What is the trick or knack that persuades people that something they've seen before and are tolerably familiar with, like controlled demolition, is, in fact, not what they're seeing?

It can only be some sort of acquired, willfully self-blinding horror of disbelieving those whom they feel obliged to believe--but how is it acquired?  From whom?  And what are its first, learned manifestations?  In this, if it did not stink of fraud and chicanery, one might be tempted to look for a profound mystery.