The logical fallacy where somebody identifies a pattern in a body of information where the individual points of data have no relationship. It is named after a fictional scenario where a person shoots the side of a barn multiple times, then draws a target around a cluster of close bulletholes and claims that they are a sharpshooter.

Awareness of the fallacy is important in scientific fields as it risks people waiting time investigating and dealing with phenomena that do not exist. Sometimes events are just coincidences.