelle]] of the burnt-out house, who gave her a bunch of dried flowers. Ivy and Martha didn't see her, although both had clearly visioned ImaginaryFriends when they were seven.

** The same applies to the titular ''Discworld/{{Wintersmith}}''. Only children could hear him since adults "knew" that invisible creatures don't talk from out of thin air. The only other humans who could are [[RobeAndWizardHat the ones with pointy hats]], who have trained themselves to see what's really there.

* In ''Series/QuantumLeap'' only children, the insane and animals can see Sam's holographic guide Al, and sometimes even Sam's real self, not the host body he's using in that moment.

* ''Manga/HighSchoolInariTamamoChan'' is about a mystical inari fox, Tamamo, who takes on human form to attend high school. However, the human form she takes is shown to only ever fool adults. Her schoolmates see Tamamo as a {{Petting Zoo Pe|ople}}rson, realize her true nature quickly, and pretend not to notice for her benefit. There are exceptions on both sides. The girl from the Public Morals Committee sees Tamamo as a human while Reiko, the resident SenseiChan, sees the fox.

* Creepypasta ''DarthWiki/CandleCove'' tells the story of a TV show that adults only see as static.

* One episode of ''Series/{{Charmed}}'' sees the sisters helping a young girl protect the fairy kingdom from trolls. Unfortunately, fairies can only be seen by children (or those who believe in them).

* In ''Anime/YokaiWatch'' it seems that only children can have Yo-kai Watches and interact with {{youkai}} (with few exceptions). The initially 10-year old Nate loses his ability to see yo-kai as an adult, but his 13-to-14 year old daughter can in ''Anime/YokaiWatchShadowside''.

* RealLife: There is an audio range that is primarily only heard by young people. You can read an article about it [[http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/05/25/stealth-ringtone-can-only-be-heard-by-teens/ here]].

* In an experiment put on by the Washington Post, on Jan. 12, 2007, Joshua Bell (if not the top living violinist certainly in the top five) took his 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius down to a Metro substation in Washington D.C. and played classical music as a busker. It was captured on film by hidden camera. Of the thousands of people who passed him by, only seven adults sufficiently recognized that they were listening to something special and stopped to listen to him play (and only one recognized him). But on the film, you can see almost every child who hears him brightened up, looked around, and tugged desperately at their parents who - having places to go and things to do - relentlessly dragged them along. (He made $32 over about two hours, not counting $20 from the man who recognized him.)

* In an experiment put on by the Washington Post, on Jan. 12, 2007, Joshua Bell (if not the top living violinist certainly in the top five) took his 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius down to a Metro substation in Washington D.C. and played classical music as a busker. It was captured on film by hidden camera. Of the thousand people who passed him by, only seven adults sufficiently recognized that they were listening to something special and stopped to listen to him play (and only one recognized him). But on the film you can see most every child who hears his obvious skill brighten up, look around, and tug desperately at their parents who - having places to go and things to do - relentlessly bully them along. (He made $32 over about two hours, not counting $20 from the man who recognized him.)

* In Franchise/ArchieComics, only adults can't see Santa's helpers, like Jingles the elf and Sugar Plum the fairy. In one story when Jingles stands in for Reggie at an Archies concert (He wears a costume so people can see him), he invites his fellow elves, leaving the adult portion of the audience wondering why the first few rows are empty.

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

[[folder: Comic Strips ]]

[[folder: Fairy Tales ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live-Action TV ]]

[[folder: Tabletop RPG ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

[[folder: Web Original ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* The forest spirits in ''Anime/MyNeighborTotoro''
* Zashiki Warashi in ''Manga/UruseiYatsura''.

* Only young children (for example, Amu's sister) or those who have Guardian Characters themselves seem able to see the Charas from ''Manga/ShugoChara''.
** Not so true: Adults who had Shugo Charas (Nikaidou and possibly Tsukasa) are able to see them, and Yukari explains the reason she can see them as "Since I knew those things (Shugo Charas) existed, even I could see them".