History Main / NotMeThisTime

** After ''Royal Rumble 2004'', Wrestling/EddieGuerrero gets taken out backstage before he was set to compete in the 15-man Royal Rumble match[[note]]He still made it to the match and won[[/note]]. His nephew Wrestling/{{Chavo|GuerreroJr}} and his father (and Eddie's older brother) arrive at the scene, only to see Wrestling/{{Rey Mysterio|Jr}} staring suspiciously at them, thinking they're the assailants due to their feud with Eddie. Despite them swearing revenge on Eddie earlier for beating them down at the PPV (with Eddie bloodying Chavo as payback for doing the same to him), they claim to not be the culprits. Rey doesn't buy it and attacks them.

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-->-- '''Mojo Jojo''', ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'', "Telephonies"

* ''WebVideo/CreamHeroes'': Claire discovers a silicone plate from her food steamer has been chewed up and there are bits missing, so part of it is in one of her cats' stomachs. Initially she suspects BigEater Lulu as he tries to steal the plate from her due to it smelling of food. In the comments she reveals Dodo (who makes Lulu look ''picky'' by comparison) was the culprit as he threw the pieces he ate back up.

* During ''[[WebVideo/YogscastMinecraftSeries Cornerstone]]'', the group (mainly LetsPlay/{{Rythian}}) assume that Smiffy and someone else are posing as creepers to try and scare the others after Smiffy has tried it before and died for his trouble. It turns out that no, those are actual creepers. LetsPlay/{{Sjin}} also kills the wrong person for stealing his jetpack.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* When Aldrich Ames, a KGB mole in the CIA, was arrested for espionage in 1994, the CIA realized that there were still at least two security leaks he couldn't have been responsible for: the sabotage of an investigation into another espionage suspect (Ames was in Rome at the time) and the leak of the existence of a tunnel under the Soviet embassy that was to be used for spying (it was an FBI project and Ames couldn't have known about it). These were the work of FBI mole Robert Hanssen, who was caught in 2001.
* After the 2011 UsefulNotes/PlayStationNetwork hack, Anonymous, known for their acts of internet activism/vandalism, came out with a statement titled "For Once We Didn't Do It".
%% ZCE - which hack? ** Interestingly enough, RenegadeSplinterFaction [=LulzSec=] once had a hack attributed to them which was actually committed by someone else. They ended up (somewhat reluctantly) taking responsibility anyway.
* In the midst of the controversies that led to many of the models of ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' departure following clashes with host and executive producer Creator/BobBarker; many fans assumed that Janice Pennington (who was along with Bob the lone on-air members remaining from the Creator/{{CBS}} version's debut in [[LongRunners 1972]]) was fired in December 2000 for refusing to testify against former colleague Holly Hallstrom during Hallstrom's wrongful termination lawsuit against Barker. Pennington would later post to her [=MySpace=] page several years later that the firing was not done by Barker; but CBS.
* Usually, when the Basque separatist group ETA assassinated someone, be it by shooting or car bombing, the pro-ETA political party Batasuna would make some statement saying that they "lamented" the "event", but did not condemn it. This was not the case when a non-targeted ''toy'' car bomb exploded during Donostia/San Sebastián's "Big Week" holidays in 2001, killing a grandmother and severely injuring a baby. Batasuna resoundingly condemned and called it a terrorist attack, and even sent representatives to a demonstration clamoring for justice that stood side by side with politicians contrary to Basque independence. Said politicians made some sarcastic remarks about how they hoped to see them again next time when ETA actually murdered someone. The case remains unsolved.
* Shortly before the trial of James "Whitey" Bulger was set to start, a potential witness named Stephen Rakes (whose liquor store was essentially stolen from him by Whitey and the Winter Hill Gang to use as their base of operations) was found dead in the woods near his home. Due to the timing, it was initially theorized it had something to do with his testimony, but when asked about it Whitey pointedly said he had nothing to do with it (with a reaction bordering on ButForMeItWasTuesday when he had to be reminded who Rakes even was), and it turns out he was telling the truth: Rakes was killed by a business associate for reasons completely unrelated to the trial.
* From 2003 to 2005, three teenaged girls went missing from the same neighborhood in Cleveland -- Amanda Berry, Gina [=DeJesus=], and Ashley Summers. It was assumed that all three girls were victims of the same perp. In 2013, Amanda and Gina were found alive, having been held prisoner for 10 years as {{Sex Slave}}s by Ariel Castro. Although a third woman was found with them, it wasn't Ashley Summers but Michelle Knight. Castro denied he had any other victims, and the three survivors had never seen any others. While an ominous inscription saying RIP was found scrawled in the basement where the women had often been held, it was already there when Michelle was first captured, over eight years before Ashley went missing. Ultimately, nothing was ever found to suggest that Ashley Summers was a victim of Castro's.
* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' creator, Scott Cawthon, is well known amongst his fans for {{invert|edTrope}}ing the ScheduleSlip trope. But when the tie-in novel ''Literature/FiveNightsAtFreddysTheSilverEyes'' was to be released on the 22nd of December, by sheer coincidence, the novel was released early anyway. WordOfGod says that Amazon's publishing of the novel took a far shorter time than expected, and for once, he had nothing to do with this early release.
* Scottish-Canadian SerialKiller Thomas Neill Cream is widely rumored to have been UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper. Most experts reject him as a possible suspect since he was imprisoned in Illinois at the time the murders took place.
* While searching for the killer of Adam Walsh (the son of John Walsh whose death led directly to the creation of ''Series/AmericasMostWanted''), recently-incarcerated serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was questioned on it. When he denied it and the questioning intensified, Dahmer pointed out that he had eagerly confessed to all of his other killings, describing in horrific detail not only who he killed, but how he killed them and [[IAmAHumanitarian what he did to them afterward]]. And now that he was in prison for life one way or another, why would he lie about committing murder now? Dahmer was indeed telling the truth, and he had nothing to do with Walsh's death.
* Mob hitman (and later informant) Donald Frankos claims that he was convicted of a murder he didn't really commit on the basis of perjured eyewitness testimony. According to him, he always wore a disguise when committing contract killings. In his memoir, he dryly notes that "if I had done it, he wouldn't have been able to identify me" would not have made a good defense in court.
* Biologist Rupert Sheldrake, known for his controversial-at-best hypothesis of Morphic Resonance [[note]] yes, the TropeNamer for MorphicResonance[[/note]], had his page on Website/TheOtherWiki repeatedly edited to be less and less favorable over the course of a year. Sheldrake blamed the group of editors called "Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia" (GSOW), who had been known for inserting materialist viewpoints and improving the quality and thus visibility of already pro-materialist articles. It turned out that the editor most associated with these edits was not associated with GSOW, albeit operated in a similar fashion.
* ISIS/Daesh:
** Amid a series of ISIS-sponsored Jihadist terrorist attacks in Europe in the 2015-2016 years, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Munich_shooting a shooting occurred in]] Munich, Germany. The attacker was an Iranian who was alleged to have yelled "God is Great" or "Allahu Ackbar", a sort of battle cry Jihadists utilize, prompting people to declare it another ISIS attack. It was soon discovered, however, that this claim was unfounded as the shooter had no links to ISIS and his particular brand of far-right politics were in fact a twisted form of European ultra-nationalism rather than Islamic fundamentalism. The shooter had looked up to Norwegian right-wing terrorist and mass shooter Anders Brevik for inspiration, his victims were mostly foreigners (many of whom were Muslim), and he was yelling to onlookers that he was German. The fact that Iranians are mostly Shia who oppose Sunni ISIS was a bit of a giveaway to this trope. However, since ISIS had been committing so many attacks as of late and the fact that the Sunni/Shia divide is not particularly well known in the west, it took a while for people to figure out it wasn't an ISIS terrorist attack.
** When Notre Dame de Paris caught fire in April 2019, there was a short rumor about that it was a Daesh terrorist attack. It was justified, not only because of the attacks that happened four years prior in Paris, but also because of a failed attack that effectively targeted Notre Dame in September 2016. Five women and a man were arrested while plotting to put a handmade bomb in the cathedral, in Daesh's name. In 2019, however, the fire turned out to be a pure accident, that caught in the equipment put in place to actually [[UnwantedAssistance restore the cathedral]].
* SerialKiller [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Kohlhepp Todd Kohlhepp]] was suspected of the triple homicide bank robbery at the Blue Ridge Savings Bank. He denied responsibility despite also claiming to have committed more murders then the seven he was convicted of.
* [=LaDondrell=] Montgomery had his life sentence for armed robbery cancelled when it emerged he was ''in prison'' when the stick-up happened.
* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, an infamous event called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre the Katyn Massacre]] occurred. The Soviets and other members of the Allies claimed that UsefulNotes/NaziGermany committed the Massacre, while Germany said that the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]] was responsible for the atrocity. The Soviet Union even tried to condemn Germany for the Katyn Massacre during the Nuremberg Trials in 1945. It didn't work because the evidence was mounting from German records and witnesses that they had, legitimately, stumbled on the crime site instead of having caused it, and in the years after the war, most Western historians took it as a fact the Soviets did it. Records released after the Soviet Union collapsed finally confirmed that, for once, Nazi Germany was actually innocent of a war crime, and it was in fact the Soviets who did it.
* Following the Sony Hack of '14, Usefulnotes/NorthKorea vehemently denied all responsibility for the attack, and indeed, top security experts believe it could only have been an inside job at work here. [[CassandraTruth Not that the U.S. government is ready to listen to them, of course.]]
* Notorious SerialKiller Richard Ramirez had his trial interrupted when one of the jurors was murdered. The other jurors were terrified, believing that Ramirez had somehow arranged for it to happen. It was later determined that the juror had been shot by her boyfriend for reasons unrelated to the trial.
* In November 2022, in the midst of the war in Ukraine, a missile crashed within the borders of Poland killing two Polish citizens in the impact. As Poland is a member of UsefulNotes/{{NATO}}, the loss of life potentially held massive ramifications due to NATO Article 5, which would call on other NATO member states to come to Poland's defense if it were assailed by a non-NATO power, thus obligating NATO member states to enter the war against the assailant rather than provide military and economic aid to Ukraine from the sidelines. Initial reactions were to blame this attack on the Russian Federation, which had been targeting nearby electrical facilities in Ukraine as part of a widespread strike. The Russian Federation vehemently denied these accusations, suggesting that it was a FalseFlagOperation on Ukraine's part. NATO and Poland both engaged in heavy investigation of the incident, and it was ultimately determined that the missile in question was a Ukrainian surface-to-air intercept missile that had failed to eliminate its target and had malfunctioned in its attempt to self-destruct, making the incident in question a tragic accident, but one that did not lead to the escalation of the war as previously feared.
* Soviet Union:
** [[WhoShotJFK In the aftermath of the JFK assassination]], the USSR's higher government was immediately alarmed by the possibility that they would be a prime suspect in organising the shooting, which intensified when it was discovered that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marxist who had previously lived in the Soviet Union, creating fears that the assassination was the work of a GovernmentConspiracy from somewhere in the depths of the KGB rabbit hole. This resulted in the USSR working quite closely with the United States behind the scenes to investigate what had happened and make absolutely sure that the USSR had no responsibility for the assassination.
** It was often assumed by the general populace that the victims of the mysterious [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident Dyatlov Pass incident]] were killed by a Soviet government experiment and a fairly standard coverup had happened. There was even a popular book written in 1990 called ''The Price of State Secrets Is Nine Lives'', arguing that premise. After the Soviet Union fell, analysis of their archives [[DatedHistory revealed that the government was as confused and disturbed by the events at Dyatlov pass as everybody else]]. A new investigation in 2019 concluded that the camp had been struck by an avalanche at night, which killed four of the victims due to being crushed under the snow and forced the other five to flee while not wearing weather-appropriate gear, causing them to succumb to hypothermia.
* SerialRapist Ronald Stewart was accused of killing Regina Harrison, and decided to plead no contest in exchange for a sentence equal to what he was already serving. It was only to 10 years after his death that SerialKiller Jack Jones confessed in a letter that he was responsible.
[[/folder]]

* The Website/ChannelAwesome team review of ''Film/TheLastAirbender'' has a group of reviewers forced to watch the movie; the group initially thinks WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic is behind it, since last year he did exactly that with ''Film/DragonballEvolution''. When they contact him, [[EvenEvilHasStandards he's horrified at the idea of anyone sitting through it]]. [[spoiler:It was Creator/JewWario, he accidentally left the disc thereafter borrowing WebVideo/YRulerOfTime's ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' DVD.]]

* In mashed's ''[[{{Videogame/Overwatch}} Omnileaks]]'' animated short, Winston, Mercy, Lucio, Tracer, Zarya, Genji, and [[GoKartingWithBowser Reaper]] capture Sombre, convinced that she leaked embarrassing secrets about them (the titular Omnileaks). Sombre is thoroughly confused by the accusations but admits that she wished she had leaked the info after hearing the hilarious Leaks.[[note]]It's hinted to have been Doomfist, but given that [[ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish Winston's passwords are ALL "password"]], it could have been anyone.[[/note]]

* The Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses team review of ''Film/TheLastAirbender'' has a group of reviewers forced to watch the movie; the group initially thinks WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic is behind it, since last year he did exactly that with ''Film/DragonballEvolution''. When they contact him, [[EvenEvilHasStandards he's horrified at the idea of anyone sitting through it]]. [[spoiler:It was Creator/JewWario, he accidentally left the disc thereafter borrowing WebVideo/YRulerOfTime's ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' DVD.]]

* ''VisualNovel/Case03TrueCannibalBoy'': Marty, who went crazy in ''VisualNovel/ExtraCaseMyGirlfriendsSecrets'', [[spoiler:isn't the one who killed Sally, as that was the original Cannibal Boy. However, he is responsible for killing two women in a mad attempt to get Sally a new body. In the true ending, he kills Lily to accomplish this goal]].

** During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, an infamous event called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre the Katyn Massacre]] occurred. The Soviets and other members of the Allies claimed that UsefulNotes/NaziGermany committed the Massacre, while Germany said that the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]] was responsible for the atrocity. The Soviet Union even tried to condemn Germany for the Katyn Massacre during the Nuremberg Trials in 1945. It didn't work because the evidence was mounting from German records and witnesses that they had, legitimately, stumbled on the crime site instead of having caused it, and in the years after the war, most Western historians took it as a fact the Soviets did it. Records released after the Soviet Union collapsed finally confirmed that, for once, Nazi Germany was actually innocent of a war crime, and it was in fact the Soviets who did it.

** It was often assumed by the general populace that the victims of the mysterious [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident Dyatlov Pass incident]] were killed by a Soviet government experiment and a fairly standard coverup had happened. There was even a popular book written in 1990 called ''The Price of State Secrets Is Nine Lives'', arguing that premise. After the Soviet Union fell, analysis of their archives [[DatedHistory revealed that the government was as confused and disturbed by the events at Dyatlov pass as everybody else]].

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' creator, Scott Cawthon, is well known amongst his fans for{{invert|edTrope}}ing the ScheduleSlip trope. But when the tie-in novel ''Literature/FiveNightsAtFreddysTheSilverEyes'' was to be released on the 22nd of December, by sheer coincidence, the novel was released early anyway. WordOfGod says that Amazon's publishing of the novel took a far shorter time than expected, and for once, he had nothing to do with this early release.

* In the midst of the controversies that led to many of the models of ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' departure following clashes with host and executive producer Creator/BobBarker; many fans assumed that Janice Pennington (who was along with Bob the lone on-air members remaining from the Creator/{{CBS}} version's debut in [[LongRunners 1972]]) was fired in December 2000 for refusing to testify against former colleague Holly Hallstrom during Hallstrom's wrongful termination lawsuit against Barker. Pennington would later post to her [=MySpace=] page several years later that the firing was not done by Barker; but CBS.

* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, an infamous event called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre the Katyn Massacre]] occurred. The Soviets and other members of the Allies claimed that UsefulNotes/NaziGermany committed the Massacre, while Germany said that the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]] was responsible for the atrocity. The Soviet Union even tried to condemn Germany for the Katyn Massacre during the Nuremberg Trials in 1945. It didn't work because the evidence was mounting from German records and witnesses that they had, legitimately, stumbled on the crime site instead of having caused it, and in the years after the war, most Western historians took it as a fact the Soviets did it. Records released after the Soviet Union collapsed finally confirmed that, for once, Nazi Germany was actually innocent of a war crime, and it was in fact the Soviets who did it.
* It was often assumed by the general populace that the victims of the mysterious [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident Dyatlov Pass incident]] were killed by a Soviet government experiment and a fairly standard coverup had happened. There was even a popular book written in 1990 called ''The Price of State Secrets Is Nine Lives'', arguing that premise. After the Soviet Union fell, analysis of their archives [[DatedHistory revealed that the government was as confused and disturbed by the events at Dyatlov pass as everybody else]].
* [[WhoShotJFK In the aftermath of the JFK assassination]], the USSR's higher government was immediately alarmed by the possibility that they would be a prime suspect in organising the shooting, which intensified when it was discovered that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marxist who had previously lived in the Soviet Union, creating fears that the assassination was the work of a GovernmentConspiracy from somewhere in the depths of the KGB rabbit hole. This resulted in the USSR working quite closely with the United States behind the scenes to investigate what had happened and make absolutely sure that the USSR had no responsibility for the assassination.
* [=LaDondrell=] Montgomery had his life sentence for armed robbery cancelled when it emerged he was ''in prison'' when the stick-up happened.
* Following the Sony Hack of '14, Usefulnotes/NorthKorea vehemently denied all responsibility for the attack, and indeed, top security experts believe it could only have been an inside job at work here. [[CassandraTruth Not that the U.S. government is ready to listen to them, of course.]]

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' creator, Scott Cawthon, is well known amongst his fans for [[InvertedTrope inverting]] the ScheduleSlip trope. But when the tie-in novel ''Literature/FiveNightsAtFreddysTheSilverEyes'' was to be released on the 22nd of December, by sheer coincidence, the novel was released early anyway. WordOfGod says that Amazon's publishing of the novel took a far shorter time than expected, and for once, he had nothing to do with this early release.
* Amid a series of ISIS-sponsored Jihadist terrorist attacks in Europe in the 2015-2016 years, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Munich_shooting a shooting occurred in]] Munich, Germany. The attacker was an Iranian who was alleged to have yelled "God is Great" or "Allahu Ackbar", a sort of battle cry Jihadists utilize, prompting people to declare it another ISIS attack. It was soon discovered, however, that this claim was unfounded as the shooter had no links to ISIS and his particular brand of far-right politics were in fact a twisted form of European ultra-nationalism rather than Islamic fundamentalism. The shooter had looked up to Norwegian right-wing terrorist and mass shooter Anders Brevik for inspiration, his victims were mostly foreigners (many of whom were Muslim), and he was yelling to onlookers that he was German. The fact that Iranians are mostly Shia who oppose Sunni ISIS was a bit of a giveaway to this trope. However, since ISIS had been committing so many attacks as of late and the fact that the Sunni/Shia divide is not particularly well known in the west, it took a while for people to figure out it wasn't an ISIS terrorist attack.
* While searching for the killer of Adam Walsh (the son of John Walsh whose death led directly to the creation of ''Series/AmericasMostWanted''), recently-incarcerated serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was questioned on it. When he denied it and the questioning intensified, Dahmer pointed out that he had eagerly confessed to all of his other killings, describing in horrific detail not only who he killed, but how he killed them and [[IAmAHumanitarian what he did to them afterward]]. And now that he was in prison for life one way or another, why would he lie about committing murder now? Dahmer was indeed telling the truth, and he had nothing to do with Walsh's death.
* Mob hitman (and later informant) Donald Frankos claims that he was convicted of a murder he didn't really commit on the basis of perjured eyewitness testimony. According to him, he always wore a disguise when committing contract killings. In his memoir, he dryly notes that "if I had done it, he wouldn't have been able to identify me" would not have made a good defense in court.

* Usually, when the Basque separatist group ETA assassinated someone, be it by shooting or car bombing, the pro-ETA political party Batasuna would make some statement saying that they "lamented" the "event", but did not condemn it. This was not the case when a non-targeted ''toy'' car bomb exploded during Donostia/San Sebastián's "Big Week" holidays in 2001, killing a grandmother and severely injuring a baby. Batasuna resoundingly condemned and called it a terrorist attack, and even sent representatives to a demonstration clamoring for justice that stood side by side with politicians contrary to Basque independence. Said politicians made some sarcastic remarks about how they hoped to see them again next time when ETA actually murdered someone. The case remains unsolved.

* When Aldrich Ames, a KGB mole in the CIA, was arrested for espionage in 1994, the CIA realized that there were still at least two security leaks he couldn't have been responsible for: the sabotage of an investigation into another espionage suspect (Ames was in Rome at the time) and the leak of the existence of a tunnel under the Soviet embassy that was to be used for spying (it was an FBI project and Ames couldn't have known about it). These were the work of FBI mole Robert Hanssen, who was caught in 2001.
* Notorious SerialKiller Richard Ramirez had his trial interrupted when one of the jurors was murdered. The other jurors were terrified, believing that Ramirez had somehow arranged for it to happen. It was later determined that the juror had been shot by her boyfriend for reasons unrelated to the trial.
* SerialRapist Ronald Stewart was accused of killing Regina Harrison, and decided to plead no contest in exchange for a sentence equal to what he was already serving. It was only to 10 years after his death that SerialKiller Jack Jones confessed in a letter that he was responsible.
* SerialKiller [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Kohlhepp Todd Kohlhepp]] was suspected of the triple homicide bank robbery at the Blue Ridge Savings Bank. He denied responsibility despite also claiming to have committed more murders then the seven he was convicted of.
* In the midst of the controversies that led to many of the models of ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' departure following clashes with host and executive producer Creator/BobBarker; many fans assumed that Janice Pennington (who was along with Bob the lone on-air members remaining from the Creator/{{CBS}} version's debut in [[LongRunners 1972]]) was fired in December 2000 for refusing to testify against former colleague Holly Hallstrom during Hallstrom's wrongful termination lawsuit against Barker. Pennington would later post to her [=MySpace=] page several years later that the firing was not done by Barker; but CBS.
* When Notre Dame de Paris caught fire in April 2019, there was a short rumor about that it was a Daesh terrorist attack. It was justified, not only because of the attacks that happened four years prior in Paris, but also because of a failed attack that effectively targeted Notre Dame in September 2016. Five women and a man were arrested while plotting to put a handmade bomb in the cathedral, in Daesh's name. In 2019, however, the fire turned out to be a pure accident, that caught in the equipment put in place to actually [[UnwantedAssistance restore the cathedral]].
* In November 2022, in the midst of the war in Ukraine, a missile crashed within the borders of Poland killing two Polish citizens in the impact. As Poland is a member of UsefulNotes/{{NATO}}, the loss of life potentially held massive ramifications due to NATO Article 5, which would call on other NATO member states to come to Poland's defense if it were assailed by a non-NATO power, thus obligating NATO member states to enter the war against the assailant rather than provide military and economic aid to Ukraine from the sidelines. Initial reactions were to blame this attack on the Russian Federation, which had been targeting nearby electrical facilities in Ukraine as part of a widespread strike. The Russian Federation vehemently denied these accusations, suggesting that it was a FalseFlagOperation on Ukraine's part. NATO and Poland both engaged in heavy investigation of the incident, and it was ultimately determined that the missile in question was a Ukrainian surface-to-air intercept missile that had failed to eliminate its target and had malfunctioned in its attempt to self-destruct, making the incident in question a tragic accident, but one that did not lead to the escalation of the war as previously feared.

* Biologist Rupert Sheldrake, known for his controversial-at-best hypothesis of Morphic Resonance [[note]] yes, the TropeNamer for MorphicResonance[[/note]], had his page on Wiki/TheOtherWiki repeatedly edited to be less and less favorable over the course of a year. Sheldrake blamed the group of editors called "Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia" (GSOW), who had been known for inserting materialist viewpoints and improving the quality and thus visibility of already pro-materialist articles. It turned out that the editor most associated with these edits was not associated with GSOW, albeit operated in a similar fashion.

* SerialRapist Ronald Stewart was accused of killing Regina Harrison, and decided to plead no consent in exchange for a sentence equal to what he was already serving. It was only to 10 years after his death that SerialKiller Jack Jones confessed in a letter that he was responsible.

* 2011, the infamous UsefulNotes/PlayStationNetwork hack. Anonymous, known for their acts of internet activism/vandalism, came out with a statement titled "For Once We Didn't Do It".
%%** Interestingly enough, RenegadeSplinterFaction [=LulzSec=] once had a hack attributed to them which was actually committed by someone else. They ended up (somewhat reluctantly) taking responsibility anyway.

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/{{Batman}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/8we06229.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[OOCIsSeriousBusiness It's a bad sign when]] [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker the Joker]] [[VillainHasAPoint is making sense.]]]]

* ''Film/CappsCrossing'': Justin is immediately blamed for being the PeepingTom who was spying on Robin undressing in her cabin (it may have actually been David). Justin says this trope word-for-word in his defense.

* You yourself may or have already said this once in your life if you've been blamed for something you didn't do, especially if you're known for making trouble on occasions.

** Interestingly enough, RenegadeSplinterFaction [=LulzSec=] once had a hack attributed to them which was actually committed by someone else. They ended up (somewhat reluctantly) taking responsibility anyway.

* Another Soviet-related example: [[WhoShotJFK In the aftermath of the JFK assassination]], the USSR's higher government was immediately alarmed by the possibility that they would be a prime suspect in organising the shooting, which intensified when it was discovered that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marxist who had previously lived in the Soviet Union, creating fears that the assassination was the work of a GovernmentConspiracy from somewhere in the depths of the KGB rabbit hole. This resulted in the USSR working quite closely with the United States behind the scenes to investigate what had happened and make absolutely sure that the USSR had no responsibility for the assassination.

** ISIS usually evokes this trope when it ''doesn't'' take responsibility for an attack, especially since they have a tendency to take responsibility for attacks that they weren't involved with, to begin with. Unsurprisingly, people usually attribute these attacks to them anyways.
** On ''extremely'' rare occasions - usually after attacks that target their core supporter demographic - they have issued denials. Most people usually still attribute these attacks to ISIS anyways.

* When Notre Dame de Paris caught fire in April 2019, there was a short rumor about that it was an Al Qaeda terrorist attack. It was justified, not only because of the attacks that happened four years prior in Paris, but also because of a failed attack that effectively targeted Notre Dame in September 2016. Five women and a man were arrested while plotting to put a handmade bomb in the cathedral, in Al Qaeda's name. In 2019, however, the fire turned out to be a pure accident, that caught in the equipment put in place to actually [[UnwantedAssistance restore the cathedral]].