Preternatural Investigation Branch

The Preternatural Investigation Branch (PIB) is a clandestine section of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that seeks to directly research and address parapsychological and preternatural phenomena within the United States. As a means of both public and internal deception for agents not involved in the PIB's cases, the organization is purposefully labelled the "Twelfth Division". 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".

The branch was formed 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) sometime in the early 1950s. As such, the PIB 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 FBI utilized its preternatural activities branch to start a concurrent operation alongside that of the Central Intelligence Agency's Project MK ULTRA. Entitled Project LAMPLIGHT, the PIB was deployed in a series of domestic operations into areas with reported anomalies and preternatural entities, building the core literature on the supernatural and parapsychological that would strengthen the then-novel branch into its current form. Information collected from LAMPLIGHT was intended for usage on subversive elements of American society during the Cold War, but instead built the foundations of understanding for concepts such as perireality and the Other, in addition to the fundamentals of anomalous entities.

History
Work in progress.

Uniforms and equipment
On the field and working in cooperation with other sectors of law enforcement, agents of the PIB are indistinguishable from other FBI agents of differing branches. 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 folded under the command of a unique Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) contingent of the branch independent from the FBI CIRG (known as the Preternatural Reaction and Containment Unit, PRCU) are issued all-black apparel and body armor. This often includes the usage of visors, headphones, and gas masks 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. 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 FBI and the Clausewitz Association, especially in cases where it is deemed necessary to neutralize anomalous targets. The only known example is the parapsychological Brugmann Device that can, with a nominal margin of accuracy, detect the presence of anomalous entities by artificial proprioception.

Personnel
Special agents that serve as a part of the Preternatural Investigation Branch of the FBI 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, 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 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 preternatural branch of the FBI, 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 non-PIB agents 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, 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.

Preternatural Reaction and Containment Unit
Main article: Preternatural Reaction and Containment Unit

The Preternatural Reaction and Containment Unit, or PRCU, is an elite division of the FBI's Preternatural Investigation Branch that operates independently from other tactical elements of the FBI, such as field office SWAT teams or the Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). As such, the PRCU is also independent of the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) of the FBI, which was formed in 1997.

Recruits for the PRCU mainly originate from specially trained PIB field agents. Alternatively, members are also chosen from SWAT teams and the 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 PRCU'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 PRCU's normal combat equipment, as noted before, include loadouts similar to FBI SWAT or HRT squads. However, due to the environmental or direct perils of some anomalies and entities, clearance has been given to the PRCU for the utilization of weapons such as heavy M2HB machine guns, explosives, and anti-materiel rifles. Additionally, many PRCU 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 this organization 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)
 * 1999 — Fletcher Family Case