Preternatural Investigation Branch

The **Preternatural Investigation Branch** (**PIB**) is a clandestine section of the Anomalous Research and Intelligence Office that seeks to directly research and address parapsychological and preternatural phenomena within the territory of the United States. As a means of both public deception and internal deception for federal agents not involved in the PIB's cases, the organization is purposefully labelled the "**Twelfth Division**" of the Federal Investigation Bureau. This has been able to fool even ardent conspiracy theorists and researchers such as the Californian free-thinker Jeffrey Kissinger, who is famous for the rumors circulating about a "special formation of the FBI" without the truth of its DoD origins.

The first form of the PIB under the Supernatural Phenomena Task Force (SPTF), the predecessor to the ARIO, was formed in the 1950s following the end of the Second World War and after the government's analysis of parasychological documentations given by numerous German scientists (chiefly Dr. Erwin Gollitzer). Known then as the **Domestic Unit of Supernatural Activities** (DUSA), it shares a common root with the civilian Clausewitz Association think tank, and both organizations are in common correspondence pertaining to preternatural phenomena both in the United States and the wider world.

In 1953, the high ranks of the SPTF reformed the identity of the DUSA, allowing it to start widescale domestic surveillance and direct action operations. Entitled Project LAMPLIGHT, the DUSA was deployed in a series of domestic operations into areas with reported anomalies and preternatural cryptids, building the core literature on the supernatural and parapsychological that would strengthen the then-novel branch into its current form as the PIB. Information collected from LAMPLIGHT was intended for usage on subversive elements of American society during the Cold War, but instead helped to build the foundations of understanding for concepts such as perireality and the Other, in addition to the fundamentals of cryptids.

In 1961, following the reformation of the SPTF into the ARIO as a result of the Mullins Experiment, the DUSA formally rechristened itself as the Preternatural Investigation Branch (PIB). It was then subsumed partially into the infrastructure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to utilize the government agency as a proxy for black operations pertinent to domestic preternatural events.

## Uniforms and equipment

On the field and working in cooperation with other sectors of law enforcement, agents of the PIB are indistinguishable from FBI agents. No discernable regalia or equipment are used during these situations, and such is done to maximize confidentiality of PIB operations and observations into cases where multiple differing organizations are involved.

During most situations that the PIB are working either alone or in conjunction with researchers from the *Clausewitz Association*, PIB agents will still be dressed in normal attire - this, however, does not apply to situations that the PIB determines it integral to utilize combat personnel.

In combat operations, PIB agents fold under the command of a unique Special Weapons and Tactics (**SWAT**) contingent, known as the Special Preternatural Reaction Unit (SPRU). These units are issued all-black apparel and body armor, with equipment that often includes night vision goggles, headphones, gas masks, and other headwear to prevent possible sensory or physical contamination by anomalous agents. Other pieces of apparel include ballistic vests and combat rigs, with the former either displaying the iconic **FBI** decal or no discernable symbols at all apart from a symbol of their member task force. Their weapons are often standard-issue firearms and smoke grenades, but some operations are allowed clearance to use heavy-duty firearms such as heavy machineguns and lethal grenades such as fragmentation or incendiary grenades. The nature of most combat operations, however, implies stealth, and all standard-issue firearms are often accompanied by the employment of suppressors.

The PIB will also opt to use specialized equipment created by cooperative engineering projects between the ARIO and the Clausewitz Association, especially in cases where it is deemed necessary to neutralize anomalous targets. The only known examples are the paraphysical Brugmann Device that can, with a nominal margin of accuracy, detect the presence of anomalous cryptids by artificial proprioception, and the Galloway Resonance Device that has only been fielded once in an anti-cryptid role.

## Personnel

Special agents that serve as a part of the Preternatural Investigation Branch of the ARIO are not recruited from normal application processes due to its clandestine nature. Instead, personnel are chosen on a specific set of criteria that allow members to display acquaintance or comfort with the paranormal and the unknown, such as:

* having been an agent of the FBI or a military intelligence agency, whether active or inactive, and encountered significant parapsychological or paranormal phenomena in non-paranormal cases or incidents;
* having been a civilian exposed to anomalies and displaying aptitudes relevant for PIB service;
* having been a current agent of the FBI or a military intelligence agency with a psychological profile indicative of an ability to be acquainted with PIB service.

Only a handful of civilians have been directly recruited into service with the PIB, mainly due to the nature of the organization's operational security. A bulk of its personnel hail either from direct recruitment of special agents with fitting psychological profiles or those who have encountered anomalies on the field. The number of currently active PIB agents is a value purposefully kept unknown.

Those who are given the chance to work within the PIB are given a strict set of oaths and non-disclosure agreements that disallows individuals to ever confide with others that do not possess PIB clearance. This includes saying anything about encountered anomalies, identities of fellow personnel, the status and existence of the PIB itself, its exploitation of the FBI's apparatus, and other miscellaneous citations. Such strict confidentiality is done dually to prevent other foreign organizations from tapping into the possible resources that the PIB has, and to prevent the verification of the information that it has found leaking to the public and thus causing hysteria and paranoia on a massive scale.

### Special Preternatural Reaction Unit

*Main article: Special Preternatural Reaction Unit*

The **Special Preternatural Reaction Unit**, or SPRU, is an elite division of the ARIO's Preternatural Investigation Branch that operates independently from other tactical elements of the Department of Defense or Federal Bureau of Investigation. As such, the SPRU is also independent of the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) of the FBI, which was formed in 1997.

Recruits for the SPRU mainly originate from specially trained PIB field agents. Alternatively, members are also chosen from SWAT teams and the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team that are identified to contain psychological profiles necessary for the high-stress and psychosis-inducing operations undertaken. The unit can best be described as a *black operations force*, as the SPRU's deployments are almost always shrouded under the guise of either a normal FBI SWAT deployment (if civilians and those with no clearance are in the area of operations), or never recorded to even deploy as a fake identity (especially in the cases where there are little to no civilian presence).

The SPRU's normal combat equipment, as noted before, include loadouts similar to conventional special forces; however, due to the environmental or direct perils of some anomalies and cryptids, clearance has been given to the SPRU for the utilization of weapons such as heavy M2HB machine guns, explosives, and anti-materiel rifles. Additionally, many SPRU squads deploy with special equipment, such as "Brugmann Devices" that are able to nominally detect some anomalies in perireality, or wear special hoists on their backs when suspected to transition into a portal to the Other. They also employ optically modified gas masks, multi-wavelength goggles, and advanced audio-regulatory headphones to both find anomalies through sense and/or resist the possible influence of anomalies through sense vectors.

## Whisteblowers

A few people claiming to be previous members of the PIB have attempted to whisteblow the organization, either due to the possibility of monetary benefits from journalists or the psychological stresses of carrying experiences within the organization and having no clearance to previously talk about such. One major example includes Edward Santos, a retired FBI agent from New Mexico who had informed Jeffrey Kissinger about the existence of a "shadow organization in the FBI", and the "truth" pertaining to the infamous 1972 Shining Lights Incident over the skies of Alamogordo, New Mexico. However, following an interview about this case in 1986, Santos refused further meetings and was not publicly seen again thereafter, keeping to his residence in Albuquerque for the rest of his years until his death in 1997. Kissinger suspects that this was due to the PIB's intervention on the operational security breach that Santos would have been committing.

## Cases and operations

* **1972** — Unidentified Flying Objects - Alamogordo Case (1972 Shining Lights Incident)
* **1989** — Archie Woods Case (1989 Hell's Staircase Incident)
* **1997** — Fletcher Family Case
* **???** — ???