I Was Never Here

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    "If I go down, so do you!"
    "Incorrect. I was never here. The tapes will prove it."

    —Artemis Fowl, The Eternity Code

    You did not read this entry. It was never written. You never got here, you dreamed it or were too tired/high/medicated and started to hallucinate.

    This phrase is not associated with The Men in Black. There are no large number of variants.

    You don't need to compare with You Didn't See That.

    P.S. That Didn't Happen.

    These aren't examples

    Anime

    Comics

    • In Transmetropolitan, Gary Callahan arranges for a meeting with Spider that leads to him threatening Spider, practically admitting he had one of his own staff murdered and revealing he only wants to be President to mess with people. He then reveals he had all of Spider's recording gear remotely deactivated and that Spider can't prove he said anything, or that he was even there at the meeting. Callahan finishes with this line.

    Film

    Admiral James Greer: Now understand, Commander: that torpedo did not self-destruct, you heard it hit the hull, and I -- (shows his badge) -- was never here.

      • The on-screen text at the beginning of the movie also fits. It presents the story to follow as a factual account, then claims that according to both governments (the United States and the Soviet Union), the events of the film never happened.
    • The 1998 Godzilla.
    • Men in Black
      • In the second film, J and K are watching an episode of an old show that is describing something that happened to K years before. At the end of the episode, they see "You saw nothing" on the recording.
    • Superman: Doomsday movie: "Lexcorp was never there." "And now neither were you."
    • The Matrix: When Neo sells the bootleg disc to a client.
    • |Mission Impossible
    • The Transformers live action movie.
    • Monsters, Inc..: "None of this ever happened, gentlemen. And I don't want to see any paperwork on this."
    • The Guild Navigator from the Dune movie, after telling the Emperor to kill Paul Atreides. "I did not say this, I am not here."
    • Used in the film version of Get Shorty when Ray Barbone threatens Harry Zimm (and coerces him into shooting the dead Ronnie to frame him for the crime) in order to keep Chili from finding out that he's in LA.
    • No Country for Old Men: Anton: "You didn't see me. I was already gone."
      • Also, "That depends... Can you see me?"
    • Seven Days in May: The military did not try to take over the United States.
    • Sneakers: "What's really important is that none of this ever happened. This box doesn't exist."
    • Hitman: "We aren't here, which means when we open up on you and shred your bodies with automatic fire then this will never have happened."
    • In GoldenEye, James Bond asks CIA agent Jack Wade why he chose to meet him in the Caribbean before he entered Cuba to track down Janus. Wade answers, "I am not here. The CIA has no knowledge, no involvement, nothing to do with your insertion into Cuba, if you catch my drift."
    • In Air America:

    Gene Ryack : Well the problem is, Rob, if you and I weren't here, this conversation never happened, so I can't remember what the fuck you didn't tell me.

      • A trailer also had the narrating voice-over announce to viewers, "...and we didn't tell you this."

    Literature

    • Repeatedly spoofed in Discworld:
    • In 1984, O'Brien shows Winston the picture of the old Party leaders (who are now unpersons), then throws it into a memory hole and says that it never existed and he does not remember its existence. The clear implication is that the Party can do this with any inconvenient object or person.
    • Artemis Fowl, the source of the page quote. Artemis's master plan finally becomes clear to Jon Spiro just as the boy vanishes along with any evidence he had been in the room with Spiro at all. Cue Villainous Breakdown.
    • The Lies of Locke Lamora: after a certain cask is delivered to the Gentlemen Bastards' hideout, Galdo pays the messenger eleven silvers: "Ten for the cask, and one more for forgetting all about this." The man replies, "Holy hell, my memory must be cacked out, because I can't remember what you're paying me for."
    • In the words of Miles Vorkosigan: "When two Imperial Auditors say they didn't see something, it can become remarkably invisible."
    • In the Warhammer 40,000 novel Innocence Proves Nothing, Inquisition agent Danuld Drake says this to a starship security detachment he has instructed to dispose of two dead rogue psykers.
    • In Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister a telephone conversation ends with this trope.

    Gonzalez: "One moment, you have not told me what happened."
    Marlowe: "I haven't even telephoned you."

    • In the 1632 universe short story Between the Armies (included in the anthology Ring of Fire), a Jesuit priest, Father Heinzerling, returns from a factfinding mission to Grantville. Upon meeting his contact (Giulio Mazarini) in Avignon, he is told that they did not meet, and that he is therefore not being instructed to return to Grantville and offer himself to the Catholic parish there as an assistant pastor, pending future developments.
    • In the World War II novel Run Silent, Run Deep by Edward Beach, the hero's sub returns from patrol and sees the Enterprise in harbor. When he remarks that his berth is right next to it he is told that no one is to say anything about it.

    Live Action Television

    • Knight Rider
    • A recurring character in The Fast Show.
      • "You ain't seen me, right?"
      • In one case, going into a police station, impatiently awaiting the attention of the officer on duty, before delivering the catchphrase and walking out.
    • Fawlty Towers: "You know nothing about the horse."
    • Doctor Who:
      • Closely related: In Frontios, the Doctor and his companions visit a human colony that's so far in the future that the Time Lords (the Doctor's race) would disapprove. At the end, the colony thanks him for saving them, and he tells them, "Don't mention it." His companion Turlough clarifies, "He means it. Literally." I.e. the Doctor doesn't want the colonists to let the Time Lords find out about it.
      • In Series 4, Episode 2, "The Fires of Pompeii", when Metella asks the Doctor who he is, with his way with words, and his "temple containing such size within", he answers, "Oh, I was never here. Don't tell anyone."
    • Used directly in Torchwood episode "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," when John Hart drops a mugger off the roof of a parking garage. His only words to the victim are "I was never here. Go." Notable in that he actually murdered the guy to draw attention to himself, but only wanted Jack's attention instead of the police.
    • The X-Files characters were practically joined at the hip to this trope. Most notably with Mulder's informants (Deep Throat and Mister X). The former was kinder about letting everyone know the danger he placed himself in by giving up such information. The latter was downright violent about it.
    • During the "reality show" style competition to be part of House's new team, Amber pulls this on Wilson and a patient when using the connected balcony between House and Wilson's office to sneak out of House's office.
    • On Season 3 of 24...

    Sherry: If anyone suspects that I was here, there will be an investigation, and both of us will go to prison. I was never here. You understand?

    Henry: Don't tell me. I don't want to know about it. You guys have my full permission, and I never said that. I mean, I'm not even here, so how could I?

    • Sgt. Schultz on Hogan's Heroes: "I know NUSSINK! I see NUSSINK!"
      • Sometimes he goes further and tells the heroes, "I know nothing! I see nothing! I was not here! I didn't even get out of bed this morning!"
    • In an episode of Scrubs, Dr. Cox punched out Bob Kelso for chewing out Elliott, deliberately trying to reduce her to tears. In the following episode, Kelso revealed that he tried to press charges, but even though it happened in a lobby full of people, no one saw a thing.

    Radio

    • Practically Archie's Catch Phrase in Absolute Power. He has never met the partners of Prentiss McCabe Media Relations, they don't have a lucrative government contract, and there isn't a large check in this unmarked envelope.
    • An ad for one office supplies company repeatedly mentioned that even the CIA used their products. After each such reference, another voice would break in to say something along the lines of, "The CIA can neither confirm nor deny that we use this company's products in our offices. If we have offices."

    Tabletop Games

    • In Exalted, Sidereals have a Charm called Avoidance Kata which retcons reality so that they were, indeed, never there.
    • The Parable epic destiny from the fourth edition D&D supplement Arcane Power is about this—since the whole concept of that destiny is based on the character's attempt to lay bare the illusion underlying reality and physically become an in-universe Ascended Meme, the specific powers granted by it all have the common theme of them "not really being there" (which at the highest level culminates in cancelling their death once per day because it turned out that what 'died' was just an illusory doppelganger after all).

    Video Games

    • The VCR game of Clue- "I was never in Sumatra".
    • One of the random messages from the pirates in Privateer, when pirates are friendly to you (as in the Tayla mission series): "I didn't see you, and you're blind."
    • At the end of the StarCraft demo (which is also the prequel to the main game), you are told that you did not just kill a bunch of Xenomorphs ... and the SpecOps unit was never here.
    • In Splinter Cell Conviction, at the end of the White House level, and thus the game, when Army troops see Sam in the Oval Office preparing to deal with Reed, President Caldwell tells the Captain present that she was the only one he saw there. The soldier gets the hint.

    Western Animation

    • Of course, The Simpsons spoofed it. In one episode, Lisa somehow ends up right outside Area 51a. A map next to an information kiosk has a dot on it labeled "You are here. We are not."
      • In another episode, Lisa has to babysit Bart, who makes her life a living hell by calling up random services. Lisa opens the door to find a military man who asks to see Lisa Simpson, who was reported to have seen a UFO. Lisa screams that she didn't see a UFO. The military man leans in threateningly and says, "That's right, you didn't." He then waves off a doctor with a syringe and leaves.
    • Skipper from the Madagascar series with his Catch Phrase: "You didn't see anything."
    • The possum from "Podunk Possum", from the What a Cartoon series, absolutely did not see any mysterious UFOs this evening, especially after being confronted with the MIBs' very shiny badge.

    Web Comics

    Gilgamesh: And of course, my father always says it's best if we're the only ones to find out.
    Moloch: Aaah-- Find out what?!
    Gilgamesh: Good man.

    Harold: (sizing up the case) What's a Cesspool?

    Real Life

    • The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, with Frank Gusenberg.

    "Nobody shot me" [1]

    1. ↑ There were fourteen bullet holes in him at the time
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