History Main / SuspectIsHatless

** An early episode features an entire street full of people who have been dragged down to the precinct after a murder who can only offer vague, contradictory and nearly-useless descriptions of the victim, the suspect, and exactly what happened between them. Some of the witnesses were standing right next to one or both of these parties. The cops, not surprisingly, are a little exasperated. This episode was a comment on homelessness in New York at the time. Many of the witnesses were mentally ill people who had been dumped on the streets. The one moderately functional one says she didn't see anything because she doesn't have the glasses social services has been promising to get for her, and asks the cops if they can help her with that. Finally, one of the people, who is quite elderly, and was initially dismissed, actually turns out to be the healthiest, sanest person there, with some useful information.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSwanPrincess'': The dying king describes Rothbart's transformed form (which is a gigantic bat-man hybrid) who attacked him and took Odette, as "a great animal" that "is not what it seems". This (and Derek's discovery that the king meant a ''transforming'' "animal") doesn't really helps them in determining which animal to start looking for and as such [[HilarityEnsues leads to hilarity]] (comic sidekick Bromley trying unsuccessfully to attack various small animals) and drama (Derek trying to kill the transformed Odette, because an animal that "is not what it seems" obviously could disguise itself into something like a swan...).

* One of the powers of Assassin of Black (Jack the Ripper) in ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'' is to invoke this. Anyone who fights Assassin and survives the fight quickly forgets all details of their opponent, so they cannot describe Assassin to anyone else, or recognize Assassin should their paths cross again. This stems from the fact that the powers of Servants are derived from their legends, and a key part of Jack the Ripper's legend is the fact that Jack was never conclusively identified.

** In "Raw", Stabler tries to interview a group of children who were present at a playground shooting. Given that they're all young kids (and traumatized at that), the statements end up being...less than helpful. Not only do their statements contradict each other at every turn, ''none'' of them turn out to be accurate.

** In "Raw", Stabler tries to interview a group of children who were present at a playground shooting. Given that they're all young kids, the statements end up being...less than helpful.

* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'': In "Tweentrepreneurs", Bob's Burgers is the victim of a dine-and-dash. Teddy tries to draw a facial composite of the dine and dasher based on what he and Linda can remember about his looks. All they can remember is that he had two eyes and a nose.

* This is one of the reasons why witness testimony isn't considered very reliable in court: people just don't pay attention to these kinds of things until they become significant, at which point the criminal is halfway gone and it's too late. Fortunately, a halfway decent cop will, when taking down a report from a victim (or a witness statement later), use questions and techniques to get some crucial details down where possible: gender, age, colour, height, build, hair, clothing/jewelry, distinguishing marks, any reason you'd remember him and was he carrying anything. And that's just the first set of things the cop will ask about.

* The Clint Eastwood movie ''{{Film/Tightrope}}'':

* In ''Literature/TheVoyageOfAlice'', one of the first books in ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture'' series, many characters describe the suspected BigBad as "a human wearing a hat". At best – "wearing a hat, elderly and thin". [[spoiler:And even that turns out to be a disguise]].

** {{Subverted}} once, when Ziva gets a witness statement from two teen boys stating that the suspect was driving a Kuruma. Tony snarks that "kuruma" is Japanese for "car," so she just told them to look for a car. [=McGee=] steps in and tells them that "Kuruma" is also the title given to a specific make and model in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto,'' which would be a familiar point of reference to the witnesses, so Ziva actually got a very good description of the vehicle.

* In ''Manga/{{Sekirei}}'', Benitsubasa calls the Izumo Inn and demands to speak to the "big-breasted woman". Among the OneHundredAndEight Sekirei, there's maybe ten who don't fit that description and half those are men or children.

-->'''Cleaveland:''' Oh, I don't know what to do. This is harder than trying to identify a rapist at a Star Trek convention.

* One ''Manga/{{Patlabor}}'' OVA centers around the men searching for a bomber in a public bathhouse, with the only information they had to identify the suspect being a description of an ''armpit''. The gang goes through a number of crazy hijinks trying to examine the armpits of every man washing up, which ultimately starts a huge brawl. And in the end in turned out to be for nothing, as the perp was female, and [=SV2=] had sent the only female member present to report in to headquarters, leaving nobody to search the women's side of the baths.

* In the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio "[[BigFinishDoctorWhoNEDASRavenous4E3DayOfTheMaster Day of the Master]]", when the Eighth Doctor asks his companion Liv to describe which incarnation of the Master she just met, Liv is only able to describe him as "bearded, urbane and a bit sadistic", which the Doctor notes could apply to many incarnations of the Master (and thus prevents the Doctor realising that this version of the Master is from his relative future).

* The ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series in general has the police giving highly generic descriptions over the radio, likely to cut down on voice work. A stolen police car is a "police car", a sports car of any make is simply designated by "[color] sports car", the same likewise applies to any generalization of vehicle type, and a military attack chopper is bizarrely a "red helicopter" (this is due to it having red as its default color code, despite the military paint job; red paint chips even flake off if you hit something). Not that this stops any police officer from knowing it's you from this generic description. Later games subvert this by having the radio controller initially give vague descriptions of the player's vehicle, but start giving more specific ones as the chase goes on, including the car's make and model.

* ''WebVideo/JennyNicholson'' criticizes the show ''Paranormal Home Inspectors'' for its psychic invariably describing having trouble breathing on the basis it's a generic manifestation (linked to her overall vague and muddled readings), and listing the myriad deaths that could result in this phenomenon all the way up to "being unable to breathe due to being dead".

* The first episode of ''Manga/TriGun'' has the insurance girls and several groups of bounty hunters looking for Vash the Stampede. Each of them is using a different description of Vash that is technically accurate, but is also vague enough that it also describes one of the bounty hunters. Confusion ensues.

* Exploited as part of a brilliant RingerPlot in the climax of ''Film/TheThomasCrownAffair1999''. Crown goes into a museum and makes sure that the security cameras see him, and that they can identify him as wearing a business suit and a bowler hat, and carrying a valise. Upon donning the hat, his face can no longer be seen by the cameras, so the guards have to track him by his outfit. Within a minute, over a dozen other people of the same height and build wearing the same outfit start randomly walking around the museum, carrying identical valises that they repeatedly pass between each other. While security runs around in circles trying to detain all the men in business suits and bowlers, Crown ditches his for a tan trenchcoat and is able to complete his business and walk away completely unnoticed.