Close Call
Freshman year of college I convinced a girl the shooting star she was bragging about seeing was actually a French research satellite that fell out of orbit. “I saw it on CNN, they were worried it might not splashdown in the ocean. Very serious stuff.”
It took a few minutes of her grilling me for details but I managed to convince her. No sooner did she concede it wasn’t a shooting star than a guy who had overheard my lengthy and skillful lie chimed in with ‘Wait I didn’t think the French even HAD a space program’ and it immediately resurrected her disbelief and killed the whole thing. Story credit: Reddit / epsilonbob