The Men in Black may even spread true rumors with the intent that a Crazy Survivalist will deny them. One variant seen occasionally is wherein the public is deceived with wrong conspiracies - everyone knows that some hidden group is secretly ruling the world, but the real conspiracy uses fake conspiracies to distract the public from the scent. As a result, this trope has been increasingly ignored or subverted, although it is still a mainstay of the Urban Fantasy genre. Rather than beg the local tabloid to publish a crazy story about how Billy was eaten by a werewolf, the witness to some masquerade breach can merely upload the cell phone video of Billy getting devoured to YouTube, with no potentially subverted intermediaries to convince. Cell phones went from "punchline for comedians to mock rich bankers" to "item nearly everyone has, worldwide", and they have cameras. Real-life technology advanced from 2000-2010 or so to make Plausible Deniability much more difficult for modern authors than 20th century writers. Get wiped of all memory of the secret world.
(When a masquerade is involved, the difference can be hard to notice). Join the ones who want to get rid of the masqerade.Join the ones who hunt down those in the masquerade.
Join the ones who police this secret world.Join the secret world fully and, in effect, "go native".People who discover the masquerade have several choices that present themselves to them, potentially including: The tensions of their role usually engender a bad reputation and kill off their love life. Even if the character protecting the Masquerade doesn't turn evil doing it, he's likely to end up isolated. On the other end, maintaining the Masquerade usually requires morally gray or outright black choices, like discrediting or killing the Crazy Survivalist and Agent Mulder trying to expose it.
Sometimes, especially in more cynical series, Bystander Syndrome or The World Is Not Ready are used to explain why the Masquerade persists, even if the heroes don't necessarily want it to continue. The Masquerade makes it easier for the fans to imagine what it feels like to live as a "normal" person in the setting. The real-life reason is typically that the story is intended to be set in "our" world, and the streets of Anytown USA might seem a bit less familiar if they were filled with vampires and witches and the like who were making their presence obvious. The in-setting reason for this, when one is provided, is usually some version of " society in general would object to said group's very existence", more or less plausible according to the writers' skill.
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