Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane

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"Everything Merlin did, my Lady, had another explanation."

— Derfel Cadarn, adopted son of Merlin, The Warlord Chronicles

Sometimes you track down the monster and pull the rubber mask off to reveal the janitor.

Sometimes you try that, and the monster gobbles you up.

And sometimes you don't get either way. You are left with nothing except the tracks, the sightings, and hypotheses. Two characters can argue for the alternative explanations, supernatural or naturalistic, without either one of them carrying the Idiot Ball.

How this is done affects any reaction to it. Sometimes it invokes The Chris Carter Effect or Kudzu Plot. Sometimes it is an eminently satisfactory way to create an open ending (generally when the question has not been the focus of the plot).

A common effect is to offer a mundane explanation of how something could have happened, but not in fact establish that is how it did happen. (Such as never trying to eliminate the purported cause and establish that the effect does end.)

The verifiable presence of magic in the world does not preclude this trope; in Fantasy works, this may come into play for divine intervention, or rare forms of magic (vs ordinary forms as well as mundane). Or some apparently-magical things may be clearly magical, and others more ambiguous. Conversely, the presence of high technology or other non-magical special powers extends the possibilities of this trope by allowing a greater range of "mundane" phenomena. It can also effectively come into play when characters ponder whether an effect was natural or extremely high tech.

Usually the author won't confirm or deny a solution. If they do, see Doing In the Wizard (or Scientist), Jossed, Magic A Is Magic A, all of which tend to exclude this trope.

Often comes into play with Angel Unaware, and does when characters say Because Destiny Says So about situations that could be interpreted as Contrived Coincidence. Any apparent Dead Person Conversation (particularly if Talking in Your Dreams) may fall under this, if the conversation contains nothing that the character could not have known. Prophecies Are Always Right does not preclude their looking like dumb luck. In non-fantastical settings, Twins Are Special is often powered by this trope.

Sub-Trope of Riddle for the Ages. Super-Trope of Santa Ambiguity. Or Was It a Dream? is related, but isn't a subtrope, since not every Or Was it a Dream? scenario involves magical things happening within the "dream".

Compare Ambiguous Ending; and Fantastique (from The Other Wiki), a genre of fiction typified by supernatural phenomena that is not explained to the reader or the main characters, hinting at a magical occurrence.. Also compare Through the Eyes of Madness, where the audience sees evidence in favor of the weird explanation, but remains unsure of whether it's real or not because of the possible unreliability of the narrator.

Contrast Real After All, which often involves a mix of mundane and magical explanations, but usually makes it clear at the end which incidents were which (at least to the audience, Gave Up Too Soon is common for the characters).

This may also happen in adaptations. The original character may have a certain ability to do a supernatural thing, but the adaptation never openly states that he has such a power. And yet, at some point something happens, that may suggest it, but with no clear explanation. Those familiar with the source work may be free to consider it a Mythology Gag to the original work, and others may suspect a mundane explanation for it.

See also Domino Revelation, In Mysterious Ways, and Magic Realism. If it's subverted by revealing that some dangerous magic was actually mundane, see Shock-and-Switch Ending.

Examples:

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Advertising

Ever since Mr. Clean was first introduced in Procter & Gamble's advertisements in 1958, it's been subtly implied that he might be a genie—hence his distinctive bald head, gold earring, buff physique, perpetually crossed arms, and general air of mystery (in early live-action ads, he would unexpectedly appear to aid people with their cleaning tasks before vanishing without a trace). And, of course, he's the namesake of a product that comes in a bottle. Despite all this, however, the company has never definitively confirmed whether this was meant to be the case, and you generally wouldn't know it just by looking at his illustrations.

Anime and Manga

Azumanga Daioh features an unnamed yellow cat creature who claims to be Chiyo's dad. While he mostly appears in Sakaki's dreams, plush toys exist of him in the real world, and Osaka once met him in a dream independent of Sakaki's description. Additionally, the anime sees him fly around in establishing shots and has one of his plushies glow when Sakaki isn't looking, and one Supplementary Lessons strip from 2009 outright shows him hovering up to her bedside in the real world. Of note is that Azumanga Daioh shares its continuity with the explicitly supernatural Wallaby, which depicts a dead schoolboy's ghost possessing a stuffed animal.
In the world of Afro Samurai, it is widely believed that the Number 1 and Number 2 Headbands are divine relics, with the Number 1 Headband in particular being said to bestow immortality or even godhood upon whoever wears it. This belief is so common that one of Afro Samurai's enemies is a religious order called the Empty 7, which worships the #1's bearer as a god. However, neither headband displays any overtly supernatural properties in the series, and it's subtly implied that all the stories are just that — stories. Given the setting's cynical tone, it would be fitting that the supposed ultimate relics that everyone is willing to butcher each other over are nothing more than two ordinary pieces of cloth.
In Berserk, the Hellhound entity that resides within Guts. Its presence being hinted in the early Black Swordsman Arc and having a full physical debut in the Lost Children Arc, fans speculate what the Hellhound is and where it exactly came from. Is it an independent spirit that latched onto Guts during the Eclipse event, or is it merely a trauma-induced hallucination spurred by the traumatic Eclipse? Is the Beast a separate and malevolent force that has always resided within Guts since birth, or is the Beast in fact Guts himself and is just an anthropomorphization of his darker nature? As the setting of Berserk has Clap Your Hands If You Believe in full effect, it could have started out as an abstract idea but then took a life of its own through Guts' constant contact with the supernatural world. We just don't know what the Hellhound is and might never know.
Ryou from Bokura no Hentai can see his dead sister's ghost. It's left ambiguous whether she's real or not but it's implied he's hallucinating it and it's his subconscious.
Death Note:
- In the manga's final chapter, it's noted that Mikami mysteriously died in prison ten days after Light's defeat, leading Matsuda to theorize that Near wrote in the Death Note so as to restrict Mikami's actions, enabling Light's conviction. The anime includes no such speculation from Matsuda, and Mikami instead commits suicide on the spot, casting doubt on a supernatural interpretation.
- Then, there was that part where Light's archenemy L appeared during his death, both staring at each other and lampshading L's own death. This almost drove fans insane with their theories, riots and flame wars. Although the author has made it quite clear that the afterlife doesn't exist in the Death Note mythos,^* there is still speculation that it wasn't Light's hallucination but L actually staring at him supernaturally.
- The notebook itself is a subject of debate. Does it contain some sort of sentience that can actually bring out the worst in people's egos, or is it just an (extra)ordinary notebook?
The main point of Miki Yoshikawa's one-shot The Demon's Classroom. An elementary school class gets a new teacher who claims to be Diablo de Mon, the former king of the underworld. At first, he acts quite weird and seems oblivious to the customs of human society, making the kids think he really is a demon. When they decide to try and bust him as a demon, they are unsuccessful as now he acts like a normal human. By accident, they set fire to his house, and the next morning, the house is whole, and de Mon himself is unharmed. He claims he used his powers to nullify the fact that the fire took place. Then the main character notices that he has burns on his hands. At the end of the story, the narration states that the kids grew to like de Mon, but never actually found out if his claims were true.
In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, by claiming all elemental effects for the Breathing Styles are merely visual flair, the setting is trying to make the human Slayers be all about "realistic" self-improvement, getting super human strength without losing your humanity, unlike the Demons who lost theirs, getting magical abilities while at it. However, the endgame abilities the Slayers can achieve clearly push the evenlope, the Marks, the Transparent World and Crimson Blades are pretty much supernatural, as much as the setting tried to explain them through biological terms, their true nature is never fully explained, remaining mysteriously magical.
Denpa Teki na Kanojo: The Because You Were Nice to Me scene that is Remembered Too Late by Juun could perfectly explain Ame’s Past-Life Memories of being King Juun’s knight. However, it could not explain the Psychic Link Ame has with Juun.
This trope is a major theme in Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl. The title character, Erio Touwa, believes she's an alien and eventually secludes herself from almost all human contact. Then her cousin Makoto Niwa moves in due to his parents having to work outside of Japan, and he brings her back to reality. She slowly starts to reintegrate into human society, and then a strange girl named Yashiro Hoshimiya appears and berates him for causing her to stop believing in aliens. He constantly ridicules her as well, thinking she's got the same psychological issues Erio went through. At the end of episode 13, Yashiro tells Makoto to move slightly from the position he's standing in. Shortly after he does, a meteor crashes into the exact spot he was just standing in, causing him to wonder if she really was telling the truth about being an alien.
Dragon Ball:
- The Ultra Divine Water. Korin says that it's magical and can unleash a fighter's latent power. Yajirobe claims that the water is just poison after tasting it. In the anime, the Darkness, the entity who guards the Ultra Divine Water, states that the water is poisonous, but it does bring out a fighter's latent abilities if they can withstand the pain and have latent power to bring out. In Z, it appears that the Ultra Divine Water was just really powerful poison since as a Saiyan, Goku gets stronger from near death and no one before Goku has ever survived drinking the Ultra Divine Water, so we don't know if it can make a human stronger.
- Goku himself was this during early Dragon Ball which was more mystical as it was unclear how a seemingly human boy not only had a tail but would transform into a giant ape monster during the full moon. This coupled with moments where Goku’s friends like Bulma and Krillin would question what exactly Goku is and when enraged King Piccolo claims he’s a monster Goku agrees saying “that makes both of us”. Subverted in Z which does a lot of Doing In the Wizard revealing Goku and Piccolo are aliens.
- The Legendary Super Saiyan Broly is a case of this. He’s unique for a Saiyan supposedly being a mutant but his power and nature is far more monstrous and terrifying to be solely just a genetic anomaly, he can counter god ki through his own power and even Beerus a God of Destruction is genuinely freaked out by him, his original incarnation in Japanese claims he’s “a demon” which may just be a Badass Boast... or maybe it isn’t as there’s plenty of other supporting Eldritch Humanoid traits to his character from his skin breaking apart as he transforms to his eyes glowing red upon reaching his full power. Then again there’s other Saiyans like Kale who can enter a similar state meaning “The Legendary Super Saiyan” could just simply be a unique genetic strain for Saiyans, although considering the existence of Cumber, the idea of dark demonic Saiyans isn’t out of the question.
- The Hyperbolic Time Chamber definitely counts as this in the anime of Z. It’s a Pocket Dimension created by Kami where times runs differently being a Year Inside, Hour Outside allowing for fighters to achieve a massive amount of training in no more than a day. Other than that it appears to be a Blank White Void that appears to go on forever but nothing else... or is it? Trunks describes times where it would be boiling hot and then ice cold in moments and at one point sees Vegeta on fire but upon rushing to help his father is punched down with everything going back to normal at once, Trunks speculates the fire came from Vegeta himself suggesting the Chamber psychically projects people’s subconscious — or Trunks was just having a Sanity Slippage due to the void of the Chamber. Mr. Popo did warn the heroes that the Chamber can make you go crazy, but this coming from an overtly mystical person. Additionally when Gohan is in the Chamber he wakes up one night to see Goku training in an icy wasteland, but considering Gohan had lucid nightmares in the Chamber what he sees in the place is questionable.
Hayate × Blade: Did Wanko REALLY curse those two girls in her debut fight, or did they just freeze from fear at her sheer creepiness?
Himouto! Umaru-chan: It's left ambiguous if Umaru turning into a cartoonishly deformed version of herself is just a visual gag for the audience or she really is somehow shapeshifting. Characters who know her outdoor persona in-universe will take notice of her indoor persona and question who that is.
Hoshikuzu Telepath: The manga's central conceit. Umika is a painfully shy girl with zero communication skills who longs to meet telepathic aliens so she can finally find somebody who understands her. One day, a girl named Yuu Akeuchi enters her classroom claiming to be an alien stuck on Earth with a broken spaceship. She is unable to offer any proof of what she says; she has no memories of her time before "arriving" and only has a travel log written in an alien language that's copied right out of a book Umika also possesses. She also claims she can communicate telepathically just by touching foreheads, but never says anything that can't be deduced from body language and her words are vague enough that Umika may be jumping to conclusions and offering up the details herself. Umika, though, is so desperate to be friends with somebody who understands her that she overlooks the ambiguity and pledges to help Yuu fix her spaceship so they can travel the stars together.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable has Mikitaka Hazekura, a young man who claims to be a shapeshifting alien who's studying humanity in secret and hypnotized an ordinary Earth woman into believing she's his mother as part of his cover story. Mrs. Hazekura tells Josuke not to mind Mikitaka, claiming that he's been playing pretend games like this since he was a child. Further complicating matters is the fact that when someone tries shooting an unaware Mikitaka with the Stand Arrow, it simply bounces off his body, something that never happened before and never happens again in the entire franchise. The series deliberately goes out of its way to avoid revealing whether Mikitaka is just a very eccentric Stand user (which would be mundane by JoJo standards) or if he really is an alien (which would be "magic").
The title dog of Junkers Come Here can speak and is able to grant Three Wishes to his owner, Hiromi. By the end of the movie he loses his ability to speak and is now a normal dog and Hiromi wonders if Junkers was really a talking dog and if everything that happened was because of his magic or just a series of coincidences.
One of the themes of Kaitou Saint Tail involves the ambiguity of things like this and whether one should choose to believe what they see or try to find a realistic/"scientific" explanation for everything, with both sides represented by Stage Magician Meimi (whose entire specialty involves getting people to not think too hard about the technicals and see it as magic) and Agent Scully Asuka Jr. (who is specifically interested more in the internals of how things work than the surface). Straddling the line within the story itself includes Meimi's magic being way beyond what normal stage magicians should be able to do, a "good luck charm" that apparently leads to Meimi getting to dance with Asuka Jr., and a mirror said to show one's "true self" instead of their normal reflection and works so well that even Asuka Jr. can't come up with an explanation for it no matter how hard he tries. The finale also has something that suggests divine intervention working in favor of Meimi.
Goshiki Agiri from Kill Me Baby is a ninja, yet most of the actual ninja tricks she uses are either obviously accomplished or purely jokes.
Komori-san Can't Decline!: At first Komori just seems to be pretty strong from years of helping people. Then it seems like she has Super-Strength. Then it seems like just being asked to help with something gives her a Determinator status that enables to her to do it against all logic to a level even other characters consider almost supernatural. Considering that this takes place in the same world as Cool-kyou's other works, this isn't really so implausible.
This is an integral part of Johan Liebert's character in Monster. Although he appears to be human on the surface, the series heavily implies several times whether or not Johan is The Antichrist, something that is backed up by his whole shtick regarding his modus operandi but is otherwise never stated outright, making him all the more creepier than what he already is.
It's never made clear in My Neighbor Totoro if Totoro and the spirits that Satsuki and Mei encounter are real, part of their imagination, or if they're real and only kids can see them.
A number of things that Big Bad Altena does in Noir don't seem possible unless she has some manner of magical/psychic powers, with one scene in particular involving her watching three candles that represent the "saplings" or candidates for her plan to recreate the titular Noir, a duo of two girls who "govern death" on behalf of an Ancient Conspiracy. When one of the candles goes out representing how one, Chloe, has just died Altena not only seems to know what it means but which sapling it was referring to. Not to mention how Altena is generally pretty unsettling and vaguely supernatural, and lives in an Eldritch Location somewhere between Spain and France that happens to feature an active volcano.
One Piece:
- In Loguetown was Luffy being saved from Buggy's wrath by way of a convenient lightning bolt due to fate? Did it have something to do with Dragon? Or was it just because Buggy was holding up a metal sword on a high platform in the middle of a thunderstorm?
- Nami’s ability to detect the weather is most assuredly this. Initially it could purely be her navigation skill since she’s studied for years since she was a child. Except at one point during the Alabasta arc she’s able to divert the Going Merry away from a freak cyclone that came out of nowhere (the Grand Line is full of Weird Weather), at which Vivi realises with amazement Nami can detect changes in the weather just by feeling it with her body. It’s entirely possible Nami is using Kenbunshoku Haki to achieve this as other East Blue crew members like Luffy, Zoro, Sanji and Usopp had early signs of Kenbunshoku pertaining to their skills and personalities, so there’s a likelihood she could have it as well, or maybe it is really supernatural intuition which is many ways more mysterious than just Haki.
- Sanji’s Diable Jambe falls under this, to the point of being actively questioned in Wano arc. Initially Diable Jambe had a rational (if ludicrous) explanation of Sanji simply spinning himself around fast enough to ignite his leg, yet after the Time Skip (and a few times before) Sanji can simply enflame both his legs along with the rest of his body to almost the same level as the Mera Mera no Mi, without the need for friction. There’s other characters like Hannyabal and Kine’mon who can produce fire from their weapons as well Luffy when using his Haki-empowered Red Hawk punch but Diable Jambe appears to be unique and unrelated to Sanji’s Haki (albeit it can be boosted by it). Queen Mad Scientist henchman of Kaido in Wano claims while fighting Sanji that only Lunarians can generate fire from their bodies like that, given the Bio-Augmentation of Sanji’s birth it’s entirely possible he could through the “Linage Factor” indeed have Lunarian DNA inside him but Sanji claims it “comes from his heart”. Also worth noting Zoro can generate auras (as well multiple heads and arms) with his Killing Intent spirit so it could be a similar case regarding Diable Jambe with Sanji projecting his Hot-Blooded spirit.
Some of the things Break does in PandoraHearts fall into this. We've seen him use actual magic to bind Alice right at the beginning. But he also produces things from nowhere (or out of his hat) which could be illusions or could not. And is Emily ventriloquism or something else?
In Peach Girl, an otherwise fairly realistic slice-of-life/Drama series, resident Alpha Bitch Sae sometimes displays... interesting abilities, such as becoming paper thin, usually when she's depressed. You'd just chalk this up to artistic effect, except sometimes it affects the plot - She walks right past a security guard by turning wafer-thin and hiding when he tries to stop her, and he reacts as you really would in that situation. Another time she hides under a box no human could reasonably fit into, by once again, slimming herself down.
Pokémon: The Series: In the episode "The Poké Spokesman", the titular spokesman, named Simon, claimed to be able to speak with Pokémon and understand them. Many people considered him a conman, but he explains to Ash and company why he insists he's not. He tells about how, as a child, he was trapped in a cellar during a storm. During this, a Rattata, Pidgey and Oddish appeared and actually spoke with him. He spent hours talking with them, but when he fell asleep and the storm was over, the three of them disappeared and he couldn't understand Pokémon in human language anymore. He does admit it's possible he was dreaming and he's fooling himself, but he truly believes he can communicate with Pokémon.
Rurouni Kenshin: While training to master the Futae No Kiwame, Sonosuke is visited by the image of his deceased mentor. Even Sonosuke himself isn't sure if what he's seeing is a ghost or a hallucination brought on by exhaustion, though he's grateful to speak with him once again.
The encounter with Heike Shige in Samurai Champloo may have been the result of the accidental ingestion of psychedelic mushrooms, or he and his men may have actually been undead. There isn't really anything that confirms or debunks either theory, and no mention of the incident was made after that.
School-Live! makes readers wonder whether Yuki can actually see the ghost of her teacher, Sakura-sensei AKA Megu-nee. The readers know that Yuki is delusional and an Unreliable Narrator (and that Megu-nee is Dead All Along), so the most likely explanation is that it's just another hallucination. However, the apparition always seems to know what's going on and to actively help the girls. It's also implied somewhat that Yuki's helpful (if apparently strange) suggestions come from her.
Shi ni Aruki: The bizarre mix of accidents, suicides, and murders surrounding Tokiko. The Kurosu family, as well as occult researchers Kaoru Akiyama and Professor Mitsuki Kisaragi, believe that the deaths are caused by some supernatural curse that is related to Tokiko in some way. Meanwhile, other characters such as police detectives Shuichi Yashiro and Ryouta Koga, as well as investigative journalist Sou Aoya, insist that there must be a more grounded explanation. Come the end of the manga, while the remaining characters are now willing to entertain the "curse" idea as plausible — and for what it's worth, the final death tally does list Tokiko as "dead" rather than "died", and the manga is littered with imagery of her with an exposed skeleton — it still isn't an agreed upon conclusion and even Kaoru admits that his assessment isn't as definitive as he'd like.
Sound of the Sky thrives on this. Are the main religions right and "Them" supernatural beings? Are the ghosts real, or just a hungry owl and a PTSD induced hallucination?
Sword Art Online: Alternative Gun Gale Online: When in a tournament, LLENN's P90 "Pi-chan" suddenly starts talking to her. While the obvious explanation is that LLENN is just hallucinating, Pi-chan is able to give LLENN some crucial information, and violently misfires when someone else tries to use her. And of course the whole thing is inside a game, so it's possible (though certainly strange) that the governing AI decided to give LLENN some help.
It's left vague if Yuuki post-episode eight in Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 was a ghost or Mirai hallucinating. He did have hope Mari's daughter was alive even though he saw her presumed daughter's body, which could mean he has a knowledge of the dead, and we see him disappear later. However it's possible that was all in Mirai's head and she was imagining what Yuuki would do.
The first season of Tsukiuta. The Animation seems to abuse this trope. Shun, the leader of idol unit Procellarum, calls himself the "Demon King", and at several points tells the other characters he's casting a spell, and they appear to believe him. Is it magic, or is he just chuunibyou? Well, it turns out the rest of the franchise is quite the Fantasy Kitchen Sink, with Youkai, trolls, demons, and multiple isekai adventures. And Shun definitely has powers - as does Hajime, the leader of Procella's sibling/rival unit Six Gravity, who Shun has a major crush on. Those mad scientist girls really are moon goddesses in training, and that palm-sized reindeer that looked like a plush toy? He's actually a fairy.
When Marnie Was There: Is Marnie a real ghost, or just a hallucination/fantasy of Anna's based on Anna's desire for a friend and her half-remembered memories of the stories she heard from her grandmother as a child? Since Anna is the only one who sees and interacts with Marnie throughout the film, no conclusive proof is given either way.
The ending to Your Lie in April has Kaori's death happen during a piano performance of Kousei's. It's left vague if her playing the violin alongside him and later bursting into light is another one of the artistic interpretations from Kousei's head while he plays music, or if that was really Kaori's spirit playing one last song with Kousei.

Comic Books

Teased in Astro City with the Blue Knight; it's unclear if he's a vigilante with high-tech gadgets and a skull mask, or a policeman empowered by the vengeful ghost of a police officer killed in the line of duty. It's eventually implied to be a bit of both.
Batman:
- The villain Scarface, a ventriloquist dummy mob boss, is sometimes teased as something more than a delusion of an unstable mind. The Ventriloquist himself believes that the dummy is possessed by the spirit of a gangster rather than a facet of his own personality; since it was cut from wood of a tree that in the past was used to hang criminals, it is a rather spooky origin for a seemingly mundane puppet. How "real" Scarface is also depends on the continuity. In some, the Ventriloquist is able to free himself of Scarface's influence via therapy; in others, all it takes is destroying the doll.
- Zigzags in Batman: The Cult with Big Bad Deacon Blackfire, who claims to be a 500-year-old Native American mystic. On one hand, his methods of recruitment are clearly shown to be based on psychology and drugs, just like documented cults. On the other hand, evidence suggests Deacon Blackfire really was immortal. Whether he was a complete fraud or merely a partial fraud is never fully explained.
- The miniseries Batman: The Mad Monk portrays the titular villain in this way. On the one hand, he drinks human blood, has pale skin and red eyes, appears to be able to hypnotize people, is never seen in the daylight, sleeps in a coffin, is abnormally fast and strong, and is based on a character who was unambiguously a vampire. On the other hand, he never actually turns someone into a vampire (even his closest subordinate), most of his bites are ragged rather than the traditional pinpricks, he demonstrates no vulnerability to silver, he's (apparently) killed by a lightning strike, and he's the leader of a cult, giving him all the reason in the world to act as if he has real supernatural powers. He's also taken over the castle of one of Gotham's most notorious families, whose last heir, Richard Rallstone, went on a trip to Europe and never returned. So either he's Richard Rallstone running a blood cult with the objective of convincing people he's an actual vampire, and his vampiric powers are just good physical fitness and nonmagical means of suggestion, or he really is Niccolai Tepes, vampire, having pulled a Kill and Replace on Rallstone, and the discrepancies can be chalked up to Our Vampires Are Different and him wanting to stay cautious about creating other vampires. Notably, when Batman accuses him of being Rallstone, he merely claims "And like all crusaders, you understand so very little."
- Batman as a whole tends to take this approach to the nature of Gotham City itself and Arkham Asylum in particular. Is the city cursed, plagued by demons, tormented by Darkseid's Omega Power, by nameless things, or is it just an incurable Wretched Hive of scum and villainy all on its own? Hints at various supernatural origins for the city's woes and the Asylum's troubles come and go, but none are ever confirmed and there's always a mundane or comic-book-mundane explanation for everything else.
- Bat-Mite's whole Post-Crisis existence. Two stories by Alan Grant show Bat-Mite appearing to a criminal named Overdog. Both times Batman (who doesn't find Bat-Mite) rationalizes that these were just Overdog's drug-induced hallucinations, but the reader is left wondering...
- It’s never been 100% clear if Cassandra Cain and her mother Lady Shiva are normal humans or something more. They both have a Charles Atlas Superpower that pushes what a human can do but they’re explicitly not meta-humans. Only the two of them and Shiva’s sister can/could do it. Cassandra went through Training from Hell while neither one of them did, suggesting a genetic component.
- The Joker himself becomes a invoked case of this in during Batman: Endgame. While it’s generally assumed he’s just a bleached white mortal madman with green hair, Batman discovers evidence of Joker having existed since the formation of Gotham, implying he’s some kind of immortal Clown Humanoid Abomination à la Pennywise the Clown which would also explain his immunity to death. But this is Joker we’re talking about, a master manipulator who loves messing with his Arch-Enemy in such fashion and like Batman himself happily encourages the idea of him being supernatural to his advantage. Still there’s plenty of cases before then of Joker displaying inhuman traits, like getting stronger from pain while fighting Lex Luthor.
- In Batman: Damned, the Spectre is portrayed as a homeless man in a green hood, preaching about devils and angels in a Fire-and-Brimstone street-preaching manner that has him dismissed by Commissioner Gordon. Much like Etrigan, it is left ambiguous as to whether he is just a normal person or if there is more to him than meets the eye.
- Batman: Urban Legends: The Chaos monsters (who are cultists in masks) occasionally perform feats that make Tim question if they're more than human.
The antagonist of the Blake and Mortimer book The Sarcofagi of the Sixth Continent claims to be the ancient Indian emperor Ashoka the Great, who first "resurrected" while Mortimer was a young adult to help free India from British rule and later during the "present" to torment the 1958 World's Fair. While it turns out that there is some Legacy Immortality at play since the present Ashoka is actually the daughter of the one Mortimer met in his youth, the identity of the latter is never revealed. Also, they never explain his albino monkey guardians that can be summoned via a puff of smoke.
Crossed:
- The titular virus itself is undeniably real, but it's ambiguous whether it is supernatural or merely a disease that science does not understand. In "Thin Red Line" it's shown that the people infected with it experience flashbacks to events in history they have no knowledge of. But even then, it's still unclear if the virus is genuinely supernatural, extraterrestrial, or man-made.
- The "Homo Tortor" arc of Badlands involves an account by an anthropologist describing the titular ancient race of red-skinned human relatives, who ruled an empire in Indonesia and displayed very Crossed-like behaviors, such as extreme sadism and cruelty, but were wiped out by an early appearance from the virus when it proved uncontrollable even for them. At the end of the story, after the account starts taking blatantly supernatural turns, the main character discovers that said anthropologist is currently a Crossed, and may have written the account after having been infected—not to mention, the account's events seem oddly close to the recent escapades of his fellow survivors, which the anthropologist had access to. When he accuses the anthropologist of having written the story on the spot, he receives multiple different answers.
Global Frequency #5, "Big Sky", revolves around the appearance of a spectral, otherworldly being referred to as an 'Angel', which is powerful enough to drive the entire population of an isolated Norwegian coastal town mad. The team eventually discover a mundane explanation involving the burning down of a local church and resonance around local rock formations which caused sensory overload — but then, after they've identified this explanation, one of them floats the possibility that the appearance of a real angel might have similar effects involving similar probabilities.
In Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, it's never entirely clear whether Johnny's house is home to an Eldritch Abomination and a set of demonic dolls, or if he's a schizophrenic psychopath. Word of God seems to support both at once.
Johnny: It's possible I'm quite horrendously insane.
In Kid Colt, Outlaw #39, Colt encounters three bandits pulling a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax by pretending to be the legendary 'Ghost of Midnight Mountain'. During the fight, Colt gets knocked off the edge of the cliff and is holding on to a branch. One of the outlaws tries to drop a rock on his head, but suddenly sees someone that terrifies him and he falls off the cliff. When Colt reached the top of the cliff, he finds the other two paralyzed with terror. Colt rides away, wondering if the legends of Midnight Mountain really are true.
Disney Ducks Comic Universe:
- In The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: The King of the Klondike, the villains have the young Scrooge McDuck chained up in their riverboat. Eventually it seems as though their Evil Gloating angers him so much that he effectively gains Super-Strength and wrecks the whole ship by pulling on his chains and bringing down the smokestacks they're attached to. The narration says that no-one knows what happened that day and that there are some possible mundane explanations. Though originally left ambiguous (and, if anything, looking a whole lot like it really was Super Strength), the question is apparently solved in another story, where Scrooge remarks the ship's boiler happened to explode.
- In The Golden Helmet by Carl Barks, the titular helmet gives its owner the legal claim to all of North America, and anyone who gets their hands on it is immediately driven Drunk with Power. It's ambiguous, however, if this is the helmet's curse, or if it is simply human nature shining through.
The werepanthers of Man Eaters are explained as either real animorphism or global water contamination and mass hypnosis. The finale brushes it all off as a metaphor.
MonsterVerse: Continuing from the entry under the Films — Live-Action folder; in the spin-off graphic novel Kingdom Kong, there are some hints that Captain Burns' visions and night terrors of the Dark Titan Camazotz are not just PTSD from her first encounter with him and that Camazotz really does have Psychic Powers which are influencing her. When Burns is on the brink of despair during Kong's fight against Camazotz, one has to wonder if it's really just her confronting her inner-demons when they emerge on their own or if Camazotz is psychically putting her at a disadvantage. The most eyebrow-rising Maybe Magic is when Burns' friend, who was put in a coma two years ago during her first encounter with Camazotz, just happens to come out of the coma right after Kong has defeated Camazotz for good.
Moon Knight: Is Moon Knight really an avatar of Khonshu, or is it just his general battiness manifesting a split personality that thinks it's Khonshu? Jason Aaron's Avengers arc "The Age of Khonshu" partially answers this: Moon Knight is indeed Khonshu's avatar, but whether all of Moon Knight's previous interactions with Khonshu were with the real thing or not is left unaddressed.
Alan Moore's Providence deals with this trope and hangs a lampshade on it. The approach to Lovecraftian horror in the books is to present it this way to Robert Black, while the reader knows the truth. Robert Black, being an aspiring writer, lampshades the trope by describing it in his commonplace book at the end of Issue 4:
Robert Black: Now, if something supernatural were to actually occur to someone in real life, anyone normal would just run a mile. They wouldn't have the author and reader's interest in unraveling the mystery and getting to the story's end. They'd simply flee. I know I would, and I like to think that I'm a normal person underneath it all. I suppose the only way to handle it realistically is to rely on people's tendency not to believe that anything out of the ordinary is going on, even if evidence is mounting to the contrary.
Puerto Rico Strong: The comic i Dream Of Home is about a woman whose mother would often say she was sent dreams from a traditional Puerto Rican goddess. The woman never believed her mother, but after her mom died she had a dream featuring her mother's spirit. It's left ambiguous whether the dream was a coincidence or whether her mother's spiritual beliefs were real after all.
Punk Rock Jesus reveals towards the end that Rebekah, secretly the protagonist's sister, was given a massive dose of drugs and appeared to be drowned as an infant. The characters of Thomas and Sarah briefly debate if her survival was a scientific anomaly or a religious miracle. The readers are left to decide for themselves.
In Sasmira, it's unclear if the titular character really did temporarily die and saw that there was nothing after death. Bertille theorizes that she might have been in a coma, but no one at the time could tell.
Spider-Man:
- The Amazing Spider-Man (J. Michael Straczynski) introduces a character named Ezekiel who claims that Peter's powers aren't a mutation caused by an irradiated spider bite, but are in fact "totemic" powers carried by the spider which it felt compelled to pass on after being hit by the lethal radiation beam. It was written in a way letting it be totally ambiguous if either this version or his classic origin is the real one, and even suggesting that both might be true to some extent. When Spider-Man asks an ally of Ezekiel which explanation is true, he simply responds that one explanation doesn't necessarily contradict the other.
- When the original Mysterio came Back from the Dead, he appeared to have supernatural abilities, supposedly gained in Hell. Given that he was already a Master of Illusion, it's impossible to be sure how real these powers were, and in the post-One More Day timeline, he's been sticking to his usual special effects fakery, implying that his demonic phase was more special effects. In general, however, Mysterio has often pulled off things that go well beyond any rational explanations — including being able to fool and escape from Doctor Strange who has universal awareness, suggesting Mysterio may actually have great powers… or his smoke and mirrors tricks simply that good.
  Mysterio: They call me Quentin Beck, the one and only Mysterio. Or maybe the real Beck is dead? I wouldn't trust me on this. I lie about everything.
  - The first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) picks this plot thread up again by revealing Mysterio did make a deal with a certain being to get out of Hell, and that said being has grown fed up with Quentin's inability to live up to the deal. It almost drags him back to hell until Mysterio makes one final desperate plea to be given a bit more time.
- The exact nature of Green Goblin, much like his aforementioned Alternate Company Equivalent Joker has been put under question Depending on the Writer. Generally Norman has an explicitly scientific explanation for his superpowers and Split Personality i.e the Goblin formula he discovered in a Freak Lab Accident several comics afterwards however broach the idea that there’s something genuinely supernatural spooky and demonic about the Goblin persona with it talking to Norman like a seperate individual and being able “to take him over”. Not to mention that Norman can come back from certain death in ways that other people who took the Goblin formula couldn’t. The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) truly commits to this supernatural angle by Doing in the Scientist, revealing Norman had made a deal with Mephisto prior to becoming truly acclaimed and the accident that made him the Goblin, however it’s important to note A) Mephisto is an Unreliable Narrator who lies all the time and B) Norman had actually developed the Goblin personality during his childhood, well before he even made this supposed deal. Green Goblin could’ve been brought about by Mephisto’s machinations or he’s really just troubled broken man who found himself down a twisted path and Mephisto is playing off/reveling in that personal darkness to make the currently reformed Norman feel worse about The Soulless state of Harry. There’s also no getting past the fact Norman was pretty evil from the start, so the real ambiguity is whether Mephisto nudged him in the right direction or not.
One pre-Disney Star Wars comic named “Defenders of The Lost Temple” had a clone trooper named "Glitch" (the story was set during the Clone Wars). Throughout the story, there’s a few things that hint at the possibility of Glitch being force-sensitive without actually confirming it directly. Glitch genuinely believed that he was force-sensitive and the story deliberately leaves it up to the reader to decide if he was right or not. His fellow clones think he’s crazy, while others are more keen to believe him. In any case, Glitch was never seen again after that story, so we’ll never know if he could actually use the force or not. He did manage to use a Sith artifact, but those are usually rather inconsistent in whether non-force sensitive can use them.
Spook: The series deals with ghosts and the spirit world but introduced entirely as a result of technology obeying certain scientific rules. It is ambiguous how technology based the spooks actually are or how much is truly supernatural and beyond the control of the CIA.
Superman:
- During Kryptonite Nevermore, Superman confronts a villain who uses an ancient artifact — called the Devil's Harp — to steal powers and abilities. After breaking the Harp, Superman ponders on its nature: Was it a magical device? Or just a piece of forgotten technology? He concludes that he will never know, the story does not tell, and both answers are possible in this setting.
  Superman: I guess we'll never know what this thing was! Magic — or the relic of some forgotten science — or how it took musical talent from Timos Achens and super-powers from me! A pity... such a device could have been a great good!
- The Krypton Chronicles mini-series tells how in ancient Krypton, Jef-El predicted Rao would turn the Sun yellow as a sign of its power. After listening to that story, Superman guesses the sun appeared yellow because that was the time of the Gold Volcano's first eruption which spewed vast quantities of gold dust into the atmosphere; but he adds Jef-El couldn't have known about one mountain suddenly erupting on the opposite and uninhabited side of the planet, so he can't rule out some kind of divine intervention.
  Supergirl: "That's odd... If the Sun turned yellow, why didn't the people gain super-powers, as we do under Earth's Sun?"
  Superman: "Because it was merely an optical illusion! I've learned something about Krypton's geological history— This is the period when the Gold Volcano is believed to have been formed on the opposite side of Krypton, which was then uninhabited... And it spewed vast quantities of gold dust into the atmosphere, thus making the Sun appear yellow..."
  Supergirl: "Then the color-change wasn't a miracle!"
  Superman: "Wasn't it? Even on Krypton, which was rich in gold, that volcano was unique! And Jaf-El did predict the change, though he couldn't have known about the volcano!"
- The Hunt for Reactron: During a flashback, Thara is praying when she suddenly knows that Kara is in danger, and she suddenly knows how she can efficiently use a rare plant to save her friend from a giant predator. In the aftermath, Thara is wondering how she knew what she had to do, and Kara states she does not care whether their god Rao subtly influenced Thara (which, given later revelations, is an actual possibility) or her friend got lucky or whatever. The only thing that matters to her is that Thara saved her life.
  Kara: I don't know if it was voices or Rao or luck, but you saved my life.
- The Day the Cheering Stopped: Although the Sword of Superman seems definitely mystical - a weapon forged in the dawn of Creation which has travelled across the galaxy for eons, waiting for its chosen wielder - the nature of its origin is deliberately kept obscure. Nobody knows whether its creation was by divine design or strange happenstance.
  ...And one piece of primeval matter formed in the Great Creation that through some quirk of blind chance— or some miraculous circumstance...took a shape that one day became not that of an undefined piece of molten sludge... But through the foundry of space and the temperance of time— untouched by living hands— took the form of a sword...and came to be known— through that selfsame quirk or miracle— in millions of languages across the stars as... the Sword of Superman!
Thanos Rising: It's made deliberately vague whether Thanos is insane or not and whether his visions of Death are real. No one except him can see her so others just see him talking to empty air or corpses. According to his father's scanners, there's nothing to prove that someone is really talking to him. However, Death is a Cosmic Entity with powers far beyond any mortal, so that wouldn't really be a surprise. At the end, Thanos ignores her.
Ultimate Marvel:
- The Ultimates
  - The series began with an unclear origin for the powers of Thor. Is he a real God from Asgard, attacked by a rival god with reality-warping powers? Or just a madman with delusions of grandeur, who stole high-tech weapons produced in Europe? In the first two story arcs, both options seemed plausible to the reader. The final answer only came at the end of the second arc: he's the real deal.
  - Was Thor really fighting the Midgard Serpent? Or was it an excuse he just made up?
- Ultimate Galactus Trilogy: Sam is explaining that the captured Heather Douglas is a clone, and she suddenly says "I'm a priestess" inside her cell. Does she have mind reading powers, as mainstream Moondragon? Or are the cells not as soundproof as they should be?
- Ultimate X-Men: Is the "Dark Phoenix" some kind of universal force, or just an aspect of Jean's mental crises? As with Thor, this is initially left ambiguous, and resolved later.
The Usagi Yojimbo story that introduced Jei left it ambiguous as to whether or not he was sent by the gods to cleanse the world of sin as he claims or just a homicidal madman good with a spear; there's no real evidence for the former, but his Monochromatic Eyes and strange speech bubbles imply there's something off. We never get an answer in the original story, as he is fried by a bolt of lightning without a trace left behind...and then the character got popular, returned for other stories, and put himself firmly on the "magic" side.
In the Wonder Woman Vol 1 storyline Judgment In Infinity, the Adjudicator owns a scrying ball which allows him to spy on different dimensions. Is it a magic crystal ball or some alien technological device? The story does not provide answers.

Comic Strips

Calvin and Hobbes:
- Is Hobbes a real person, or (as most people around Calvin think) just a stuffed animal subjected to Calvin's vivid imagination? Careful attention reveals that instead of both being possible, neither is: Calvin could hardly tie himself to a chair, for instance, which Hobbes has done to him (on request).^note The best we're likely to get is the author's comment that "Calvin sees Hobbes one way, and everyone else sees Hobbes another way. I show two versions of reality, and each makes complete sense to the participant who sees it." In the 10th Anniversary Book, he stated that Hobbes is "neither a doll that magically comes to life when Calvin is around, nor a figment of Calvin's imagination."
- This comes up with some of Calvin's other apparent fantasies, too. In one series, he creates several duplicates of himself; no one besides him and Hobbes sees more than one Calvin at a time, but his mother seems a bit perplexed at how she keeps finding Calvin in unexpected places. On the opposite side, there are also fantasies that have very mundane solutions that are pointed out, such as when Calvin imagines a baseball coming to life and chewing up his bat, Calvin's father points out the mundane idea that Calvin had been hitting rocks with it, despite Calvin clearly being scared... Interestingly, these scenarios are often juxtaposed with clear fantasies that even Calvin admits aren't real (such as Spaceman Spiff).
In the otherwise fairly-grounded FoxTrot, one story arc had Paige having a late-night close encounter with something green and glowing that dropped out of the sky, came to a dead stop in front of her, then shot back up into space. Her little brother Jason is convinced she saw a UFO, but Paige herself is pretty sure it was just a comet, and the story arc ends without an answer either way.
Whether or not Garfield's "speech" can be understood by Jon flips around occasionally, running purely on Rule of Funny. Most of the time Jon can't, with some strips explicitly making it clear there's no communication there, some leave it ambiguous like this one, where Jon may be reacting to Garfield's story or just his audible scream, and some have Jon react specifically to what Garfield said.
In Peanuts, does Snoopy's dog house really fly, or is it just his imagination? There's also the question of how it can apparently be Bigger on the Inside, and how he got all the stuff that is supposedly inside it; claims have been made by him and other characters that it contains a television, a pool table, a book collection, and even a Van Gogh (which he replaced with an Andrew Wyeth after the dog house was destroyed in a fire).
Until one particular infamous story (regarded as non-canon by much of the readership), this is how the supernatural was handled in The Phantom (the one who lives in the Skull Cave in the Deep Woods surrounded by the Bandar pygmy poison folk). Any time something supernatural was depicted, there was always an alternative "natural" explanation such as magic tricks, illusions or hallucinations caused by fever or gas.

Fan Works

Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Although this story is a bit more explicit about the Kaiju's intelligence and Reincarnation, it still follows the example of MonsterVerse canon by using this trope several times.
- It's strongly hinted, but deliberately remains ambiguous, that the newborn Manda might be the late Dr. Serizawa reincarnated, and it's confirmed by Mothra's POV that In-Universe, there's reincarnation after death.
- Does the old galdr that Thor recites really have supernatural power that helps him to fight off the Many, or does it merely fuel his willpower by its psychological relevance to him?
The sandstorm's treated this way in-universe in Afterglow (Unfaithful); there are theories that it could be anything from an inexplicable natural phenomenon to the work of aliens to the literal wrath of God. Also, Walker tries to convince himself that his hallucinations are actually ghosts or some other kind of supernatural phenomena.
Angel of the Bat is kind of all over the place. Aliens (e.g. Superman, Supergirl...) definitely exist, magic (via Zatanna) definitely exists, God in some form or another definitely exists (as The Spectre is mentioned) and Deacon Blackfire was indeed immortal, as is his servant and Big Bad The Seraphim. The ambiguous part is whether God is a kind figure, caring for his servants such as Cassandra or if she just imagined God caring for her and overcame her adversities herself. After overcoming her Crisis of Faith she admits everything she believes may just be a beautiful dream, but chooses to believe it isn't.
In Batman: Grudge Match, it is never explicitly confirmed whether or not Bruce Wayne is the reincarnation of Michel Dumas, nor if Selina is Michel's lover Hermione. According to Nyssa, Ra's believed he was, and wanted to make Batman his heir to the League of Assassins for his strength and much as to spit in the face of his rival's legacy.
In Before The Dawn, while many vampires can have unusual abilities, Pythia gets special mention as she may just have a very unconventional ability to see the future or she may 'actually' be communicating with gods.
The Bridge as a whole presents the Godzilla as this. While at first, following the Heisei continuity, it seems the three Godzillas for the three eras of 1954, 1984, and 1995 were all merely dinosaurs mutated by nuclear radiation for a purely science fiction origin. However to the Odo Islanders, Godzilla is a mystical being that is the incarnation of destruction wrought upon the proud. The fact the three past Godzilla are obviously sapient, obviously magical beings like Mothra and ghosts existing, and there is no purely scientific reason for why the dinosaurs turned into kaiju instead of dying or suffering horrid side effects from the radiation do suggest the Odo Islanders might be onto something. On the other hand, the current Godzilla, the grown up "Godzilla Junior" from 1995, has no detectable magic around him when studied by enchanted beings and has a fully biological body. On the other hand, it's shown radiation and magical mana are close enough that beings might share vulnerabilities or immunities to both.
- In the prequel Godzilla: New Era, Hana, an aged Miko from Odo Island, is adamant the current and past Godzilla are incarnations of a primordial kami of destruction; having a debate with G-Force Commander Aso whom favors the scientific explination the giant beast is the result of a freak chance accident. Odo island born scientist, Yuji Shinoda grapples with this ambiguity in a subplot.
  Hana: "To the ancients, lightning or fire represented destruction and so destructive dragons breathed it. Is it any surprise a modern beast of destruction would have the powers of the most destructive thing ^note(a nuclear bomb) we can think of now?"
A Brief History of Histories: Usagi and Luna discuss this after Sailor Moon saves her father, Chairman Tsukino, and he fails to recognize her. Usagi's convinced he did recognize her, but didn't want to acknowledge her because he thought she wasn't brave enough during the fight. Luna reassures her that her transformation includes magic to protect her Secret Identity. However, she's uncertain whether or not that's actually the case.
Hobbes' revised backstory in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series is as ambiguous as can be - Calvin's mom put him in the trap, but she found him laying on their property, looking brand new.
Children of Remnant: Emerald is apparently able to read Neo's facial expressions so well that she learns her nickname from them. It's not clear if it's meant to be Played for Laughs or imply that Emerald has some genuine form of mind reading.
Concerning Us, Janine's encounters with the supernatural. Did John and James really speak to her or was it her damaged brain's attempt to function after the loss of the psychic links? Did she really see something else or was it just an illusion? She even admits her own Unreliable Narrator status, but chooses to believe in it anyway, because the other alternative feels unbearable... which again can be the product of her revived (and certifiably insane) status or just good old human nature.
It's ambiguous whether Destiny (Afterandalasia) consists of the Dying Dreams of various Disney characters or whether they're experiencing their afterlives. It's also ambiguous whether "Destiny" is a real being or just an Anthropomorphic Personification of destiny.
Dragon Ball Z Abridged: Did Nappa really come back to life as a ghost, or was Vegeta just hallucinating? The resurrected Nappa's movie pitch seems to point to the former, but it could just be a coincidence.
In the finale of Evolution II, Cole MacGrath manages to defeat The Beast with the RFI, but goes brain dead as a result. During that time, Cole seemingly meets the spirits of the people he knew in life, key among them being his girlfriend Trish and future self Kessler. Kessler more or less gives Cole instructions on how to resurrect himself by using his electrical powers to jump start his body, which manages to work. After waking up and hearing his story, Cole's friends try to rationalise the situation as Cole's subconscious having figured out what to do and merely used the images of the people Cole knew as an outlet. The story doesn't give a solid answer as to what Cole experienced, but it does seem to lean towards the former theory. Kessler himself Lampshades it.
Kessler: Never gave up for the whole life-after-death-thing. Maybe this is Hell. Or Heaven. Or there is no such thing and everybody who ever died just gets together. Or there is nothing after you die and this here is just your subconscious shutting down.
In the Outlaw Star fanfic A Fistful of Dragonite Aisha's skinchanging ability, if any, is showcased off-screen, and any witnesses killed quickly after seeing it. Whether or not she truly has supernatural powers is left to interpretation. Word of God is that this was set-up deliberately from the start..
Guys Being Dudes: Whatever Spark did to save Arlo from the falling Abandoned Playground isn't explained. Arlo points out that him seemingly demonstrating Super-Strength isn't implausible for someone saving their loved one, but his hair glowing and the pieces of the playground looking like they were struck by lightning don't have as easy of explanations.
In the Heroes of the Storm fanfic Heroes of the Desk it's not quite clear what items in the Strategic Prevention, Extraction, and Ablation Regiment's arsenal are actually Magic by Any Other Name versus simply being too advanced for "outsider" science to comprehend. There are some items which would presumably be more advanced versions of actual concepts, and then there are other 0-10-4s where despite best efforts the best SPEAR can come up with is A Wizard Did It.
Halloween Unspectacular: The train engine in "Iron Horses", from the eight edition. Does it really contain Gazlene's soul, who was barred from entering Heaven and Hell by the curse on her? Or are all of the engine's temperamental issues just a coincidence?
In Know Thyself, it is never elaborates if wizards are particularly powerful redpills and don't even know it, if magic is some kind of psychic power that was unintentionally created by the Matrix - especially since Harry is able to perform it in the Real World - or if it had existed beforehand in mankind's genetics without the machine's knowledge.
The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: Played for Laughs in the timeline in which Danny Phantom is involved with Makoto Kino, aka Sailor Jupiter. He asks how the Sailor Guardians are able to have secret identities when they don't conceal their faces with masks, nor alter their physical appearances like he does. The girls are genuinely curious about this as well. Luna theorizes it's magic while Artemis theorizes humans are just that thick. This is brought up again when Ben Tennyson is able to recognize Ami Mizuno when she's Sailor Mercury while he was transformed as Brainstorm. Either whatever magic protects their identities had no effect on his alien forms or Brainstorm was too smart to fool.
It's kept ambiguous whether the Maude seen in Marge Simpson Anime is a vision in Marge's head, or whether it is actually Maude's spirit.
A Moth to a Flame: It's unknown how The Core was able to turn Marcy from being terrified of it one second to calling it beautiful the next. Whether it's due to dark magic, technology or some mundane brainwashing techniques, it has yet be confirmed how it got Marcy to loosen her moral code and pull a Face–Heel Turn.
One of the biggest plot holes in My Immortal is Draco Malfoy apparently committing suicide, then coming back to life when Voldemort kidnaps him. Did he really come back to life, or was it that his "corpse" was just a dummy?
In My Little Mission: Sneaking is Magic, it's left ambiguous throughout the entire story as to whether Snake really was transported to Equestria or whether the entire thing is an illusion happening in his head. It's implied that Ocelot traveled to Equestria too which would mean that Snake really did go there, but it's never confirmed.
In Chapter 21 of New Horizons, Voldemort claims that Rachel Simmons, Harry Potter's mentor, is not a witch, but a muggle who just happens to know a lot about the magical world. There is evidence to support this claim, such as the fact that Harry has never seen Rachel cast a spell (Rachel taught Harry magic by telling him the instructions). When Harry gets the chance to ask Rachel about this, her answer is that it doesn't really matter.
Personality Swap AU: Izuku is able to perfectly mimic anyone he's told to from speech patterns to instinctive reactions to fighting styles. Initially it's just played as Izuku being an amazing actor and being assigned people he knows rather well (Bakugo, Aizawa, All-Might etc). But later assignments include people he doesn't know very well, such as Snipe, Mirko, and Shigaraki, and he mimics all of them perfectly. Furthermore, while Izuku has been shown getting support gear for some assignments (Hawks' wings for example) and using One For All creatively, there's times where he legitimately appears to use someone else's Quirks, including both Shigaraki's Decay and Best Jeanist's Fiber Master. Finally, Izuku is at times implied to know more than he should. All Might catches Izuku-as-Snipe sharing a story only Sniper and All-Might know and it's implied Izuku knows Hawks is secretly infiltrating the League of Villains. Whether Izuku is just that amazing an actor who does immense amounts of research or whether it's some sort of mimicry Quirk has been left ambiguous. Until the 24th story when Izuku mimics Monoma and somehow copies Bakugo's Explosion Quirk.
When Ember first appears in Phantom of Middleton, the only one at school who's unaffected by her spell (besides Danny and Bonnie, who are wearing Anti-Ghost technology) is Josh Mankey, who claims it's because he's more of a jazz person. However, this claim is called into question with The Reveal that Josh is this fic's version of Valerie Gray, a ghost hunter. So.... was Josh immune to Ember's spell because his Willpower was just that strong, or was it because he secretly had ghost hunting tech on him that prevented him from being controlled?
Loneliness, the first Big Bad of Season 1 of the Pony POV Series could potentially be a supernatural parasite, a Split Personality of Trixie's, a manifestation of Discord's magic, an Eldritch Abomination, Trixie's potential unawakened Nightmare, a Shadow Of Existence attempting to steal Trixie's Light to reconstitute itself, or simply a figment of Trixie's imagination. Support is given for all possibilities and which if any is the actual origin is never explained, either in universe or by Word of God, who intentionally left it ambiguous to make her that much scarier, and she's thoroughly destroyed at the end of the fight with her, so there's no chance for the characters to find out.
In Pro Hero Metal Bat, Izuku is Quirkless, but then he pulls off physical feats that he really shouldn't be able to do, like smacking a fridge across the beach with his bat, or caving a hole under the foot of the Zero Point Robot with just the force of his swing. He eventually developes a Healing Factor.
In A Rabbit Among Wolves, Adam regularly speaks to Jaune in his dreams after the latter kills the former. While Jaune thinks it's just his guilty conscience and imagination, Adam's personality perfectly reflects the real one's and he occasionally hints at knowledge Jaune shouldn't have.
Done masterfully in Reflections. The fate of the dead are left intentionally vague with enough to support either viewpoint.
In Mass Effect's fanfic Resurgence, part 3 of the Parable series, Jane/Shepard often had Silent Hill-esque nightmares that can all be explained as the symbolism of her various fears and regrets from the suicide mission. But in the last dream she had in that part where Jane was chased after by something with unnatural screams and infant-liked wailings, she was saved by two invisible beings whom she described as warm, protective, easy to please, and innocent. When she woke up, she just has been puked out from the Baby Reaper after her husband Garrus killed it and later, they discovered that she's been pregnant, with twins. The author never explain more about it other than the fact that the whole thing was inspired by Silent Hill.
Discussed in Return of the Primarchs when Fulgrim crashes into a planet that remembers his murderous, demonic future version. Seeing that this Fulgrim is heroic, the leader of civilians says that either a miracle happened and past Fulgrim returned, or the man in front of him is a crazy Space Marine who convinced himself that he's the Primarch from Great Crusade times.
Happens in the Our Miss Brooks fan fic The Reunion Assembly, Chapter 13, "Connie Dreams." Connie dreams that the long-deceased Mrs. Davis and Mr. Conklin pay her a visit. All Just a Dream Or Was It a Dream??
Scarlet Lady: After Marinette tells him how hard it was to defeated his akumatized form, Max wonders if it was because he was an akuma or because he wasn't relying on his prewritten codes.
Partly why Metroid II: Return of Samus "Secret Worlds" is so haunting. Is it all an elaborate hoax and the protagonist merely a sucker? Or was Palm really visited by the ghost of Gunpei Yokoi?
Eric the Hedgehog in Sonic X: Dark Chaos. Is he simply an eccentric and lucky Idiot Savant, or is he a Humanoid Abomination with the power of Clap Your Hands If You Believe? Both explanations are implied in the story.
Explicitly how Gnome magic functions in Strike Witches Quest. this is doubly hilarious due to the explicit Magitek and Magic A Is Magic A of witches.
A Thousand Answers: During the Missouri arc, Dio gambles with an ancestor of The D'Arby Brothers, a gambling man with a supernaturally good winning streak. Dio handily beats him in a bet, but feels oddly uncomfortable when his victory becomes clear. Whether D'Arby is a genuinely talented gambler or using an early iteration of his descendants' Stands is never definitely answered.
In Tony Stark and the Cursed Child, Tony holds an intense attraction to Mary Fitzpatrick. When he finds out that she's going to marry Richard Parker because she got pregnant with his kid, he angrily curses the child for ruining his chances at getting with Mary. Over time, he comes to find out that said child, Peter Parker, had a pretty terrible life and a guilty Tony honestly believes he cursed him, while others believe it's just a coincidence.
In Warriors Redux, it's ambiguous if StarClan is real or not and whether seers actually have supernatural powers. The Clan cats believe in their afterlives and believe seers are mystical but, unlike in the original series, there's no concrete proof in either.
Who Watches the Watchmen is a crossover between Castle and Daredevil (2015) with elements of The Sentinel which reveals that Matt Murdock's enhanced senses are actually because he's a Sentinel; his powers would normally never have manifested when he lived in a busy city like New York, but when he lost his sight, his other four senses were triggered to compensate for the loss of such a dominant sense.
One Young Justice fanfic involves Robin suffering an electrical attack that stops his heart. Zatanna tries to use a combination of CPR and her magic to restart his heart, but doesn't have any luck. When she realizes that what she's doing isn't working, Zatanna, in a bout of desperation, instinctively unleashes a powerful outburst of magic into Robin's body, reviving him. The general consensus among the more logical heroes is that the energy from Zatanna's outburst simply restarted Robin's heart and revived him from a clinical death, but some of the magical heroes wonder if, instead of "merely" restarting Robin's heart, Zatanna's powerful magic actually brought him Back from the Dead.

Film — Animation

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad deliberately leaves it ambiguous as to whether or not the Headless Horseman exists, unlike the book, which very strongly hints that the horseman was Brom Bones in disguise. Notably, the Horseman's horse is the same color as that of Brom Bones, and he also carries a sword identical to that Bones previously wielded. However, Ichabod does at one point look down the Horseman's coat and panics, implying that he doesn't see anything and that what he encountered was the real deal –- although since we don't see what he sees inside the coat, he might also have been reacting to seeing a murderous Brom Bones looking up at him, or seeing the top of Brom's head (as Brom has black hair) and mistook it for an empty void. In another scene the Horseman's horse jumps from a hill to another that was quite far from the former, like it was flying. A thing that a normal horse couldn't have done.
In The Bad Guys (2022), the Golden Dolphin, an annual Good Samaritan award, is believed to end the criminal career of any thief that touches it, and the film shows several criminals that had tried and failed. The titular gang's attempt to steal it ends with them getting captured, and they're sent down a path to reform. Even the greatest thief in the world, the Crimson Paw, had not managed to steal it; as revealed later, Diane had managed to get it, but a moment of Heel Realization made her put it back and abandon her criminal life. It's ambiguous if the award is truly cursed or not.
In Famous Fred, Fred appears to be dead like in the book, but then it ends with a ginger and white cat walking away. So either Cats Have Nine Lives or it's a totally different cat.
In Frozen II is Elsa literally hearing her dead mother's voice calling her from the Spirit Forest or is the voice presenting itself as her mother's because it's a voice she knows? Likewise, Kristoff is moved into this territory with his song "Lost In The Woods", which hints that he might be (unknowingly) some form of shaman channeling Sven instead of him pretending to speak for Sven.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney):
- It's ambiguous as to whether or not the gargoyles are sentient and capable of movement. It's possible they're just imaginary friends Quasimodo created to deal with his isolation. In the climax, another gargoyle appears to come alive, scares Frollo, and breaks. While it's possible that this was a supernatural occurrence, the gargoyle may have just broken off from Frollo's weight (especially considering he'd accidentally cracked its base with his sword earlier), and it making a face could be explained as Frollo just seeing things, especially since he wasn't exactly in the best mental health at the time. The sequel, made by different people, apparently reveals they were Real After All, but that last part may have been an unrelated hallucination.
- There also several moments in the film that seem to imply that Notre Dame is actually sentient, such as in the beginning of the movie when many of the statues seem to be staring menacingly at Frollo for trying to kill baby Quasimodo. But then again, one could chalk it up as Frollo hallucinating due to fearing God's divine wrath since he received a "The Reason You Suck" Speech from the Archdeacon for killing Quasimodo's mother on the steps of Notre Dame.
The LEGO Movie has an example that goes beyond the others; late in the film, it's implied that the whole adventure is just real-life human Finn's playing with his dad's Lego sets... but our hero Emmet is fully conscious and — with some difficulty — capable of moving a little while in the "real world".
The Lion King: It's left ambiguous whether or not animals can speak English in-universe. It's also left ambiguous whether or not the "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" sequence (which, unlike the other songs, uses surreal imagery and thus would be magic if it were real) and Mufasa appearing in the clouds are happening in-universe or are just Simba's imagination.
In The Lion King (2019), it's unclear whether Mufasa's voice in the rain clouds is real or whether Simba just thinks he hears his father. The same might apply to the original 1994 film too, even though Mufasa can clearly be seen in that version: Does Simba's reflection in the water really turn into Mufasa's image, or does he just see his own resemblance to his father, and does Mufasa's spirit really appear in the clouds, or is Simba just imagining his father speaking the words of his own conscience? It is confirmed that the animals can't talk to humans, since Nala says "Simba, do you speak Bird?" when she can't understand Zazu.
The ending of Disney's version of Peter Pan leaves it ambiguous whether the adventures in Neverland were real or All Just a Dream of Wendy's. Unlike in the original play and novel, where Wendy and her brothers spend many days in Neverland and come home to find their parents grieving their absence, here the trip lasts just one night, the children are already back home by the time the parents come back from their dinner party, and while they see what looks like the pirate ship sailing in the distant sky, it's purposefully drawn so we can't quite tell if it really is the ship or just a cloud formation. The sequel more or less confirms it to have been Real After All, though.
In The Prince of Egypt, the Egyptian priests' magic is presented this way—they change their staffs into snakes in the middle of a huge Villain Song, with a bright flash that keeps the audience from seeing what actually happens. They also move impossibly far in parts of the song when the screen goes dark for an instant, but that could just be musical convention instead of In-Universe magic, or they could have employed body doubles. They also apparently summon floating glyphs and control flames with gestures during the same number, though again this could be musical convention. Earlier on, their presentation of Tzipporah in tribute to Rameses wouldn't be out of place in a modern magic show, apart from how "the Midian girl" is tied up for real. Them turning water into blood looks more obviously fake, though: they just add some powder that gives it a reddish tint. Of course, the point of the demonstration was to make Moses look like a deceiver. Overall the simplest explanation is that they are pure fakers, but it leaves open the possibility that they have some actual powers as well. This is different from in the actual Biblical book, where the priests are described as court magicians who really were able to match Moses' first two acts.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish:
- Several characters are on a quest to locate the Wishing Star, which is able to grant one wish to anyone for anything they desire. Puss in Boots, Kitty Softpaws, and Goldilocks refuse to tell anyone what they're going to wish for due to "birthday wish rules" (saying your wish out loud prevents it from coming true). All three eventually tell what their wish is going to be, and none of them get to make their wish before the Star is destroyed. Whether "birthday wish rules" were truly in effect, or if this was coincidence, is left ambiguous.
- After Puss sees the wolf and runs for it, he sees the wolf throughout the forest. Puss is suffering from a panic attack, causing him to see the wolf everywhere. Given the reveal that wolf is in fact Death coming for him, it's possible the visions were in fact Death toying with Puss.
Ratatouille: Is Remy really imagining Gusteau so he has someone to talk to when he's alone, or is Gusteau really speaking to him as a spirit? While the movie leans to the former, the fact that Gusteau knows things Remy doesn't and can physically touch him suggest the latter. Interestingly enough, the script doesn't refer to him as a ghost or as a figment of Remy's imagination, only a "sprite". Thus it is up to the viewer what exactly he is.
Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost ends with the reveal that the demon was yet another "Scooby-Doo" Hoax, but also suggests that the real one may still be out there. Velma then attempts to explain away the events of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo as a series of hallucinations. However, there are some holes in her theory and the other characters remain unconvinced. The ambiguity is presumably there to help integrate the craziness of Thirteen Ghosts with the rest of the gang's adventures, with a semi-plausible Hand Wave for those who find it hard to accept that the supernatural stuff actually happened.
The Sea Beast: It is unclear if Gwen Batterbie is an actual witch or a chemist of some sort, since she makes the poison without any apparent magical aid, and has advanced technology at her disposal in an underground laboratory below a small witch-like hut. By all means, she is treated as a witch; the hunters consider any exchange with her as a Deal with the Devil, holding it as a violation of the hunter code, and it's said that great misfortune always occurs after making a deal with her. However, it seems that her powers have never been directly proven in-universe, since Captain Crow writes them off as "superstitions", though she does have some level of magic, if not potion-esque magic, since she temporarily moves his tattoo with a red flash of her eyes without him noticing, and it's unclear if it's because of anything supernatural or if it's Through the Eyes of Madness. While Gwen does warn Captain Crow about the cost of making a deal with her, nothing bad actually befalls him or the crew, and it's unclear if it's because they didn't kill the Red Bluster like planned or if it's really just malarkey. The crew also claims she can see through a red moon, though this is not confirmed.
Tangled: Flynn and Rapunzel argue:
Rapunzel: Something brought you here, Flynn Rider... Call it what you will. Fate, destiny...
Flynn: A horse.
Up: There are some light hints that Ellie's spirit has come to inhabit the house but it's never confirmed one way or the other. Carl talks to her as if she's still alive at various points (though this may be him trying to Cope by Pretending), and Russell even does the same to ask if he can keep Kevin. In the climax, the house's garden hose dislodges, saving Russell and Kevin, while stray balloons catch Muntz and keep him from grabbing the bird along with causing him to fall to his death. Finally, at the end, the house lands exactly where Ellie wanted it to be in Paradise Falls.

Film — Live-Action

In 13 Assassins, one of the characters is stabbed through the throat and has his stomach sliced open. He falls down, seemingly dead. At the end of the movie, he returns, only slightly bloodied, and explains that samurai swords are child's play compared to wrestling bears. In an interview, the director says it's up to the viewer to decide whether he was just a really tough guy, or if something supernatural had happened.
In The Abominable Snowman, while it's pretty much certain that the yeti have a Psychic Link, it's not clear whether the climbing team's Hearing Voices and whatnot is due to psychic meddling or to the fact that they're on a River of Insanity voyage (or both).
Alien makes a strong and intentional case for this with the nature of the Xenomorph and its mysterious origin, before the rest of the franchise goes about Doing In the Wizard and explaining everything. In the 1979 film, it’s apparent the Xenomorph has a phantom-like presence onboard the Nostromo being able to grow in size in a extremely short space of time and indulging in Offscreen Teleportation to increasingly impossible levels. Not mention it has disturbing human-like characteristics with its attack on Lambert being akin to sexual assault and Ash describing it as “Ash’s son” which does not line up with the purely “extraterrestrial predator” side of it. Additionally other Alien media such has Alien: Salvation has also proposed the idea that there’s something genuinely supernatural and demonic about the Xenomorphs, although it could simply be the superstitious human race projecting onto a terrifying species.
The Alphabet Killer: It's unclear if Megan really sees ghosts, or is just schizophrenic as her doctors feel, with these being hallucinations.
Asylum (1972 Horror): Bonnie and Bruno are clearly insane, which makes their stories of the supernatural hard to believe, but no other evidence against them is provided, and Dr. Byron's psychokinetically controlled Living Toys provide proof of the supernatural (or at least Psychic Powers), suggesting that there might actually be undead dismembered body parts and magically animated shop mannequins out there. Interestingly, the story that seems most likely to be a mad delusion — "Lucy Come to Stay" — is the one story with no explicitly supernatural elements.
In Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Vision lifts Mjolnir, a weapon that Only the Chosen May Wield. It's unclear whether this is because Vision is worthy to wield the hammer (magic), or because he's an android and lifting the hammer is purely mechanical action (mundane). Thor believes the first, Tony thinks the second, comparing it to dropping the hammer in an elevator and then having the elevator move. Part of what makes it complicated is that Asgardians have both actual magic with the reliability of technology and advanced technology with the trappings of magic, and don't really bother to differentiate between the two. For what it's worth, Avengers: Endgame confirms that Thor is not the only person worthy of wielding Mjolnir.
Being a psychological horror film, The Babadook leaves a lot open to interpretation. It's more than possible that the Rule of Symbolism is at play here, and that the entire story is allegorical with the Babadook representing the power of grief, resentment and the strain of single parenthood and how the denial of these problems can consume you.
Babysitter Wanted (2008): Is Sam actually the son of the Devil, or just a child with a physical disorder whose parents have raised him to eat human flesh?
Back to the Future Part II: Upon learning Old Biff chose November 12, 1955 to return, Doc wonders if that day has some cosmic significance or it's just a coincidence.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: The mysterious and quasi-supernatural overtones of "The Mortal Remains" could just be a normal stagecoach ride but are implied to be a voyage into the afterlife.
- The visible book text at the beginning states that the Trapper can't remember planning the trip or getting onto the stagecoach, but he knows that it's where he's "supposed to be."
- The Englishman looks a bit like Mephistopheles, with a narrow mustache and Van Dyke. He describes himself and the Scotsman as "reapers" and "harvesters of souls," saying that he never takes in his quarry alive. With the other passengers' complete attention, he states that his job is to distract their quarry. He adds that as a storyteller, he "lives forever." While staring fixedly at the other passengers, he also says that he likes to watch his quarry as they "negotiate the passage."
- The Scotsman sings a song about a man who is about it die, which chokes up the Englishman. He sings this song on every trip.
- The coachmen, who the Englishman says never stops as "policy," never reveals his face, wears black and drives four black horses.
- The Lady says she's meeting her estranged husband, who has been ill. She also mentions Jacob's Ladder. In the end, the Englishman and the Scotsman carry a body up a flight of stairs with a white light emanating above it.
- The passengers are all reluctant to exit the stagecoach. After the Trapper and the Lady enter the hotel, the camera lingers on the Frenchman, who hesitates. When he goes into the hotel, the Trapper and the Lady have vanished.
- The ambiance is very supernatural, with green fog and lightning. Fort Morgan looks eerie and foreboding.
- In the book page visible at the end, the narrator states that the Trapper has nothing left to say and prepares for a "long quiet."
Selina Kyle's 'powers' in Batman Returns. The supernatural would definitely explain how a mousy assistant could gain the ability to actually hold her own against Batman and survive fatal falls and several gunshots. Then again maybe her brush with near-death simply pushed her over the edge and turned her into a combination of the Determinator and The Unfettered, making her run on sheer willpower.
Bedtime Stories (2008): It's never clear whether the kids control what happens to the main character, or it's just a series of bizarre coincidences and self-fulfilling prophecies.
Below: Were the strange apparitions the result of high CO2 levels or vengeful spirits? On the one hand they clearly weren't Dead All Along, on the other something other than guilt brought them back to the site of the hospital ship they accidentally torpedoed and deliberately covered up...
Benedetta: It's strongly implied that Benedetta may be a fraud with her stigmata due to self-inflicted wounds, knowing or not. She insists however that any wounds inflicted were done while in a trance and the method Jesus used for providing them, with the truth left uncertain.
In Big Fish, most of the things Edward Bloom says in his stories turn out to be exaggerations based on things that actually happened (for example, Karl was indeed a giant, but not nearly as big as Will imagined him). However, we never learn whether seeing his own death in the witch's eye was real or not, as we never hear him say what happens.
- Big Fish is an interesting case as it intentionally plays with this trope a bit. The stories in the beginning of the film are rather outlandish, but the further into Edward's life they are the more down-to-earth and less magical things get until his final stories are more likely. This is supported with Jenny's version of Edward's second arrival in Specter, where she also seems to remember Karl as rather more giant than he actually is, though it does keep the magical element of the giant flood where Edward sees a mermaid.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) ultimately leaves it ambiguous as to whether Riggan's telekinetic powers were real, although some parts heavily imply that he was imagining them, or at the very least exaggerating them.
Black Death ends like this, with the witch taunting the protagonist that her "black magic" was really tricks and misdirection she used to control the villagers. This is particularly stinging because the protagonist had earlier killed his love interest after she had been "raised from the dead" as a mindless abomination... the witch implies she was merely heavily drugged and was never dead in the first place. It's left ambiguous as to whether this is the truth, or if the witch was simply lying to the protagonist to get him to lose his faith in God.
Blind Chance has no real explanation of WHY Witek lives through the story three times — if he really does. The events simply restart on their own accord, each time with minor changes at the train station, which are also left unexplained. There is also his wife sensing something wrong about the flight and asking him not to go.
The Book of Eli centers around Eli, a lone drifter carrying a King James Bible west after a nuclear war destroyed civilization and just about every Bible was burned. He believes he's on a Mission from God to deliver the Bible somewhere west and has divine protection. Solara is skeptical, but Eli escapes injury for most of the film; Redridge is visibly surprised when he shoots at Eli at close range and misses. When Eli gets shot in the gut, he manages to pick himself up and keep walking, even though Carnegie's far milder wound to the leg was realistically debilitating. But once Eli recites the Bible to the scribes at Alcatraz, fulfilling his mission, he passes away peacefully. And the final revelation that Eli is blind and the Bible is in Braille adds one more wrinkle to everything.
Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice puts the supernatural stuff in the series in question by revealing that the current setting, along with the previous one, has been exposed to contaminated corn that causes hallucinations for years.
Cloud Atlas: Two examples in Zachry's story, the only one to feature any fantastical/supernatural elements:
- When Zachry meets the demonic Old Georgie, is it a supernatural encounter, or a common-or-garden hallucination? The film never explains or comments on it either way.
- The Abbess has a trance and makes three statements, all of which come to pass. Were they actual prophecy, or merely open-ended enough that Zachry would eventually be able to apply them to something, given enough time?
In Curse of the Crimson Altar, just before Morley perishes falling through the roof of the burning Craxted Lodge, an image of Lavinia Morley appears laughing above him. It vanishes as he falls, leaving the three characters who saw it wondering if it was real.
Daredreamer implies, but never confirms, that the daydream worlds are 'real' to some extent given how vivid they are and how Winston and Jennie can not only interact in them, but change the dream.
Dark Age centers around the hunt for a massive, man-eating saltwater crocodile worshipped by a local Aboriginal tribe. However, it's hinted that the crocodile may genuinely be a mystical being. The tribe's leader claims that the crocodile only kills the dying - such as a child with a fatal medical condition - and the evil - such as the Evil Poachers and thugs it kills. Notably, the crocodile avoids killing any of the protagonists despite having multiple opportunities to and shows remarkable cunning in avoiding traps at several points.
In The Dark Knight Rises, Ra's Al Ghul drops in to have a chat with Bruce, despite having died at the end of Batman Begins, giving no explanation beyond "there are many forms of immortality". It could easily be a hallucination, given the shape Bruce is in when it happens and the way Ra's seems to just fade away when he leaves. But at the same time, Bruce gets relevant information from the conversation that he didn't know, even if said information later turns out to be Metaphorically True (Ra's says that his child is the Big Bad, which is accurate, but does not bother to correct Bruce when he assumes Bane is said child). So is Ra's truly immortal in some way and visiting Bruce to twist the knife, or is Bruce just piecing together information on his own via a delirious vision?
In Dark Mirror, has the ghost of Eleanor been possessing Deborah to kill these people, or is Deborah just going crazy? The disappearing bodies and the blood trail ending at the wall is suggestive, but not conclusive.
In The Devil's Candy, it is fairly ambiguous whether Satan is actually speaking to Ray, or if he's just Ax-Crazy.
Les Diaboliques ends with a kid claiming to have talked to Christina, who died of a heart attack. The boy has a reputation of being a liar, so is he lying now? He did say the truth about seeing Michel, so did he actually see a ghost? Or did Christina survive her attack, just like Michel faked his death earlier?
In Don't Go in the House the Villain Protagonist hears voices that we assume are just auditory hallucinations, though as he's dying they call him a failure and say they'll find someone else. Before the credits role, another abused little boy is shown hearing similar voices.
Dracula's Daughter, despite being advertised as a sequel to the famous Bela Lugosi Dracula film, remains maddeningly vague on whether the title character actually is Dracula's daughter. She's never seen doing anything overtly supernatural like Dracula in the first film, and ultimately dies from a stake in the heart, something equally lethal to both humans and vampires.
- This is also true of Vampire's Kiss and the early George Romero movie Martin.
In the 2006 film End of the Line, the demons never actually harm or physically interact with anyone on-screen, the word "ergot" is mentioned once without context, and all the main characters who see any demons wolfed down an abandoned platter of muffins earlier in the film. Hmm.
In Eve's Bayou, the main character uses voodoo to try and kill her father for hurting her sister. He does die at the end, as a direct result of Eve's actions, but it is never explained whether or not the voodoo had a hand in what happened.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose: Was she possessed or insane? Only in the movie, however. The case it was based on is much less ambiguous, and far more depressing.
The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow has as its subject a Spooky Photograph of a Secret Circle of Secrets, as observed by an Occult Detective looking for evidence. Over the course of the film, it's left rather ambiguous as to whether the elements of the photo that visibly change or manifest detail beyond what the eye could see are symbolic of the investigator's gradual epiphany as they tie events together and notice new details, a Glamour Failure on the part of the paranormal cultists, indicators of a potentially lethal Portal Picture, or some combination of all three.
In A Field in England, it's never entirely clear which events are real, which are magic mushroom induced hallucinations, and which might be entirely supernatural.
At the end of Fresh Meat, Gigi and Rina kiss, and as they observe the ruins of the house, a charred hand reaches up and grabs Gigi's arm, leaving it unknown whether Hemi merely survived or is truly immortal.
Friday the 13th leaves it ambiguous as to how exactly Jason Voorhees survived drowning in Crystal Lake as a child. While Part 2 simply presents it as a case of Never Found the Body, Jason Lives presents the theory that Jason did indeed drown in the lake and has always been some sort of supernatural entity.
In the horror anthology, German Angst, the film "Make A Wish" has a talisman that is said to be magic, but probably isn't.
In the Don Knotts classic The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, the invisible piano player who haunts the mansion is later revealed to be a parlor trick by the Gardener, who is organizing a plan to unveil the murderer who killed the house's owners — their son. However, certain other things in the house are more difficult to explain, such as the front door, and at the very end, when the protagonist and his love interest are being wed, someone starts to play the piano to the tune of the ghostly theme — someone who isn't there...
Ghostbusters (1984): One brief scene involves Ray apparently having sex with a ghost, but it's left unclear as to whether she was a real ghost (definitely a possibility since ghosts explicitly exist in this movie) or if he was having an Erotic Dream.
In Ghostkeeper, it's somewhat unclear if there really is a wendigo present or if it's just a madman. Likewise, it's unknown if there really are supernatural forces present or if the events shown are the result of mad delusions on the protagonists' part.
Rational explanations are presented for all of the events of The Ghoul. It is up to the viewer to decide which version they believe.
Goldstone: It is unclear if the two appearances of Jimmy's 'ghost' were supernatural or not. The two witnesses both had good reason to hallucinate the vision, with Jay being drunk and Tommy suffering from a guilty conscience.
Cassandra Nightingale in Hallmark Hall of Fame's The Good Witch and its sequels. Usually, it's made clear that her "magic" is really Granny Weatherwax-style "headology" ...but each film has at least one or two little moments (e.g., brooms appearing just when she needs to sweep up, doors opening of their own accord, plants in her garden seeming to shift to trip up trespassers, Cassie being able to greet someone by name before seeing them, Cassie being able to detect someone in pain while being on the other side of the house, etc.) that hint that she could have real powers.
Halloween (1978) makes it ambiguous whether Michael Myers is just a really tough serial killer or whether he is, in fact, an indestructible Boogeyman. The film allows for either interpretation, though the last scene leans towards the latter. Some of the sequels avert this by making Michael an explicitly supernatural entity, though this becomes Canon Discontinuity anyway... before flirting with the idea again in the 2018 reboot films (or at least with the idea that Michael has a supernatural influence over Haddonfield).
Lillith of Hansel and Gretel claims to be hundreds of years old, and repeatedly makes characters hallucinate. However, there's no real proof to her claim of longevity other than a few photographs she claims depict her, and all of her tricks seem to be done via drugs. The sequel, Hansel vs. Gretel, makes the magic unambiguously real.
Hereditary makes it ambiguous for most of its runtime whether the supernatural events occurring are actually happening or if the Leigh family has been suffering from hereditary mental illness that only Steve, the father who married into it, can recognize. While Steve is the most grounded and untrusting of what happens, nobody is ultimately able to trust whether what's happening is real. Unfortunately, it turns out to be completely real.
The Hobbit: The Arkenstone, the chiefest item amongst the regalia of the Kings Under the Mountain, and the recovery of which is one of the Company's main goals. It's clearly more than just a precious stone, but it's not clear whether it's actually magical, magic being exceptionally rare in Middle-Earth. Also, in the books, the Arkenstone was cut and shaped by the Dwarves to enhance its own "inner light," but the stone in the movie is clearly uncut, only polished, meaning that whatever illuminates from within is probably stronger in the movies than in the books.
Home Alone: After Kevin wishes his family would all disappear, there's a series of coincidences that knock out the power to the house causing his family to rush out the door without him. The almost Rube Goldbergian sequence of events accompanied by whimsical music and a shot of a very angry-looking Santa decoration hints this could be some kind of Christmas magic at play.
Hot Tub Time Machine repeatedly draws attention to this trope and straddles a strange line between playing it straight and parodying it in the character of the Hot Tub repair man, who may just be a cloudcuckoolander repair man, or may be some sort of Time Police setting the time travelers on their way. Jacob even lampshades it, by noting that the repairman's words perfectly support either theory, and asks if it would kill the repairman to just give him a straight answer.
Found Footage film The Houses October Built has the protagonists encounter haunted house characters outside of their "haunts", still in character and miles away from where they should be- the ending implies that it's just sophisticated stalking meant to mess with them, but that doesn't explain how the performer "Porcelain" is somehow able to scream so loud she shorts out the camera. Adding to this, unlike the other haunters, Porcelain never breaks character or is seen out of costume, suggesting she's either Lost in Character or actually is the life-sized, living Creepy Doll she appears to be.
I, Robot: Sentient robot Sonny has a constantly recurring "dream" of sorts, in which he sees a man on a hill in front of a crowd of robots, there to free them from slavery. Since robots can't have dreams, Spooner infers that Dr. Lanning programmed a video into Sonny as a clue prior to his murder. This assumption is seemingly proven correct, but then during the epilogue, Spooner directs Sonny to the hill in his "dream"; when Sonny gets there, he finds himself looking down on the exiled NS-5 robots, in exactly the same way as the man in his dream. A coincidence? Or something more?
The opening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Shiva sent you! Indiana attempts to convince them that it really was a string of wild coincidences that brought him there, alive, despite many, many things that could have killed him if they had shifted by a hair's breadth. Oddly enough, they continue to find the divine intervention plausible. (Later events are clearly supernatural; it's only Indiana's presence that is ambiguous.)
It's possible "La Femme" from Inside (2007) is some kind of ghost.
The titular highway of Interstate 60. When Neal asks how he can be driving down a highway that doesn't exist, he's literally offered several possibilities.
Grant: Maybe it's another dimension, maybe you're in a coma, maybe you're hallucinating, or maybe, just maybe, you're dead.
Neal: So, which is it?
Grant: What do you want from me, kid? I just gave you a bunch of answers, all of them reasonable. You want an answer? Pick one!
It Comes at Night: There might be some kind of monster or malevolent spirit in the woods stalking the characters, or they might just be imagining things because of the stress. Something fatally wounds Stanley after he runs into the forest and both of the kids draw pictures of menacing, faceless beings standing amongst the trees after having weird dreams, amongst other weird incidents. But there are plausible alternate explanations for all the strange events, and the movie never gives a solid answer. Also, the nature of the plague the characters are hiding from is never really explained, leaving one to wonder if it’s connected somehow.
The James Bond film Live and Let Die leaves a lot of speculation about the true nature of Mr. Big's henchman Baron Samedi. He is presumably killed late in the film when Bond throws him into a coffin full of snakes, but the last shot of the film shows Samedi sitting on the front of a train, suggesting that Bond may have encounted the real Baron Samedi after all.
Fantastically done in K-PAX, where the film never truly answers the question of whether the main character, prot, is an alien or just a very convincing delusional man named Robert Porter who suffered a psychotic break after his family's murder. The audience is left to wonder, and the possible consequences of either answer end up surprisingly heartwarming. Though the fact that he can apparently see infrared light makes the delusion pretty convincing.
Kundun takes this stance towards Buddhist beliefs about reincarnation. It's never made clear if the Dalai Lama reincarnates into a young boy, or a young boy seems to be just the right kind of candidate who could be raised to become the Dalai Lama. Or if there was nothing special about this boy in particular, but his upbringing by the monks was good enough for him to become the Dalai Lama. The film's final lines hangs a lampshade:
Indian Soldier: May I ask, are you the Lord Buddha?
The Dalai Lama: I think that I am a reflection, like the moon on water. When you see me, and I try to be a good man, you see yourself.
The Lighthouse is an entirely different movie depending on where you think it falls on this scale. Is it a realistic Period Piece in which two lighthouse keepers go mad and suffer hallucinations after being marooned by a freak storm? Or is it a Cosmic Horror Story in which two lighthouse keepers are cursed by the sea gods in retaliation for breaking maritime tradition, being plagued by supernatural occurrences on haunted island? Some viewers Take a Third Option and explain the events of the film as an allegory for Purgatory, or the last guilt-induced Dying Dream of Thomas Howard as he lies lost and dying from hypothermia in the Canadian wilderness, as Wake suggests near the end... or maybe that's just bullshit, like a lot of what Wake possibly says.
In George A. Romero's Living Dead Series, characters try to guess what the origin of the zombies is. A scientist on TV in Night of the Living Dead (1968) pins it on a radioactive space probe, and Peter in Dawn of the Dead (1978) gives an explanation rooted in Macumba claiming that it was because there was no more room in Hell. The films themselves, however, never give a definitive explanation one way or the other. This is one of the few things that the 2004 remake of Dawn kept from the original, though Ken Foree (who played Peter in the original) does make a cameo to repeat his "no more room in Hell" line, this time in the context of a televangelist claiming that God sent the zombie plague to punish a wicked society. On the other hand, the spinoff/sequel The Return of the Living Dead (which Romero wasn't involved with) does give the zombies a definitive origin, stating that they were created by exposure to a chemical called 2-4-5 Trioxin.
The Lone Ranger (2013):
- The Lone Ranger somehow survives the attack on his team. The horse tells Tonto that the Ranger died and came back to life. Tonto tries to convince the 'spirit horse' to bring his brother back instead.
- Tonto also believes Cavendish isn't an ordinary criminal, but a Wendigo. This is the explanation for why the Lone Ranger uses silver bullets. Cavendish being a cannibal doesn't help things...
- The Lone Ranger not only gets a psychic vision from picking up a piece of Cavendish's silver, but despite not having fired a gun in eight years prior to his "death", he manages to repeatedly pull off ridiculous trick shots. He finally just goes with it.
  The Lone Ranger: "Spirit-walker." ...I can do this. (Shoots gun out of Cole's hand with his last bullet - saving Tonto with the bullet Tonto forged to kill the "Wendigo".)
- And that crazy, crazy horse.
- This also falls under Unreliable Narrator thanks to the framing device of Tonto telling the story.
Long Weekend: It is up for debate whether supernatural forces at Lunda Beach are responsible for the (ultimately fatal) adversities that Peter and Marcia are subjected to, or if a set of eerie coincidences simply converge with their poor judgment to make them meet an untimely end. Similarly, it is somewhat unclear whether the events toward the end of the film (such as the moving dugong corpse) are the product of their mad delusions or not, though the abandoned campsite and drowned woman they find would suggest that something really is amiss in the area.
In The Lost King Phillippa Langely starts seeing the ghost of Richard III as she hunts for the site of his burial. The ghost can't give her any information she doesn't already have, so he could just be a projection of her own desire to find him. But then again, the ghost encourages her to the exact spot where Richard's remains lie, underneath a painted letter R, in a car park.
In Lovely Molly, is Molly possessed or just going crazy? Only at the very beginning and the very ending of the film does anyone but her seem to perceive what is happening.
Lycan: The legend implies werewolves really exist, and wolves are seen or heard often in the film around when people get killed. At the end, they appear in the company of the killers. However, it's also not shown that they are werewolves, but at least implied that something mystical may be involved even so.
In Mad Max: Fury Road, Max's flashbacks to Glory the Child seem like simple traumatised hallucinations, but the one that inspires him to suggest that Furiosa and the wives take the Citadel contains a split-second precognitive vision that ultimately saves his life when it triggers an instinctive reaction to slap his hand over his face, blocking a fatal headshot. Overall, he receives painful and distracting visions admonishing him to "stop running" when he's fleeing but helpful ones when he decides to help people, further suggesting a benevolent force guiding him to reconnect with his fellow humans.
Master: It's left ambiguous if Jasmine was killed by some supernatural force, or if Liv killed her (and caused the other hate crimes, such as the carvings on her door).
In A Matter of Life and Death: did Peter Carter's head injuries cause his visions? Or are the angels really discussing the proper thing to do with him?
The Men Who Stare at Goats: The film never answers if there are real psychic powers or not. The main character does run through a wall at the end. However, a second after he's shown doing so, a picture frame falls off the wall, implying that he may have actually slammed into it but imagined himself going through. Like every other "paranormal" incident in the movie, it's up to the viewer to decide.
Mermaid: It's left ambiguous whether Alice actually causes things to happen by wishing for them.
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc: The film suggests the possibility Jeanne didn't really see signs from God, but is just a mentally ill girl who saw what she wanted. On the other hand, some things here (such as somehow picking out Charles from a room full of nobles) don't get explained.
Metallica: Through The Never is primarily a Concert Film, but it incorporates a b-story about a Metallica roadie, Trip, being sent off by their manager to retrieve something important to the band. Shortly before he takes off in his van, Trip swallows a mysterious blue and red capsule, so some of the more unlikely or paranormal-seeming portions of his journey could simply be drug-induced hallucinations. However, whatever really happened at the climax of his subplot, it apparently really did send a shockwave across the city - right at that same time, lighting trusses fall down at the Metallica concert, power goes out at the venue, and the band have to continue the show on a backup generator, and without pyrotechnics and lighting effects.
Discussed in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Jim Williams consults a voudoun priestess for aid in his upcoming trial for killing his lover Billy Hanson (he claims a Crime of Self-Defense), asking her to both sabotage the prosecution and stop Billy's spirit from causing him trouble. For the latter, Minerva advises him to beg Billy's forgiveness every day. Jim comments to the viewpoint character, Intrepid Reporter John Kelso, in the car afterwards that "I don't believe in the hocus-pocus of it, but the spiritual force behind it." However, he flatly refuses to beg Billy's forgiveness. He dies of a Hollywood Heart Attack in the office where he shot Billy after his acquittal, and briefly sees Billy lying across the carpet from him as he goes.
In Miracle on 34th Street, the old guy who claims to be Santa Claus never does anything unambiguously supernatural. Even his piece de resistance, finding exactly the thing Susan wants for Christmas even though nobody was sure it existed, might just be a stroke of good luck.
Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears: While Phryne seems to believe in the curse upon the crypt, the far more down to earth Jack is skeptical. None of the events that happen are strictly supernatural, and rational explanations could be found for all of them, with only the timing being hard to explain.
In Mohawk, it is not clear if Oak's recovery from being shot in the chest at close range is simply her being Made of Iron, or something more mystic. Certainly afterwards Allsopp thinks she is some kind of forest demon, and many of her scenes—especially her final showdown with Holt—have a strange, dreamlike quality.
Done ineffectually by the infamous finale of the B-Movie Monster a-Go Go. After about an hour of the monster killing people and scientists trying to figure out what's going on, the cops and military are finally chasing the monster down and seem to have it cornered in the sewers. And than suddenly the monster is gone. No, it doesn't die, it just inexplicably disappears, and the astronaut who became the monster at the start of the movie is found safe and unharmed. The following absurd narration is the only explanation given:
"As if a switch had been turned, as if an eye had been blinked, as if some phantom force in the universe had made a move eons beyond our comprehension, suddenly, there was no trail! There was no giant, no monster, no thing called "Douglas" to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage, who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness! With the telegram, one cloud lifts, and another descends. Astronaut Frank Douglas, rescued, alive, well, and of normal size, some 8,000 miles away in a lifeboat, with no memory of where he has been, or how he was separated from his capsule! Then who, or what, has landed here? Is it here yet? Or has the cosmic switch been pulled? Case in point: The line between science fiction and science fact is microscopically thin! You have witnessed the line being shaved even thinner! But is the menace with us? Or is the monster gone?"
MonsterVerse: Despite the much more realistic and grounded tone of the MonsterVerse, there are a number of elements that seem to toe the line between science and supernatural.
- Skull Island has bizarre Planimal wildlife, strange atmospheric anomalies like auroras and a surrounding Perpetual Storm, and natives that Marlow comments don't seem to age. Randa even refers to it as "the land where God did not finish creation."
- As the setting is slightly more grounded than its Japanese basis, Mothra, who was previously always an unambiguously divine being with psychic powers, is instead only implied to have a telepathic connection to the two Chen sisters, who are this continuity's incarnation of Mothra's Shobijin priestesses, and who themselves fall under this trope, as we see a photo showing that their mother and grandmother, who studied Mothra as well, also had identical sisters. The director confirmed that this incarnation of Mothra has Born-Again Immortality and memories are genetically passed down between reincarnations, but that still leaves some room for conjecture whether she truly has a supernatural nature or is entirely a biologically and genetically advanced lifeform.
- See the Comic Books folder for another example.
The Northman:
- Amleth seemingly duels an undead warrior for possession of his sword, but the camera then pans back to show Amleth picking the sword up from the hands of the warrior's corpse.
- The scene where ravens peck at the bloody ropes binding Amleth and free him from captivity could also be interpreted as being Aurvandill or Odin's supernatural influence, a strange coincidence, or Olga returning to free him.
- That said, Amleth also encounters visions which allow him to view his family tree and prophesize his destiny. He and Olga both receive the same vision showing that she is pregnant with two children and their daughter will become the Maiden King the Seerus speaks of.
Depending on how you interpret the eye protecting "true magic" in Now You See Me.
Nymphomaniac: Joe is possessed by The Whore Of Babylon (but maybe it was only an epileptic seizure after all). She later grows to lead a gang to fight against Love, because love only leads to jealousy... (or maybe this gang was an actual Satanic Cult after all). Having personally encountered demonic forces and been deeply involved with them, Joe has grown into an atheist who do not believe that the supernatural exist... but does this make her a Flat-Earth Atheist or someone who has Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions by acknowledging her own mental illness?
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
- The film has several moments that seem to imply Sheriff Cooley is the Devil, as he seems to match Tommy's description of the fallen angel (if you believe that his sunglasses count as the Devil's "big empty eyes"), as well as having a lot of fire symbolism.
- The flood happening at the exact same time the main characters are about to be hanged. Both the characters and the audience knew it was going to happen since Everett told his cellmates about it, but was it just a coincidence that it happened at that specific time and unintentionally saved them from death, or did God command it to happen because he took pity on them and answered their prayers.
The Omen:
- To both Mr and Mrs Thorne: are supernatural things happening, or not? Is their son Damien evil? It’s even addressed in the film, when Mrs Thorne’s shrink discusses her beliefs with Mr Thorne.
Pan's Labyrinth has two different interpretations, depending on whether the fairy world is real, or created by Ofelia's imagination. Guillermo del Toro says that he deliberately leaves at least one thing in his movies that can only be explained through supernatural means. In Pan's Labyrinth, it's Ofelia using the magic chalk to get in the Captain's room and retrieve her brother. In The Devil's Backbone, it's the teacher's ghost freeing the children from the room they have been locked in.
Pilgrimage: Does the religious relic actually have divine power? In one scene, the lost protagonists hold it out and start hearing bell chimes, which factor into the myths surrounding it. They follow the sound to a boatman who is ringing a bell and negotiate passage with him. Maybe the relic led them there, and maybe it was just luck.
In Prehistoric Women, it is not clear if the white rhino the tribe worships is actually a god, or merely an unusually large rhino.
The Princess Bride: Inigo and Fezzik are looking for someone with no time to lose. Inigo invokes his father's spirit and attempts to use his Cool Sword like a dowsing rod. He runs into a tree, but the knot he accidentally prodded is the switch that opens the secret entrance leading to precisely who they're searching for.
- Also to a certain extent, Miracle Max. While he does a few things that seem to stretch the boundaries of realism (gets a brief “message” from the apparently dead Westley by pushing against his chest, gives Inigo a pill that successfully revives him), he doesn’t do anything clearly supernatural.
Father Jonas in Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil is either psychotic or possessed (or something).
Pulp Fiction:
- Vincent and Jules being miraculously saved from several gunshots at point-blank range. Jules is convinced it's a miracle, while Vincent recounts hearing a similar story. The gunman could've just been a bad shot, but Jules notes that there are bullet holes in the wall behind him and Vincent; by all rights at least one of them should've been grazed if nothing else.
  Marvin: Man, I don't even have an opinion.
- The contents of Marcellus Wallace's briefcase. We never see what it is, but it emits a yellow light and inspires awe in whoever sees it. The yellow glow could just be for dramatic effect, and it could just be a bunch of gold or something, but it's ultimately left up to the viewer. Tarantino said that the answer is "anything you want it to be".
Ready or Not (2019): Le Bail, the Le Domas family's demonic patron, is invisible and while the older members of the cult fear him the younger members (especially those who married in) doubt his existence. And yet, there are a number of contrived coincidences whenever the Le Domas try to break from traditions or Grace attempts to leave. And then the ending shows he is very, very real when he punishes the Le Domas failure with a gory death for the entire family and a tip of his glass to Grace for besting them.
Real Steel leaves it up in the air if the robot Atom has a level of sentience, or is merely acting on its Shadow Function (that makes it mimic what it sees). The commentary explains that there would have been a scene showing that it was indeed sentient, but it was later cut out to leave the question up in the air.
- Although it's more science than magic, the champion robot Zeus is implied to be an actual artificial intelligence; his creator explains that Zeus's fighting skills are constantly evolving and improving with experience, and he notably cuts off a reporter before they can ask him if the robot is a true AI. When he passes by Max in the same scene, Zeus gives him a slight nod, which is a very human expression from a machine.
Rhymes for Young Ghouls: It's never made clear if Alia is really speaking to her mother's spirit, or she's just imagining it. Especially since she also has visions of the dead rising as zombies (her mother included), that were either dreams or hallucinations rather than real.
Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt never does establish if Romasanta is a werewolf; thinks he's a werewolf; or is just applying Obfuscating Insanity to escape execution.
In The Room (2019), The Room has a complex system of wiring and runs on electricity that often causes brief blackouts when operating, but has the power to not only conjure any object upon request but can also create life and entire landscapes. Blueprints to the Room are briefly seen but are unreadable.
At the end of Salvation Boulevard, Carl is walking away from Pastor Dan's stabbed body when a bolt of lightning strikes right behind him and he reveals that it severed the handcuffs behind his back without harming him.
Sam Was Here: In the movie, a travelling salesman named Sam is mistaken for a child murderer and the town wants to kill him. As the movie gets progressively stranger, it's left in the air whether this is a misunderstanding stoked by a sensationalist radio DJ and a town eager for vigilante justice, or if Sam actually is the child killer and died 5 years prior to the story, and the town is his hell where he is to be punished for it, with the radio DJ being a stand in for the Devil.
This is the whole point of A Serious Man, which is extremely stubborn when it comes to answering Larry's questions (and ours) as to whether the hand of God is at work in his life, or if there is a purely mundane explanation for everything (as he wants to think).
It is left ambiguous at the end of The Shadow of Chikara as to whether there really is a guardian spirit of the mountain or if Drusilla is insane just believes she is Chikara.
Wonderfully played in the climactic final confrontation between Holmes and Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes (2009) starring Robert Downey Jr., where after dissecting every one of Blackwood's "magic tricks" as fakery, he comments that if Blackwood actually believed in his own sorcerous rites and the dark things he'd invoked, then he'd know what waited for him after death. Cue Blackwood accidentally falling to a hanging death, just as a crow flies past.
In The Shining film adaptation, it is unclear whether The Overlook Hotel is haunted or not. Stanley Kubrick wanted to suggest that all the events of the story could be just a family going insane from cabin fever. Jack's unstable nature and his resentment of his family are played up from the beginning, making it possible that he decided to kill his family all on his own and the ghosts are merely reflections of his subconscious desires. Most of the explanations for the supernatural stuff are excised, leaving it possible that Wendy and Danny were also hallucinating their encounters with ghosts. The film never actually shows Grady unlocking the storeroom door, so Jack might have just found a safety lock to open it from the inside. There are still elements that can only be explained supernaturally, such as Danny using his clairvoyance to warn Halloran and a ghost later telling Jack about this, or Jack appearing in a framed photograph in the Overlook lobby dating back to 1921. Notably, this is one of the reasons Stephen King disliked the movie, as in his original book the ghosts are very much real. The sequel goes with the ghosts being real.
- However, it should also be noted that Kubrick was on record as saying that the scene of Grady letting Jack out of the storeroom was intended to be the definitive proof that the ghosts were real. However, as noted, it's still rather vague in its execution.
The Shout: There is no way of telling if the lightning strike that kills the chief medical officer at the end of the film is a result of Crossley's supposed magical powers, or merely a natural phenomenon that appears to magical because of the story Graves has been listening to.
The Skeptic has Beckett seeing his mother's ghost throughout the film while staying in his aunt's house. He has severe repressed memories from when he was five and suffers from insomnia. He may be hallucinating his mother's ghost or she may exist. He's the only person who ever sees her, but the psychic is able to come up with a surprising amount of detail.
Many a Slasher Movie will ask whether a character murdered, accidentally or otherwise, at the start of the show has come back for revenge à la The Crow, or if it's just someone imitating (or avenging) them; e.g. Sorority Row or My Bloody Valentine.
Spider-Man: No Way Home has an example of this with Spidey himself. When he gets into conflict with Doctor Strange over the spellcube that would send the alternate universe villains home (to their deaths), Strange performs the up until then uncounterable Astral Projection Palm Strike on Peter forcing his astral form out of his body — yet unlike everyone else who’s been astrally ejected from their bodies Spidey’ body is still able to move and dodge Strange’s attempts to grab the spellcube to the amazed confusion of the sorcerer, who outright claims it shouldn’t be possible before Spidey re-enters his body. On one hand it could purely be Peter’s Spider-Sense that has an autonomous response to danger, but on the other hand Peter being able to counter such magic may imply some sort of supernatural basis to his superpower especially as he was able to re-enter his own body against Strange’s wishes. Helping this theory is that unlike the other film versions of Spider-Man, we don’t know if the spider that bit Peter came from a lab or was something more mystical. Although it still may be simply a combination of good luck, quick thinking and the Spider Sense.
In Stalker (1979), it's never made clear how much power, if any, the Zone actually has.
Star Wars: In Rogue One, Chirrut has a religious belief in the Force but does not have Jedi training. Despite this, it seems possible the Force truly is guiding him, as he calmly walks through a firefight and is never even grazed — and it looks improbable enough that even standard Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy seems insufficient to explain it, considering he's up against Death Troopers, who are all Hero Killers.
Super: Whether Frank is actually having visions or if he is just hallucinating is never revealed. If he is actually having visions, then it would mean that the Holy Avenger is more than some TV actor playing a role, that he's real, and some sort of actual emissary from God.
Take Shelter is about a family man who begins having mysterious dreams about some kind of apocalyptic storm, causing him to start obsessively building a shelter behind his house. It's never clear if the dreams are magical/prophetic or not; on one hand, they seem far too vivid and comprehensive to be normal dreams, but on the other, the protagonist eventually admits that his mother had paranoid schizophrenia that he may or may not have inherited. The ending seems to fall on the "magic" side when the storm actually comes, but there's hints that Through the Eyes of Madness may be at play when this happens...
In The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, it is left deliberately unclear whether the imprisoned and dying Diabolical Mastermind Dr. Mabuse managed to use evil psionic powers to take over the body of his psychiatrist Dr. Baum, or whether Baum went insane and developed the delusion of being his former patient.
In Tower of London (1962), it is possible that the ghosts that torment Richard just the product of his Sanity Slippage; especially as no else can see them. However, their ability to utter accurate prophecy would suggest they are genuinely supernatural.
In The Iliad, Achilles' mother is a sea goddess. In Troy, she's a woman of questionable sanity who believes she's a river goddess. We're never quite sure whether she really is a goddess or not.
Uncut Gems: The uncut black opal. Kevin Garnett believes it's a Protective Charm designer to bring good luck to whoever possesses it. Nothing supernatural explicitly happens, but Garnett claims to have visions when looking into the opal, while Howard pulls off several improbable schemes and repeatedly escapes danger while owning it. When Howard sells it to Garnett, the latter plays one of the best basketball games of his life, while Howard gets killed mere hours later when his newest scam blows up in his face.
The Wailing strongly hinges on the "magic" side, but it is still perfectly possible to interpret the supernatural elements of the movie as toxic mushrooms-induced hallucinations and madness.
In the 2000 movie Waking The Dead, Fielding's girlfriend Sarah is killed in a car bombing, but he keeps seeing her in crowds and hearing her voice. She eventually comes to his office late at night to say goodbye and Fielding doesn't see her again afterwards. Either she was a ghost, she faked her death and went into hiding, or Fielding's grief made him mentally unbalanced. None of these scenarios are proved or disproved.
Wendigo leaves it up to the viewer to decide if there actually is a wendigo or not.
The Wizard of Oz ends with Dorothy lying on her bed and her family claim that she'd been knocked unconscious during the cyclone and had a nightmare, but Dorothy insists that Oz is a real place and she enjoyed it. So was it All Just a Dream, or did the ruby slippers' magic not only take Dorothy home, but make her family think she had never been gone? The Oz citizens resemble Dorothy's acquaintances, but this could be a coincidence, or imply that Oz is a parallel universe. We never find out the truth unless you count Oz the Great and Powerful as canon, which confirms Oz's existence. Once again, this was different in the books, where Oz explictly was a real place.
Werewolf horror film Wer does this in-universe. The first part of the film suggests that 'werewolfism' is a combination of a unique strain of porphyria (which, among other things, causes excessive hair growth and water retention) and the moon acting on the excessive water retention (in the same way it affects the tides) causes something akin to a psychomotor epileptic seizure in the disease-sufferers, causing them to go into blackout fugue-rages where a body's natural 'restraints' are turned off, resulting in seemingly superhuman strength and savagery. Then the 'werewolf', his condition triggered by flashing lights, is shown to literally have his body WARPING under the skin... at which point he survives a multi-story fall without any injury, is shot numerous times and either ignores it or recovers impossibly fast, and is able to run on all fours at speeds that let him OUTRUN A CAR. So while he doesn't actually turn into a wolf man...
Wind Chill is about two unnamed college students who get stranded on a deserted and icy road while driving back home for their winter break. Scary things begin happening to them and they get preyed by the ghosts of the people who have died on that road, but it's left ambiguous as to whether the ghosts are real or if they're just delirious visions of two people slowly dying of the cold. At the end, the girl sees the guy's ghost, which could just be another hallucination, but he also leads her to a gas station and back to civilization, something she couldn't have known herself.
In The VVitch, the titular witch's misdeeds ultimately amount to a handful of murders that could have been carried out without magic. And considering the circumstances, they easily could have been committed by Thomasin, the family's eldest daughter. Note that the witch also isn't seen or heard again after Thomasin ends up as the last character alive, possibly hinting that she was the witch all along and the witch's appearances were hallucinations seen from her perspective.
Wonder Woman (2017): Chief, when he intoduces himself in untranslated Blackfoot, tells Diana his name is Napi, a trickster hero of Blackfoot legend and a demi-god like Diana. He has a somewhat mystical tone in his speech such as saying Charlie "sees ghosts" because of his PTSD, but doesn't do anything on screen that would make it clear he's not human. Him being the legendary Napi has been confirmed by the actor who plays him.

Music

The old folk song "Scarlet Ribbons". The narrator overhears his/her young daughter praying for scarlet ribbons for her hair before bedtime. Unfortunately it is very late, and all the shops are closed, making it impossible to obtain them. When the narrator checks on his/her daughter again before dawn, the wished-for ribbons are lying on her bed. The song ends with the lines "If I live to be one hundred / I will never know from where / Came those lovely scarlet ribbons / Scarlet ribbons for her hair."
The Presence, in the Nine Inch Nails Year Zero ARG. In a dystopian future, suddenly a giant glowing blue human arm is periodically seen reaching down from the sky, in locations all over the world. No clear explanation is ever given for what the hell the Presence actually is, but what is known is that it will never appear on video or photographs intentionally taken of it, while those that accidentally capture it can, and that anyone who witnesses it is unnaturally stunned by the sight of it. In-universe theories range from the Presence being God, aliens, or a government weapon, but none of these are ever confirmed before it destroys the world.
"Rosetta Stoned" from tool. The narrator is clearly having a full-scale breakdown, but the cause is what's open to interpretation. Did he really have a sanity-destroying encounter with aliens who informed him that he had some greater cosmic purpose, or did he just have a really bad trip? Given Maynard's attitude towards giving a straight answer about a song's meaning, either interpretation could be correct.
In "Creepy Doll" by Jonathan Coulton, it's not entirely clear whether the titular doll is magical or merely the focus of your growing insanity.
Job for a Cowboy's Sun Eater is either chronicling a psychedelic trip (based on the nature of the visions and the album's musical flow, probably ayahuasca) or a wisdom-granting seance. "Worming Nightfall" is either where the trip goes very wrong and destroys the protagonist's mind or where the seance goes wrong and leaves her trapped in a dream world. The wording is ambiguous enough that both explanations are equally plausible.
The two most popular interpretations of the song "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon are that it's either about a Handsome Lech type character being compared to a werewolf or about an actual werewolf.
What's unusual in the music video for "Holding Out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler is that the outlaws' neon whips are enough to start a House Fire. Who knows?
“The Preacher” by Show of Hands is about a preacher who lives on an island. He falls in love with a woman who is married to a man who works in a quarry. When the man the woman loves finds work on the mainland, the preacher prays to God that something will happen to separate the woman from her husband and make her stay on the island. The next day, the man is crushed by a falling rock and killed while working in the quarry. It's unclear whether this is all a horrible coincidence or whether God really did answer the preacher's prayer in the most terrible way possible, but the preacher blames himself (because he prayed to God to do something to separate the woman from her husband) and falls into despair.
One of the things Robert Johnson is known for is the legend that he made a Deal with the Devil for musical talent. Many came to believe the legend due to the fact that anyone who was close to Robert knew that he was terrible on the guitar, and those same people felt that Robert's newfound talent didn't exactly feel natural. Others, however, argue in favor of the more rational and mundane explanation: being an unemployed man, Robert had a lot of free time on his hands, so he began practicing with the guitar until he became real good real fast.
"Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men: Is the female singer really having a conversation with her deceased partner, or is she imagining everything he says? The song hints at both possibilities, and we never get a definitive answer.

Podcasts

There's every indication at first that Season 1 of Palimpsest is a ghost story. There's the appearances of Thomas and Ms. Aikmann, the bloody footprints that keep appearing, the increasingly odd hints to Anneliese's sister Claire, and numerous odd occurrences. But then, as the podcast goes on, there's increasing amounts of parallels between Anneliese past and the hauntings, the reveal that Anneliese was either visited by Claire's ghost or deluded herself into believing she was there, the reveal that regardless of the events of the story Anneliese is suffering from staggering amounts of mental trauma. The last of which throws all events of the podcast into question, and could very well mean it was all in her head. In the end, it could all be magic, mundane, or both.
Pacific Northwest Stories and the Public Radio Alliance:
- This is the core premise behind The Black Tapes, in which broadcaster Alex Regan and professional skeptic Richard Strand investigate the unsolved mysteries of Strand's career. Alex is more inclined to consider the supernatural side while Strand has a possible explanation for nearly everything. Alex has noted that Strand's attempts at a logical explanation sometimes leaves too much room for coincidence or are as out there as the supernatural angle might be, but he also just as often has a perfectly reasonable explanation for what seems mystical.
- In the epilogue of the first season of RABBITS Carly Parker is left wondering if her experiences in tracking down her lost friend were truly her participation in Rabbits, a multi-dimensional game played in reality, or an elaborate setup she was led through by someone she considered a friend and ally. Her friend has no memory of the time she was missing, and several little things Carly encountered end up with mundane explanations. The only clear-cut sign it all really happened is an arcade game whose high score list contains the aliases of the previous winners of Rabbits, includes "Parker Carlson" in the ninth rank, and a blank tenth place.
The Storage Papers: "The Duct-Tape Man" leaves it ambiguous whether Officer Diego Castrado was victim to some kind of transferable possession after killing spree shooter Peter Garrett, or if he was simply driven mad by his guilt over killing Garrett and his refusal to deal with his trauma.

Poetry

In Alfred Noyes's "Forty Singing Seamen", it concludes with the narrator's observation that everything might have been Pink Elephants. To be sure, that included drinking the grog.
Across the seas of Wonderland to London-town we blundered,
Forty singing seamen as was puzzled for to know
If the visions that we saw was caused by—here again we pondered—
A tipple in a vision forty thousand years ago.
Could the grog we dreamt we swallowed
Make us dream of all that followed?
We were only simple seamen, so of course we didn't know!
Chorus—We were simple singing seamen, so of course we could not know
In the ballad "The Erl-King" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a sick boy claims he is being pursued by the Erl-King who wants to take him away; shortly after claiming that the Erl-King is touching and hurting him, he dies. The poem does not answer the question whether the Erl-King was real or only the dying boy's fever dream.
In "Lore Lay" by Clemens Brentano, Lore Lay is called a sorceress, and is charged with using magic to make all men fall in love with her. However, the fact that Lore Lay is not actually interested in the attention she receives suggests that she may not be a witch at all, merely a very attractive (but non-magical) single woman.
The Raven: Is the raven a supernatural creature who truly means that the narrator will never see Lenore again even in heaven, is the man hallucinating, or is the raven just a normal bird who is mimicking the word "nevermore" that it learned somewhere?

Professional Wrestling

The Undertaker is wrestling's Trope Codifier. He is originally a wrestling zombie who has powers, specifically lightning summoning and teleportation, and even becomes a demonic overlord at one point. He was Brought Down to Normal for a few years but is eventually restored to his mythical gimmick.
Kane, the Undertaker's half-brother, has pyrokinesis and the same teleportation powers. Depending on the Writer, he's a demon or at least sold his soul to one.
Papa Shango is somehow capable of voodoo magic.
Sting is another wrestler capable of teleportation.
Fergal Devitt is sometimes possessed by a demonic alter-ego who may or may not be just a product of his own imagination.
Aleister Black is also capable of teleportation and is implied to possess satanic powers.
Winter is somehow capable of both teleportation and Mind Control.
Bray Wyatt somehow has teleportation powers, can project holograms of himself, is somehow capable of Mind Control and is said to have a demon living within him.
Broken Matt Hardy is somehow capable of brainwashing other people into an "enlightened" version of themselves.

Radio

One Christmas Episode of The Men from the Ministry ends this way; the episode features One upsetting Santa and the main duo traveling to Christmas Land and escaping eventually with a red carpet. The episode ends with Two awakening One from a sleep, but a new red carpet has appeared in Two's room...

Tabletop Games

BattleTech:
- The "Phantom 'Mech" ability, which was displayed in the BattleTech Expanded Universe but also given rules in the tabletop during three different scenario sets. In combat, Morgan Kell's, Patrick Kell's and Yorinaga Kurita's battlemechs became completely invisible to sensors, and targeting systems were completely unable to detect them. Attempting to fire upon them resulted in the weapon missing entirely, unless they engaged each other, or someone got both fancy and dumb. (Daniel Allard successfully hit Morgan Kell by having his 'Mech's computer fire at the flashes of Morgan's lasers; he said himself this was low-probability to work if Morgan had been moving.) It's never explained what exactly it is; whether it be destiny, or a LosTech stealth system. The fact Morgan was apparently able to do it against the Clans again during the Battle of Luthien argues against it having been lostech, though.
- The visions that Clan Nova Cat warriors experience fall under this as well. Are they really glimpsing the future, or is it simply hallucinations that are sufficiently vague as to be easy to find an explanation for them? The fact that they're only ever interpreted after events that fulfill them have happened points to the latter, as does the Nova Cats winding up as a Client State for the Draconis Combine that choked them of resources and used them as cannon fodder before ultimately wiping them out during a succession crisis.
- The Black Marauder, the mech piloted by the pirate Black Kevin Langstrom. Supposedly subtly off in appearance, it's allegedly got the power to grow to a larger and more monstrous appearance in the dark, can move and fire its weapons on its own without a pilot, and consume the souls of people near it. Whether all of this is merely rumor spread by its brilliant but psychotic pilot, superstitious Periphery folk, and drug-addled pirates or it actually is an Eldritch Abomination in the approximate shape of a Marauder Battlemech is never answered.
Dark•Matter (1999) advised the Game Master to take this tack occasionally, as having every plot hook turn into a Monster of the Week or a lead-in to a grand conspiracy would make things predictable. Sometimes, just savor the mystery.
The Fate systems such as Dresden RPG and Strands of Fate have the Aspect system where all characters have a set of "Aspects" which basically causes PCs and other important characters to have a serious case of Plot Happens in their general vicinity. Leaving you to wonder in some settings whether there is something special about these people.
Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition has a Prestige Class that pretends to be a spellcaster, stretching sleight of hand and really good bluff skills right to the edge of the supernatural.
Eberron: The setting loves this one, especially in regards to religions. Divine power is real, and the faithful can tap into it. Everything beyond that is up in the air.
- The Silver Flame is a mystical force that binds some of the most powerful demons. Are the especially powerful Knight Templars in the religion just ordinary terrible people, or is the Shadow in the Flame manipulating them, whispering to them under the guise of one of the more benevolent voices in the Flame?
- The Tairnadal elves believe that each of them is individually chosen by a heroic ancestor, and that this ancestor guides their instincts. Both individually and as a group, they are some of the deadliest people alive—but is that because the ancestors are truly guiding them, or simply because they dedicate the entirety of their long lives to warfare?
- The Blood of Vol believes that every living person has a divine spark, the possibility of ascending to godhood. When a Vol cleric uses divine magic, they believe that they are tapping into their own divine spark—but it could also be that the cult's belief in that spark has created a well of divine energy for casters to draw upon.
Mage: The Ascension has some fun with this too. Any smart mage makes their spells look like coincidences, hypertech, or something else that the general population believes will work (and a fair number actually believe that this is what is happening). With the heavy levels of Clap Your Hands If You Believe used, the odds are very good that there's a bit of both magic and coincidence/super-science/whatever going on.
The New World of Darkness sourcebook Asylum presents a suite of odd happenings and disturbed individuals in the ill-starred Bishopsgate Mental Hospital in one chapter. The book gives each of them one or more supernatural explanations... and also gives a mundane one for each, with the "real" answer in the Storyteller's hands. (For example, one of the patients is a woman with foggy memories and terribly-kept medical records. The book gives two possibilities: she's being used as a storage conduit by the Seers of the Throne, who alter her records to hide their activities... or she's just an ill woman with an aneurysm on the verge of bursting, and the hospital's just really screwed up keeping their books straight.)
Pathfinder ups the ante on this a bit by giving rogues (the "tricky" non-magical Character Class) access to actual spells as class "tricks". Because they're so good at faking it, sometimes even the universe just gives up and believes them.
Remnants goes so far as to quote both Clarke's Third Law and the misattribution to Larry Niven that gave us Sufficiently Analyzed Magic, and offers both magical and technological explanations for the disaster that broke the Broken Lands and left only ruins and self-repairing mechs.
With one of the game's main themes being that all philosophies that promote self-growth are equally valid and worth learning from, Seeker goes to great lengths to make absolutely clear that none of the strange, wonderful, mysterious things Seekers encounter on their Paths are explicitly supernatural. All of their incredible abilities may be construed as simply being the result of amazing skill and self-control, all supposedly supernatural encounters happen in ways that could be explicable as hallucinations, drug effects, etc. and even "demons" function in a way that could be just as explicable as simply being maladaptive behavioral patterns.
Warhammer 40,000 loves this trope as a cornerstone of its setting, especially when the Adeptus Mechanicus come into play. Is that ancient relic so powerful because it was created with long-lost technology of astounding power, or is it truly blessed by the Emperor to protect his children? Do the Necrons invoke some strange techno-sorcery in their weapons and vehicles, or is their understanding of the material world so absolute that we can't even begin to understand how they work? Are the Legion of the Damned mystical undead, or just regular marines suffering from some ungodly mixture of the Black Rage and Nurgle Rot? Did the Techpriest's chanting and ritual application of holy oils appease the machine spirit of the Land Raider, or does the Land Raider just have a voice-activated diagnostic program installed? The answer is very, very rarely made clear in any given case. This is made worse because it has to be on a case-by-case basis since magic and super-tech both exist in the setting, and some tech (especially that used by Orks) is explicitly a mix of real mechanical systems and Clap Your Hands If You Believe.

Theatre

Elisabeth: Some productions, especially the original 1992 version, make it ambiguous if Death is a real character or a hallucination. He's only visible to Elisabeth, Rudolf and Lucheni, none of whom are particularly sane, and Lucheni is an Unreliable Narrator anyway. In other productions he's more obviously a real character.
Harvey: The play and movie chronicle several characters' attempt to "cure" Elwood of his psychosis regarding his hallucinating the titular, gigantic, anthropomorphic rabbit. However, there are many clues that indicate "Harvey" may actually be a Not-So-Imaginary Friend.
In the musical version of Heathers, Veronica sees (and talks to) the ghosts of her boyfriend's victims multiple times throughout the show. But since only Veronica sees them, and she gradually grows more and more unstable, it's left up to the audience to decide if the ghosts are really there or just a hallucination. At one point, the ghosts warn her of danger, but that could also be chalked up to Veronica's gut feeling, especially considering she was Properly Paranoid already. Essentially, it's up to you whether the ghosts caused Veronica's Sanity Slippage, or if it was the other way around.
Macbeth, infamously. While the Wyrd Sisters are definitely real witches, it's ambiguous if Banquo's ghost, the phantom dagger and the Damn'd Spot were real or just hallucinations caused by guilt.
Matilda: While Matilda is explicitly telekinetic, is she also psychic? She tells a "story" which later turns out to mimic Miss Honey's birth story to a T, but it's unsaid whether this is actual Psychic Powers or just a Contrived Coincidence.
Next to Normal: In the end, although the family does begin to heal and move on, it's left a bit unclear whether Gabriel was just a hallucination or actually was a ghost desperately holding onto Diane to keep "living". The reprise of "I Am the One" could easily support either conclusion.
In The Phantom of the Opera, it's deliberately left ambiguous as to whether the Phantom actually does have supernatural abilities. Some of the things he does, like the mirror, are understandable, but a lot more - causing the piano to play itself during the rehearsal of Don Juan Triumphant, creating fire in the graveyard, making the gates in his lair rise with merely a gesture, disappearing from under his cloak at the end of the show - while obviously stage effects in real life, have no practical explanation in the context of the story. However, the 2004 film version makes it very clear that all the stunts he pulls are merely clever tricks, leaving the more supernatural stuff out altogether and explaining other things away by showing the Phantom pulling a lever to raise the gates, or messing with Carlotta's throat spray in order to make her croak. Also worth noting the original novel also explained away these events through the titular antagonist’s ingenuity, but ironically at the same time the Phantom himself was far more of a Humanoid Abomination than he is in the musical.
Romeo and Juliet: Is the ending the fulfillment of Mercutio's Dying Curse or was it just coincidence?
The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare: At the end, Queen Hermione's statue seems to come to life. It could be that the statue of Hermione really does come to life, or it could be that her servant, Paulina, kept her hidden for years and she only claimed she had died.
Yes Virginia: The Musical: The Santas who come alive for "Santa by the Book" might just be a child's imagination. The Jolly Gentleman might just be a kindly old gentleman who resembles Santa Claus.

Visual Novels

Stage magicians in Ace Attorney tend to blur the line. It's made clear that they do use normal stage tricks (figuring them out is a big part of some cases like 4-3), but several magicians also possess powers that aren't explained, such as Trucy's Hammerspace abilities (it's never explained where exactly she keeps Mr. Hat, for example) or Mr. Reus conjuring fire in his hand (while wearing short sleeves, so he clearly wasn't hiding some mechanism in them).
- Maya's channeling of Mia is this in the first game. The game never clarifies whether characters other than Phoenix recognize Mia when she's being channeled. From the second game onward, though, channeling becomes explicitly real in-universe.
In AIR, Kano may or may not be able to talk to animals.
Whether the events in Along the Edge are supernatural in origin is deliberately left ambiguous so you can develop Daphne's character in either direction. Do the Malterres practice black magic or do they do their dirty work in perfectly ordinary ways? No one knows...
Danganronpa:
- Is Yasuhiro's clairvoyance real, or is he just a con artist who makes some lucky guesses? It's notable that, of the three predictions he makes in-game, one will come true. He predicts that he and Makoto's kids will share a mother (Aoi, in the Bad Ending where they're trapped in the school), no more murders will occur after Chapter 3 (if you get the true ending, and thus Kyoko is never executed on a false charge, this is correct: Sakura's death was a suicide, the murder of chapter 5 was faked, and Junko also committed suicide), and that going outside the school is a bad idea (always false; escaping leads to the survivors joining the Future Foundation, helping fix the world, and getting a true happy ending).
- What was the apparition of Chiaki that appeared to Hajime to give him his Heroic Second Wind? Chiaki had been executed at that point, but might have been Not Quite Dead as an AI, but she also knows things that only the human Chiaki, who was Dead All Along, knew about Hajime. So what is she? A hallucination, a memory of the real Chiaki surfacing, AI!Chiaki doing the same thing as Alter Ego in the original game, or the human Chiaki's ghost?
- Can Angie really hear the voice of her god Atua? She is kind of strange and it's established that she has a lot of difficulty separating "Atua's Desires" from her own, but her 'divine revelations' tend to be absolutely correct, even if only in hindsight. In Chapter 1, Atua reveals how the culprit actually escaped the scene, by returning to the hidden room- something only confirmed in the final trial. In Chapter 2, Atua tells her that the students have no real lives outside the academy, and the last chapter reveals that the students were actually mind-wiped and given fake personas (complete with memories) specifically for the killing games. In Chapter 3, Angie destroys a flashback light and claims Atua told her they were dangerous- the flashback lights actually implant false memories to manipulate the cast.
- There's a lot surrounding Korekiyo and the revelations of the third trial. Is he really possessed by his sister's ghost, or is it just a tulpa and he's delusional? His sprite does noticeably change whenever "Sister" is in control, but the UI only ever refers to him as 'Korekiyo' (despite Toko and Genocide Jack being considered distinct back in Trigger Happy Havoc). The ghost of his sister assists in his execution (which would actually point to Korekiyo being delusional, as the "Sister" persona approved of his murders), but that might just be something Monokuma made up to mock Korekiyo.
Hatoful Boyfriend has Anghel, who is always off in his own bizarre fantasy world and claims to be the reincarnation of a fallen angel. Time spent around others tends to draw them into it and they speak in the same overwrought, Purple Prose-y way he does, about gods and demons and fantastic things. The end of his route in the first game involves confronting the Obviously Evil Shuu, who there refers to himself as Dark Sorcerer Wallenstein and summons Himnesia, Bringer of Death. When Himnesia is defeated Shuu retreats and is never seen at the school again. Bad Boys' Love has a report saying that he secretes hallucinatory pheromones, which he's not immune to, and acts as a neurotransmitter, so he's kind of sucking other characters into his own constant trips... This is an odd sort of mundane, but it seems semi-plausible. Except that Anghel often knows things he should have no way of knowing about — the weird names he uses for people, if translated, often tie in to secrets they hold, and he seems to have a sense for diseases. In Holiday Star a villain draws blood from him and uses it to take the power of otaku fantasies and convert it into a from which powers a Death Ray — and the ray is countered by Anghel and some others taking on a fantasy that they are Magical Girls and using their magic powers to shield. He may be a Reality Warper.
Higurashi does this too; the "Wrap Party" at the end of the first novel has all the characters arguing about whether the events were due to humans or a curse. Amusingly, Ooishi takes the side opposite what he does in the novel, and Keiichi doesn't care, since they're all trying to get him anyway. However, it's resolved eventually: It's mostly mundane, with the weirdness being a combination of a Government Conspiracy and Hate Plague; however, the repeated arcs are due to magic, and Rika remembers all of them. In other words, there is "magic" at work, but the murder mystery is 100% mundane and magic is only used to "explore" it.
In Spirit Hunter: NG, each chapter has an open and shut case of a vengeful spirit that came about after a human died a gruesome death. However, the case of the Demon Tsukuyomi is a little more unclear. A person attempted to perform a ritual to summon the Demon Tsukuyomi; however, they died during it and became the 'Demon Tsukuyomi' that the cast face off against. After its defeat, the characters discuss whether the actual Tsukuyomi existed, or whether it was a fool's errand to try and summon it.
The entire premise of Umineko: When They Cry is based on this, so much that the creators have established two distinct camps where the fans can take sides. There's Fantasy, for those who favor the idea that everything was done by witches and magic, and Mystery, which believes that everything was done by human hands, and that witches were no way involved. This becomes increasingly difficult, as more than a few Epileptic Trees are bound to pop up in order to explain everything done by human means. Now, that's the simple part, but with Anti-Mystery and Anti-Fantasy mixed in, everything gets a whole lot weirder. While it's never outright stated whether everything is magic or mundane, there are hints in the second half of the series that make it lean more towards the mundane side. This includes the fact that three characters are actually the same person, and how it's implied that this person created many of the magical beings as Imaginary Friends. There's also the fact that, while Beatrice spent the first half of the series trying to get Battler to submit to her and be convinced that the murders were done by magic, EP5 reveals that she doesn't want to win at all, but to make Battler win.

Webcomics

Mary/Christina from The Adventures of Dr. McNinja had the ability to perform spells at random to help save the world, but every one of her miracle spells left open the possibility that they had happened by chance.
Parodied at the end of the Avatar episode of Monster of the Week. Mulder and Scully argue about old lady that was haunting Skinner in this episode:
Mulder: I think she was the ghosts of Vietnam.
Scully: I think she was Mulder's mum.
Discussed in Blindsprings. After the Academists' rebellion, the population suffered a plague that Orphics took as a sign of the spirits' wrath, but the Academists dismissed as poor hygiene conditions.
Blood is Mine: At one point, Jane's friends start wondering why they trust each other so easily, when they all have reasons to be paranoid and some of them even used to be enemies. It could be the result of Jane's blood subtly influencing their minds, or they could be simply Fire-Forged Friends who went through hell together. When Liz, who has Jane's blood but still hates her guts, joins the team, they agree that it's most likely the latter.
Bob and George: So to speak.
George: But you were a ghost! And you yelled at me!
Mega Man: I assure you there's a rational explanation for all of that. I just don't have it.
Word of God is that Dissonance will go this route — there will be a "scientific" interpretation and a "religious" interpretation, and both will be equally valid.
El Goonish Shive:
- While the existence of magic is an established part of the setting, the existence of the divine is kept far more ambiguous. In particular, a certain type of spell, known as a "guardian form" is speculated in-universe to be divine in origin (especially due to the fact that it can only be used in defense of self or others). On the one hand, Nanase was praying at the moment she acquired hers, and it does turn her into an angel, making the possibility of divine intervention sound more likely. On the other, it was well within the established rules of the setting for her to gain that spell at that moment, so it may have just been perfectly ordinary magic.
- Magic users in the comic fall into two categories: "dreaming", where they have limited spells and won't naturally get new ones, and "Awakened", where they Personality Powers spells as long as they keep using magic (Muggles being "sleeping"). Gregg's "Anime Style Martial Arts" blurs the line a bit though. He could be dreaming and using his unique martial arts to access more abilities than a dreaming person could normally, or he could have awakened and started gaining more spells.
Fans! is certainly not "mundane" in all respects, but in a sequence where Guth visits his cousin in the afterlife, one of the first things he does is explain why it can't be a dream (arguing that it's a Lotus-Eater Machine), but when he wakes up in his chair, he promptly takes it as one rather than accept the idea of life after death.
Faraway: A Winged Unicorn appears throughout in the comic and sometimes interacts with Flippy. But it is never revealed if it is real or just a hallucination.
In Faux Pas, the rabbit Stu belonged to a stage magician. How much of it is stage magic is up in the air.
Much of the mystery in Freakwatch is built around this trope. If Uncle Ted only died of a heart attack, why was he holding a gun when he died? And why does the mayor want the investigation into his death closed? And if Jessica's dreams are only dreams, why does she start seeing them in the daytime?
Girl Genius: While the setting firmly establishes that people with the spark can bend the laws of physics if they are powerful enough, as the story progresses the feats that some of the characters can do become something less sciency, and much more fantastic. But even the vast abilities of the restored Heterodyne Castle are somewhat in line with the story. Come Queen Albia, which Klaus himself insists everything she does is science, even if inscrutable, and the readers begin to have doubt that what does isn't magic. She can change her size at will, change her appearance, she can possess her agents if they pray for her, she can turn a wreck of an airship into a brand new luxurious vessel, among other things. All of this is referred to as being capable of being done by those who "peer into the Infinite".
All the examples of weirdness in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! have been of a scientific nature — aliens, robots, and the like — with the notable exception of the strange luck that constantly brings them all to Bob's doorstep. It's been established that it is a real force, and as the title suggests, it remains inexplicable. Jean is a scientist and has considered studying it, but admits she's almost afraid to.
Peter, the enemy of the Affably Evil title character in Niels, is regularly visited by and engages in not-always-consensual-on-Peter's-part relations with a demon only he can see. No proof as of yet whether it's real or a product of all the drugs Peter's on. Although the demon in question ended up amusing his creator so much she gave him his own series.
Neko: The Cat: Was Michiko's cat just an ordinary pet, and supernatural events only began after moving to the countryside, or was it one of her stepmother's cursed cats, and her stepmother was responsible for Michiko's mother's suicide in the first place? The comic leaves which it is open to interpretation.
In The Order of the Stick, the deceased Lord Shojo appears to Belkar when the halfling falls into a coma, as a result of triggering his Mark of Justice. Shojo says he could be either the real deal's spirit, appearing to Belkar from beyond the grave, a personification of the Mark of Justice (which makes sense since when it was first activated it also produced an image of Shojo), or simply a fever-induced hallucination.
Questionable Content managed to pull this off in strip 546, "Arbitrarily Named Comic Strip". Did Hannelore's little voodoo doll of Marten actually work? Or did Dora just grab Marten's butt? We shall never know.
The One Piece fan-made webcomic Return to the Reverie: Joy Boy's last words and The Prophecy that arose from them. Is Xebec/Imu right and they mean that Joy Boy's inhuman Haki will allow him to be reincarnated in the present day? Or is Roger right and the idea is completely metaphorical, and that all it means is that Joy Boy's dreams will be passed down from generation to generation of future pirates through his legend and memories, until someday, someone achieves them?
The Toughs from Schlock Mercenary get the deal they do on the PDCL due to strange voices convincing Petey the ship is haunted, driving him insane. Fixing the ship's plumbing fixes the issue, but due to the specificity of the utterances, Petey finds this explanation so untenable that only enforced cognitive dissonance can keep him from committing suicide.
In Shortpacked!, the historical Jesus Christ begins working at the store after Galasso resurrects him. Mike tries to ask him what he really thought about himself and his relationship to God, pointing out that no matter the answer, it will piss off somebody. Before Jesus can answer, he's tackled by Mike's wife.
Amber: Ohmygod, I just tackled Jesus.
Mike: Maybe.
Sleepless Domain: When Anemone is explaining this world's winter holiday of Crimmus, she emphasizes that their Santa Claus figure, a Magical Girl named Holly Jolly, doesn't really exist, and that the presents actually come from friends and family. She then says that that's why she never gets Crimmus presents... and in the next panel, finds a single present under her Crimmus bush, addressed to her.
In Something*Positive, Word of God says he doesn't know for himself whether Fluffmodeus is real or not. Nobody but Kharisma can see him, but someone put that other inmate into a coma...
Stand Still, Stay Silent went through a period of this while introducing its most fantastical elements. The story starts out as a fairly standard Just Before the End plot with a quickly spreading disease, set in modern-day northern Europe. Then, at the very end of the prologue, an Encyclopedia Exposita page from After the End casually mentions Finland having many mages. Chapter 1 introduces a couple of characters as mages, but doesn't show them do anything special. It takes Chapter 3 to see something that may be magical happen, with the following chapters showing stuff that becomes less and less likely to happen by mundane means, eventually lifting all doubt about the fact that The Magic Comes Back actually did happen. And once that is settled, the nature of the disease that caused The End of the World as We Know It and its horribly mutated victims starts falling into this trope. It is also unclear whether The Old Gods have something to do with The Magic Comes Back or the disease, or if it is just the best explanation people could come up with. All we know is that the two surviving nations that haven't gone back to worshipping them are completely devoid of mages (and Word of God points to gods being involved at least for Icelandic mages).
In Suppression, both wizards and scientists are trying to figure out what's up with Ebon Creek. Neither of them have all of the answers in so far.
Wilfreda The Wanna Be Witch: The title character claims to be a witch but many of her classmates just think going overboard playing make believe. That is until they find out her mother owns a candy shop and her birthday is on Oct 31. Then some doubt starts to creep in. Summed up nicely when Victor, one of Wilfreda's more skeptical classmates, asks her mom about that.
Victor: This is all coincidence right? I mean...Wilfreda is not a real witch...is she?
Wilfreda's Mother: (Smiling wryly) I'll have the delight of leaving you guessing. Happy Halloween!

Web Original

The Creepypasta Aunt (Warning: Incredibly Squicky language) has the protagonist tied up by her aunt, who recently suffered a psychotic break and is convinced that some evil being is coming to claim her niece and wants to help it. At one point, the protagonist actually sees a shadowy figure in the room with her but isn't sure if it was real or just a hallucination from shock, blood loss and concussion. Later, when her aunt is tied to a bed and locked in her room, she somehow manages to get free. While she appears to have just bitten through her restraints, the door wasn't forced and everyone's sure it was locked, so how did she get out?
In the Choice of the Vampire web game, a priest brandishes a crucifix at the main character, who is weakened and repelled — unless they're an atheist. Whether a religious vampire is defeated by the placebo effect or a skeptical vampire's own convictions let them Fight Off the Kryptonite is ambiguous, and the vampire community treats the matter with some caution as a result.
In Hector's World, Kui is described as a "spirit" and there are surreal visual effects around her entrances, but there's no hard evidence that she's not just a normal whale.
In this Reddit Short Story, an old man runs afoul of two drug bandits and flees for his life, all the while praying for Divine Intervention. While running, he accidentally disturbs a Mojave Green Rattlesnake (the most venomous snake in North America) and his leg is subsequently bitten. As the drug bandits are closing in, four angels descend from heaven to aid him (and as it turns out, the drug bandits are being influenced by demons). The old man does eventually kill them with the angels' approval and is soon taken to a hospital afterwards. The old man, disbelieving that angels actually helped him, goes on the internet to see if snake venom can actually cause hallucinations, but is unable to find anything concrete.
What is more logical, that a 70-year-old, 140 pound Vegan who had been bitten by the most deadly snake in North America could defeat two burly drug bandits in mortal combat or that angels came down from heaven?
SCP Foundation: Sometimes lampshaded. It is not known whether the effects of certain SCPs on humans are natural reactions or anomalous phenomena. Part of the Foundation's mission is to find out.
- SCP-1933-EX is a Stock Ness Monster supposedly with the ability to make people immediately disregard any evidence of its existence other than absolute proof. It is now classified as explained and the Foundation no longer believes its existence after a live stream of SCP-1933-EX's appearance proved to be an animatronic created by the researcher in charge. However, that same researcher was later found dead after a boat trip to the lake in question went awry, and his corpse was described has partially-eaten... Could the SCP's memory-altering capabilities actually extend even to making people ignore incontrovertible proof? We'll never know for sure.
Vox and King Beau starts off this way, with Vox not sure if anything she's seeing and hearing (strange stifling silences, whispered voices in her ear, and her childhood best friend standing over her bed at night) is actually happening or if she's just hallucinating it. The end of the story seems to support the "magic" theory, as Vox continues to see and hear things even after the removal of her brain tumor and people around her begin to notice the mysterious events, too.
You probably know the "Unicorn shitting rainbows" meme. A geek t-shirt invokes this trope by suggesting a scientific explanation involving the horn as a solar concentrator and a prism for digestion.
An urban legend that's been making the rounds online and can be read on this Snopes page along with several others: A haughty college professor who's an intolerant atheist stands on a platform and says that, to prove there is no God, he will tell Him to knock him off the platform. Then, a marine knocks the professor off the platform and when the professor asks him why, the marine replies, "God was too busy protecting America's soldiers, so He sent me." Did God really send the marine, or was the marine just offended and trying to Break the Haughty?

Web Videos

Bedtime Stories (YouTube Channel) has a lot of this, given its focus on supernatural and paranormal stuff.
- The Mothman: some extraterrestrial and/or paranormal creature, or just an unusually large bird misidentified by terrified eyewitnesses?
- Did Christopher Case die of a curse? Or did he somehow scare himself to death?
- The SS Ourang Medan. Was it supernatural phenomena that killed her crew and sunk her, or just poorly secured hazardous materials?
- Flight 19. Human and technical error or something more fantastic?
- Was Michael Taylor a victim of Demonic Possession? Or was he driven insane by a religious group alleged to use brainwashing techniques?
- The Lead Masks of Vintem Hill: did the two men transcend their corporeal bodies and transport their minds into a "realm of infinite knowledge and consciousness" after making contact with aliens, or were they tricked into killing themselves by criminals?
- Were the numerous Hmong Americans who died in their sleep for no apparent reason killed by evil spirits known as Dab Tsog, or by cases of sleep paralysis made deadly by factors related to their flight from Laos and life in the United States?
- Did the Atuk script have a curse that killed six celebrities, or were their deaths after expressing interest in the screenplay just tragic coincidences?
- Is the Devil's Pool cursed, or are the deaths that happened there just the result of geological abnormalities?
- Did Granger Taylor really make contact with aliens and leave with them like his note said, or did he just die during the vicious storm that happened the day of his disappearance?
- Was UB-65 really a cursed ship that ended up being haunted by the ghost of Lieutenant Richter, or did a series of unfortunate accidents and the stress inherent to being on a military submarine lead to a case of mass hysteria?
- Does Tsarichina really contain a powerful, inhuman force? Or did the stressed minds of the already on-edge soldiers stationed there interpret every accident as the work of the paranormal?
- Do Skinwalkers really exist? Or does the legend stem from traumatized Native Americans mistaking their fellow Native American attackers, who often wore animal pelts, for supernatural creatures?
Hunter: The Parenting: The fourth Audiolog brings up the possibility that Marckus might be a fledgeling Mage; all the horrible misfortune that happens to his bully is technically possible, and Marckus insists he doesn't know what's going on, but getting salmonella from a pint of applejack (after Marckus horribly fails to intimidate him by cursing him with "the sickness of dogs past"), having two separate switchblades fall apart in his hand, and getting chased off by a cop who happened to be in the vicinity is very reminiscent of an Entropy Hex, and Marckus's friends lampshade how unlikely the whole sequence of events is.
In Monster Lab (2021) Henry King interacts frequently with the ghost of Chris Kyle, who instructs him to make a blood sacrifice to bring him back to life. Henry has been on leave from police work after a brutality incident and is implied to have always had a screw loose. He himself comes to the conclusion that Chris Kyle is a delusion of his damaged mind and even Chris Kyle possessing him could simply be him hitting rock bottom. Come the final episode, Kyle is Real After All.
On The Edge lives on this trope:
- How Shigeo even gets clients when he doesn't advertise his services, let alone gets caught by the police for killing (scummy) people in the first place seems unexplainable.
- The reason for Jiro's black hair turning red and pointing up before he starts beating despicable criminals is unknown. Heck, Jiro's whole existence is this.
- Hirofumi Satake's strange ability to survive and heal from exotic incurable diseases and poisons can't be explained by doctors.
In this short story titled Robin's Bedwetting Trouble and the Wake-Up-All-Dry Fairy, a young girl named Robin is having trouble with wetting the bed and, after waking up in the middle of the night having wet the bed, prays not to wet the bed again. She then dreams that she's having a tea party and a fairy named Eureka, also known as the Wake-Up-All-Dry Fairy, comes, claiming that she answered Robin's prayer, and instructs Robin on what to do. However, we never find out if Eureka really exists and is a Dream Walker fairy who can respond to prayers, or if she was just dreamed up by Robin.
Sword Art Online Abridged: When Kirito encounters Don Fluffles (an ordinary house cat who somehow learned to play SAO), he seemingly understands what he's saying (apparently the two have a history). A surprised Heathcliff/Kayaba asks if Kirito can actually speak cat or if he's just messing with them. According to Asuna, "Knowing him, it may very well be both."

Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane

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Bender meets "God"

Alternative Title(s): Maybe Mundane Maybe Magic

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Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane

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Bender meets "God"

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