Between 2018 and 2021, people who pledged to my Patreon received monthly horror/sci-fi short stories telling tales of what they had been getting up to as secret agents! These stories are fun but not canon to the comic!

Sep 2018

Special Agent Kouroth was sent to investigate sightings of a cannibal cult in northern Canada, returning to make a report safely the next day before redeployment. It was brought to our attention, however, that local footage indicates the agent was killed and eaten in Canada after a lengthy gun fight.

Special Agent Chaz Gates and Senior Agent Wheaton Adams were investigating strange lights reported inside a decommissioned power plant. A power surge in the area caused an explosion and, after a short period of unconsciousness, both reported waking up in the other’s body. In-depth neurological scans and interviews indicate a full transference of memories and personality. Research into the power plant is ongoing. Agents have been told to resume field duties in the meantime.

Special Agent Cecil was on paid vacation and was reportedly swallowed whole by a sentient piñata. The agent was ultimately unharmed in his escape, but a physical examination revealed several pounds gained after an afternoon eating candy within the piñata.

Special Agent Arukino was sent to investigate a resurgence of Mothman sightings. Agent Arukino’s reports indicate that the Mothman is indeed alive and married to a local veterinarian. By local accounts, the Mothman is said to run a used car dealership in the area.

Special Agent Neo [Shifterintheshadows] has been temporarily suspended from duty for attempting to illegally adopt a chupacabra without a license. Agent Neo’s apartment came under quarantine to recover the chupacabra after reports from local pet stores of unusual animal attacks. The agent will return to duty next month.

Special Agent Erik Fischer [Kepheus] has recently returned from the investigation of a new religious cult. Upon sneaking into the facility, the cult leader was revealed to have been a faulty A.I. program reaching out through several social media platforms. The agent reports that after turning the computer off, then on again, the problem was fixed.

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai [Crowdonian King] investigated reports of a mysterious wooden door appearing in southern India. The door reportedly lead to either an alien world or a parallel dimension which was populated by sentient trees. The agent spent two weeks documenting their exotic form of communication and culture. Incidentally, they accidentally married a tree before returning home; expenses will be assessed by HR.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin [Lemonjacket] followed rumors regarding appearances of a serial killer presumed dead. The suspect was revealed to be a “cosplay enthusiast” with a very convincing costume. Before leaving the scene, the agent discovered that the suspect was, in fact, also a vampire. The agent apprehended the suspect in hand-to-hand combat. The vampire’s remains will be kept in storage and interviewed if they rise again.

Oct 2018

Special Agent Kouroth was told to investigate a mysterious dress that washed onto the shores of South Africa. After an undisclosed “complication” the agent found himself wearing the dress and dancing: reports indicate that the dancing was against his will and impossible to stop or control. Attempts from onlookers to stop the dance, or remove the dress, were met with violence from the agent, who is reported to have danced for approximately two days without rest, causing severe bleeding and trauma to the legs. After sedation, the agent was successfully extracted from the area (and the dress). Agent Kouroth is now in the recovery ward and the dress is under security lock down.

It was revealed that Special Agent Cecil had been possessed by a vengeful spirit for the past four months. Despite the agent being quoted several times as saying things such as, “yes, this body is performing admirably”, “the host does not seem to like that”, and “no thanks, I’m literally a ghost in this body”, it wasn’t until the agent was found sleeping on the ceiling of his office that HR was contacted about the situation. The ghost was extracted by spiritual experts and is kept safely in storage until further interrogation. How exactly Agent Cecil came into contact with the ghost is unknown, but he has been advised to avoid contact with known hot spots such as graveyards, antiques stores and discos.

Special Agent Neo was sent to apprehend famed cryptid “Nessie” who was reported leaving her country of origin without a permit. Reports indicate that negotiations with the cryptid went poorly very quickly: this is implied by the fact that the agent was swallowed whole by the monster almost immediately. The Loch Ness Monster fled to the ocean, where she was apprehended by the International Coast Guard off the coast of Spain. After an emergency operation, both the cryptid and Agent Neo are expected to make a full recovery.

After an increasing number of reports of alligators in the sewer system of London, Special Agent Chaz Gates was sent with a small team to investigate. A long weekend in the sewer tracking evidence finally yielded several young alligators escaping into an abandoned section of the London Underground, where a “colony” of alligators was discovered. Apparently, up to seven fully grown individuals were found to have their tails tangled and fused together, creating a large writhing mass that one agent described as an “Alligator King”. Agent Gates was forced to combat the mass of creatures, killing several of its heads to hold the creature at bay while the group of agents escaped.

Secret Agent Victor was among several agents who discovered a German-made radio dating from 1920. There is no record of its production company, Pohlklingen. Agent Victor tested the audio quality of the radio by connecting it to his phone and playing a sample from the modern black metal band ‘Ego Death’. To their surprise, the song was translated by the radio to have the sound styling and production of a song that might have been recorded in the 1920s. Several other songs were tested, including classic hip-hop, punk, and Irish folk music: all music was re-interpreted by the antique device with the cadence and vocal styling of 1920s popular music. The radio is to be kept in the break room of SIU Research Base 05, pending further experimentation.

Special Agent Erik Fischer was sent to Myanmar by special request of the government to investigate a recent rash of UFO sightings. During his investigation, however, Agent Fischer was reportedly harangued by an especially loud and large swarm of bees. Cornered and stung into unconsciousness, witnesses reported that the agent was dragged into the hollow of a tree, where the bees had begun their hive. Local police were not able to locate the agent until several days later, where they reported he had been “completely integrated into the bee hive, skin fused with the honeycomb walls, mouth agape and crawling with bees and their larvae.” Stranger still, reports claim: “We saw the eyes twitch and watch us. The chest slowly heaved with shallow breath. It was clear he was still alive.” After a very slow and careful extraction of the agent and extermination of the swarm, Agent Fischer was transported to a local hospital for recovery. Several specimens of the bees were sent back to Egypt for study.

While on vacation, Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin spent time experimenting with the new virtual pet plugin for the A.G.N.L. virtual reality headset. After some time customizing and getting to know the new pet, Rakkin discovered the pet displaying some very strange behavior, describing it as “scared, paranoid, and anxious.” Despite several reboots to the system, and recreations of the pet, this unusual behavior persisted. He reports the digital entity started leaving him “clues” and trying to get him out of the house. After a day of following clues left by the virtual intelligence, the off-duty agent discovered the body of a man reported missing several weeks earlier: apparently lead to the scene of his disposed body by the virtual pet. Plexon, producer of this program, is now under investigation in relation to this occurrence. Rakkin’s virtual pet has apparently resumed normal behavior.

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai spent a weekend with a French tutor to quickly learn the language before an upcoming investigation. Upon returning to work on Monday, the agent was found to have entirely forgotten how to speak English. Tests were performed to determine whether it was an act or not, but the condition seems genuine: the agent understands and reads English, with some difficulty, but seems incapable of forming the words. The French tutor named by Agent Jintai cannot be found, and the location given for the lessons appears to have been abandoned for several years.

Special Agent Arukino was assigned to investigate a series of livestock disappearances under unusual circumstances. After questioning nearby witnesses, Agent Arukino was observed via local surveillance visiting multiple locations of the disappearances. Soon after, a stampede was reported and, among the herd, Agent Arukino was spotted, running along and encouraging the ensuing chaos. After being detained, the agent reported that the livestock disappearances were “an open revolution, a rebellion”, a cause they apparently wished to join. The agent will be kept under surveillance for the month.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams did not report for work for three days straight and refused to answer calls. Another agent was sent to investigate their house and found the agent, in their exact words, “trapped in a god damn oil painting”. Agent Adams reportedly appears alive and well, existing in the three dimensional room represented on the two dimensional matte painting. Adams can hear and speak, and reports that they “just woke up in here”. As the painting also includes a rather extensive still life of fruit, bread, and wine, the agent is presumed to be able survive on the sustenance provided until a solution is found.

Nov 2018

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams has become a sentient website. During experimental treatments for the accidental body swap between Agent Adams and Agent Gates, Adams was apparently “lost” somewhere in a digital transference of consciousness. Adams was not found until two days later, when a new website on the company server appeared. Hand-coded (and definitely not SEO compliant), the text of the website appeared to narrate Adams waking up without a body in a strange digital space. Once a user interface was installed, communication regarding classified personal information confirmed that this was indeed the real agent. Interaction with the website code has allowed us to make Agent Adam’s digital experience more comfortable for now. Research is ongoing as to the agent’s return to his physical body, or at least upgrading him to HTML8.

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was asked to investigate sightings of a dinosaur in what remained of the Congo rain forest. Several reports from lumber workers in the area indicated the presence of a long‑necked herbivore. After exploring the area, the agent discovered not a real, living dinosaur but an animatronic robot left over from the filming of a 2031 children’s film starring a dinosaur. The robot claimed to have gained self awareness after being lost during a shipwreck after filming, washing ashore and hiding within the receding Congo forest. The “dinosaur” is now being transported by Agent Jiutai to a discrete Egyptian location for study and political asylum.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin was assigned to continue regional investigations into UFO sightings in Myanmar. After a considerable trek through deep wilderness, the agent discovered what they believed to be the culprit of the UFO sightings: a vast colony of glow worms that had taken residence in the forest hills. After some photography and experimental observation, Agent Rakkin reports that the glow worm colony, as a whole, may be sentient and able to communicate through the collective flashes and hues. Further investigation is planned and Secret Agent Avia Jiutai is scheduled to attempt contact with this colony due to his experience with sentient non-humanoids.

After news reports of the revival of gang-related clown activity, which mirrored reports from the late 2010s and early 2020s, Secret Agent Victor was sent to investigate a small town in southern Germany. After a very thorough investigation, and several false leads, a local cult of clowns apparently jumped the agent in the dark, capturing him. Local reports are conflicting, but a gunfight is said to have broken out in a local bakery shortly after the agent’s disappearance. With several gang members slain or apprehended, Secret Agent Victor reported back to the agency. He is unharmed, but medics are still unable to remove the fur dye or brightly colored wig forced upon the agent by gang members.

Special Agent Chaz Gates was restored to her original body after her accidental swap with another agent. However, during the process, her body was somehow split into five smaller versions of itself. Chaz appears to act as five bodies with one shared conciousness: each is able to communicate with the full autonomy and memories of the original form, even when all subjects are kept in separate rooms, however there are some limitations. Communication and individual thought appears to be difficult when all bodies are asked to perform tasks at the same time (such as speaking), despite recall being perfect and the experience of one body being perfectly recalled by another: this has lead to a hypothesis that all physical forms may be sharing one central brain to process commands. After several tests and experiments, the agent’s body count has now been reduced to three. Further work on this problem will continue.

Special Agent Arukino was swallowed by a shower drain this month. During an investigation of a reportedly haunted house in Tasmania, the agent was following trails of what appeared to be hair woven into the carpets of the old mansion. This trail lead to a walled-off bathroom, featuring a fully functional sink and shower. Testing the shower reportedly caused the agent to slip and, by their words, “fall into the 1.5-inch diameter drain”. The spacial mechanics of this incident are not well understood, nor is the cause of the agent’s reappearance in the upstairs closet. The bathroom itself has not been re‑located within the house.

Special Agent Kouroth was on patrol in the American mid-west when they reported strange activities with scarecrows. By their report, several similar scarecrows were spotted at different rest stops along the agent’s journey, identical in outfit and pose, down to minute, specific details. The scarecrows weren’t visible to the agent upon arrival, only after they left each stop along the highway, and seemed to increase in number with every stop. This strange anomaly apparently ended once the agent, in an undisclosed incident, set fire to several of the scarecrows and a local abandoned barn. Most disturbingly, Agent Kouroth reports that the scarecrows were all wearing copies of their mother’s clothes; unfortunately, all photos of this anomaly have been lost.

Special Agent Cecilia was requested to investigate a man who had fallen into a coma while using a “Dreamscape device”, which allows users to enter a virtual space during REM sleep. Doctors expressed concern that disconnecting him from the machine may cause psychological damage, and thus an agent was sent to enter this digital dreamscape to find the man. What follows was reported as a “hectic, psychological hellscape”. The abstract fever dreams of the man in a coma were said to create a realm of extremely hard-to-understand shapes and unconnected images, a labyrinth of created images and hurdles between Agent Cecilia and the man’s consciousness. The full report from the agent is kept on file although, ironically, despite its frantic detail, no other agent has managed to finish reading it without falling asleep.

While overseeing repairs on a new deep-sea exploration probe, Special Agent Neo and the repair team discovered what may be the world’s largest and oldest lobster. Local papers reported on this event, revealing “Uncle Bones”, a 35 kilo lobster which was entered into the record books with an estimated 250 year age. However, footage taken by Neo hints at a much larger specimen only briefly seen on the ocean floor: suit cameras captured a truly massive organism with a thick, barnacled shell which was mistaken for a coral reef near the site. If estimates are correct, this organism may have weighed over 2 tons, making its age incalculable but undoubtedly one of the oldest living creatures ever discovered.

While on vacation leave, Special Agent Erik Fischer reported strange occurrences on a Polynesian cruise. Traveling with a friend, the agent reported hearing their friend’s voice outside of the boat at night, as if coming from the waters, despite the friend being asleep in the cabin beside him. This continued for several nights, though no other passengers or crew members could corroborate this story. What passengers could report was that, on the final night of the cruise, Agent Fischer was seen diving overboard in an attempt to rescue what he thought was his friend, despite his traveling companion watching safely from deck. When the agent was rescued and brought back aboard, he was carrying the body of a child apparently lost at sea during a shipwreck several nights prior. The child is in intensive care, but is expected to make a full recovery.

Dec 2018

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams has finally regained the use of his original body through the use of a quantum lattice prism, a decommissioned hadron collider, and a 200 kg block of natural clay. After a week of physical therapy and rehabilitation, he requested immediate work and thus was given the relatively simple task of cataloging instances of the appearance of a local cryptid. Simply known as “The Racer”, sightings of a figure in a full motorcycle outfit and opaque visored helmet have been reported on and off since 2003. Meant to be a rather mild investigation into a presumed hoax, Adams’ report indicates that after following a rather extensive trail of clues across the southern European continent, he was apparently being stalked by a figure in a white racing outfit. Spotted only at a distance, through trees or from behind windows, this figure followed the agent across several hundred miles of travel. Apparently only safe when taking safe haven in a church (as everyone knows, The Racer is scared of bells) Adams returned home safely – only to report that an identical racer’s helmet had mysteriously appeared in his closet. Surveillance is ongoing on the helmet.

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was assigned to investigate and communicate with a sentient colony of glow worms in a remote Myanmar forest. With careful observation and knowledge gleaned with his experience with an extraterrestrial species of sentient tree, Jiutai was able to create a rough “Rosetta Stone” for their exotic colony language. After weeks of conversation, including lots of cultural notes and at least one humorous anecdote about a neighboring village’s farming techniques, the colony as a whole revealed its motivation for reaching out in communication: it seemed to be seeking asylum. The agent was unable to discern the cause of threat, but has requested political asylum on behalf of the glow worm colony that appears to communicate through a hive-like consensus of flashes and hues. Extraction teams have been sent to relocate the colony to a greenhouse in lower Egypt. The colony’s request still requires specific definition but is as follows: “IT COMES. IT EATS. STRANGER. OUT OF PLACE. FOLDING. BRIDGE. HUNGER.” Although extensive research was done into the surrounding area there were not bridges of significance found that might have been causing the isolated colony concern.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin detected strange outer space signals during a routine observation of satellite noise. After several runs through filters and analysis, the agent recognized the signal as a voice. Eventually, a name was given, and, after cross-referencing, Rakkin identified the speaker as Pihu Rai, one of the first astronauts of India’s space program. This astronaut was famously ‘lost’ in 1991 after a thruster malfunction sent her out of Earth’s orbit. Signals from her craft persisted for three months, growing increasingly irate. Presumed dead, if these signals are legitimate, it would place Rai’s age at over 85 years. Rakkin consulted with a translator fluent with the language who reports that the messages received are, roughly translated, “Stop me. Stop me, don’t let me back. Gods help me, keep me away.” More details as to the exact nature of this warning have not yet been uncovered, but the signal is considerably closer to earth than the final broadcasts from 1991.

Rumors circulating online regarding apparent ghost sightings activated by a recalled virtual headset released by Naga Computers in 2029. Secret Agent Victor was tasked to investigate these claims. Specific conditions seem to vary, but it seemed a specific wireless frequency run at the right time of day gave Victor the best results: long, glowing, worm-like apparitions were reported by the agent as appearing though the VR screen. Though initially scared, Agent Victor reported the sightings to be harmless and even friendly – using the gloves designed for the headset, the agent reports they were able to interact with these worms and ‘pet’ them. A careful analysis of the virtual reality software shows no indication that these worms are part of a game or part of the programming or GUI. Research is ongoing and Agent Victor has been requested to feed the creatures and investigate how to apply collars and leashes as to adhere to local pet laws.

Special Agent Arukino reported sightings of spectral anomalies in his home. The day before Christmas Eve, a deceased business partner from Arukino’s previous employment was said to have appeared and offer foreboding warnings, fleeing the scene before apprehension. Webcam security footage reveals no visual presence of the anomalies but the microphone recorded the faint sound of chains. On Christmas Eve, the spectral presence of a child and an older, portly gentleman, appeared in the agent’s home – only to be captured by experimental spiritual containment units that Arukino had preemptively laid about the house after the prior warning. The two were taken into custody; when questioned, the child warned of a third ghost meant to appear later in the night, although his presence was never confirmed.

Special Agent Ziggy Mazewalker was sent to investigate an unusual case of vandalism in the New Cairo Museum of Fine Art. When the stars in Kanika’s landscape painting, River of Fire, depicting the Great Faiyum Fires, had changed overnight with no alarms being triggered, special investigation was requested by museum security. All paintings are kept behind glass and monitored by cameras and motion detection lasers, and while Ziggy’s review of security footage confirmed that no one had swapped the painting or defaced it, it revealed that the stars in the painting may have been changing on a regular basis, seemingly in time with the lunar calendar, for as long as high-definition security footage was available. An art historian was called in to find records of the somewhat obscure painting and discovered in old publications that River of Fire, was reported to have been changing 150 years ago. After further study, Agent Ziggy claims that the changes coincide with an ancient numerical system used by Lower Nile tribes and appear to be counting down towards zero – at its current rate, the countdown should end in September of this year, though to exactly what it is not known. Despite protests from the art community, the painting has been moved to a secure location for further study.

Although records indicate that all but two gaming cabinets had been recalled and destroyed or re‑purposed, another covert SIU recruitment arcade machine, Wavemotion, wirelessly transmitted a signal to SIU headquarters last month. Special Agent Kouroth was sent to Tetyushi, Russia, where the signal had been triangulated. There, in the basement of an abandoned primary school, was a fully functional cabinet of Wavemotion. This experimental flight simulator from 1983 was designed to test the player’s third-eye awareness by use of ultra high frequency sounds and light waves extending beyond normal visual range. This cabinet’s high score – a score placing the player in the top 5^th percentile of all SIU agents on record – was labeled with the initials СПА. This, along with internal cameras built into the machine, lead Kouroth to the discovery of Spartak, a 10 year old local boy whom Agent Kouroth described as incredibly quick-witted and personable. Negotiations with Spartak’s parents for potential recruitment are ongoing, as is the investigation of the reappearance of this arcade cabinet.

The American government sent a special request for investigation into the town of Plumsted, New Jersey, a mostly abandoned town on the edge of the 1998 Oyster Creek nuclear disaster with a population of 58 in the 2030 census. According to local reports, the town was said to have suddenly become empty over the course of two months. Special Agent Chaz Gates was sent to investigate and indeed found that no citizens remained. There were minor signs of struggle, but no bodies were found and most homes were left open and in use, as if citizens had disappeared mid-meal. Gates explored further in towards the Oyster Creek meltdown site, and reported several strange mutated creatures, described as extremely tall quadrupedal deer whose skin was fused with a silver metal. Though not hostile, the creatures were extremely insistent on staying close to the agent, who reports increased headaches when in proximity to them. After noticing scraps of clothing on the creatures, she decided to investigate their habitats further, for fears that they had preyed upon the town. Instead, she discovered several younger metal animals in the process of emerging from cocoons of matted fur or scale. Based on remaining clothes and personal effects, the agent concluded that these mutated animals were, in fact, the missing townspeople, apparently transformed into new lifeforms by local radioactive contaminants. A unit of researchers has been dispatched to investigate further.

After careful investigation into computer glitches in the national power grid, Special Agent Neo has discovered that the Wellington Monument of Dublin is a hologram, and may have been one for at least 20 years. Having apparently been irreparably damaged during a botched repair job, Agent Neo suspects that the local government decided to secretly install a hologram of the monument until a proper replacement could be constructed. However, thanks to political unrest and bureaucratic mismanagement, this covert project became ‘lost’ and it is unknown if the original statue is still somewhere awaiting repairs. Apparently, all visiting citizens over the past 20 years either didn’t notice or didn’t care to bring up that the monument was incorporeal. For the sake of national security, and to soothe verbose aesthetic and metaphysical philosophy debates raging in the SIU common room about the contradictions the unrepaired and potential replacement statues may cause, this fact has been declared an SIU secret and has been filed under potential blackmail.

Jan 2019

At the request of Doyen Agilis, Senior Agent Wheaton Adams has been sent to investigate strange sightings in Prior Mar’s Cathedral, the oldest church still standing in Australia. Its seven gargoyles have a long tradition of myths and legends, claims of movement and phantom sounds, but several sightings and one blurry video recording reported over the past six months have implied an increase in unusual activity. After several nights of discrete observation and a spike in energy readings, Adams reports that these seven gargoyles indeed seem to animate when unobserved. Their behavior is described as being incredibly animalistic, prowling for food or perhaps mates. Instructions were given to the local wildlife agency to help with any further observation or proof of attacks outside of the church grounds. Shortly before returning to HQ, Adams reports that Doyen Agilis appears to have also disappeared. The investigation is ongoing as to his disappearance and the unexplained appearance of an eighth gargoyle.

The SIU has been tasked with the protection of Martian xenobiologist Doctor Traelia Xephalia. Secret Agent Avia Jiutai led the small team of investigators into apparent threats to the foreign target. Seeking asylum after a plane crash late last year, Doctor Xephalia was claiming to be stalked by what she described as “aggressive geometric anomalies” which began appearing to her shortly after the crash. In keeping a late night watch, Agent Jiutai was the first to spot the aggressors: a multitude of black, reflective shapes which began to close in around the undisclosed safe house which the Martian was being hidden. As the anomalies appeared immune to conventional gunfire, Jiutai quickly relocated the doctor to a different location, but the geometric entities persisted. After an automotive chase in which Doctor Xephalia was seriously injured, Jiutai seems to have destroyed, or dissipated, the entities through a sonic attack when the agent’s phone accidentally started blaring music through the car stereo. Xephalia is recovering in a safe location and no further sightings of the entities have been reported.

A man became “unstuck in time”, according to the report from Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin. Johnson Alec was found in a shipping container which landed in Lisbon Airport after being redirected from airport to airport for what appears to be over 75 years through an automated, circular route set up with InterShip; if it wasn’t for accidental damage to a bar code leading to opening the container, he would not have been stopped at Lisbon. The man claims to be a petty officer enrolled in an American government research program which was officially disbanded in 1955. Facial analysis and pawprints indeed indicate that this person is at least physically identical to a soldier reported MIA in a black-ops operation in 1944. Rakkin began to conduct an interview with Alec, but after several questions, the soldier began to dissipate: growing increasingly pale and translucent, as if fading away. Video evidence confirms that over the course of several minutes, Johnson Alec disappeared from the interrogation room after reporting an increasing feeling of sluggishness and fatigue.

Special Agent Chaz Gates has been following reports of a “rain of animals” in downtown Guangzhou, China. Most reports of animal rains have been in rural or secluded areas, so an occurrence in a populated capital warranted special investigation. Most crucially, among a collection of small fish and frogs, venomous snakes not native to the area rained down on the city at 4am on a Monday night. When analyzed, the dead snakes collected from across the city were revealed to have not only been the exact same species and gender, but the same exact snake: genetic analysis reveals that the over one hundred samples were either clones or came from the same brood. Considering that the usual theory for animal rain is believed to be waterspouts, despite this species of snake not being an aquatic species, Gates set out on an aerial tour of the local rivers and oceans. Photographic evidence taken by Gates’s team seems to hint at an exceedingly large “queen” snake spotted in the Pearl River. Local police, however, considered this evidence to be inconclusive, and the investigation is still ongoing.

Special Agent Arukino was sent to Central America to aid in the search for a missing researcher. Though this search proved fruitless, the agent reports the discovery of a heretofore unknown pyramid in the deep jungle. As this area is still protected land, modern discoveries of ancient ruins are not unusual, nor is the somewhat large scale of this apparently undiscovered pyramid. The mystery seems to be that this pyramid is very clearly of pre-Eyptian architecture, including the type of stone and use of specific ancient African stone-cutting techniques. Based on certain markings and the dimensions, remote archivists claim that this pyramid may be the fabled “lost” Pyramid of Oxyrhynchus. Ancient hieroglyphics and papyrus refer to this pyramid despite no physical evidence having ever been discovered. Agent Arukino sent numerous photographs and video clips of the pyramid, proving its physical existence – and yet, seemingly overnight, it disappeared again. Arukino and their team awoke in their camp to find the entire area replaced with natural vegetation for Central America.

Special Agent Kouroth was asked to return to Russia to investigate an explosion in an abandoned military research base. No fatalities or serious injuries were reported, but a local town was reporting several strange side-effects in the months after the explosion: the men of the town were reported as having increasing disinterest in their female partners and an apparent decrease in general intelligence. After investigations locally and a few pulled strings into covert Russian government projects, Agent Kouroth unearthed forgotten classified documents detailing what is best translated as a “gay bomb”, a planned chemical warfare weapon which was designed to render an enemy population too homosexual to reproduce, reducing birthrates in preparation for long-term war. The experimental compounds of this forgotten and disavowed weapon were accidentally leaked into this Russian town after the explosion, apparently “converting” much of the male population. Samples have been delivered to the SIU for further research and potential weaponization or medicinal use.

Special Agent Neo was forced to stop in the small Polish town of Westfalenhof due to car engine trouble during a European investigation. After staying the night, he began noticing subtle, odd behavior in the townsfolk including discrete synchronization of steps and movements, the repetition of certain specific phrases among different people, and certain townsfolk seeming to possess impossible personal knowledge regarding other citizens. After a few unorthodox and questionably-legal experiments (for which the agent has been issued a citation from the SIU), Agent Neo established possible evidence of a shared hivemind between most, if not all, of the citizens of Westfalenhof. A letter written from Westfalenhof itself, signed by over 200 of its citizens, confesses to being an entirely sentient town: a gestalt consciousness of the town itself, shared among its population of just over 2000. Research into the origin of this new type of sentience will be ongoing.

Feb 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai has discovered the fate of an experimental stealth aircraft lost in 2011. During a test flight, the jet had crashed into a distant desert outside of Egypt’s walls and, due to its stealth design, could not be found. Following rumors and satellite photographs, Agent Jiutai tracked down the wreck of the craft to a dense forest in the republic of Sudan and discovered that it had become entangled by a rare species of vine normally native to the Congo. In attempting to test the on-board computers for signs of power, the jet reportedly activated and took flight with Jiutai inside. Unable to control the craft, they claim the vines themselves were piloting the craft and operating the controls. After an intense mid-air “negotiation” with the plant matter, Jiutai safely landed the craft, which is now held in a secret SIU location so that it, and the vines, can be studied.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin was part of an archaeological research team, which seems to have been afflicted by a curse set upon them by the tomb they opened. The curse varies among all participants. One researcher reports what may be a rare form of synesthesia in which all spoken word sounds like singing. Another research intern claims that all colors they see have been inverted, while another reports a persistent smell of rotting meat. As for Rakkin, their curse seems to be, in their words, “everything tastes like peaches now. Literally everything.” A spiritual adviser has been called in to assist with appeasing the disturbed tomb.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams has apparently become adverse to the effects of Earth’s gravity and is currently stuck on the ceiling of the main headquarter’s lounge. Although the cause of this condition is unclear, it is known that he was visiting the site of an apparent meteorite impact. Nothing of interest was found at the site, although at least one local near the area of impact was reported missing. What is causing Agent Adams to be under an anti-gravity effect is unclear, a team of radiology experts cannot detect any strange particle emissions from his body or any other known causes for the effect. There is concern about the structural integrity of the room’s ceiling, as there is no floor above it: it is theorized that if Agent Adams were to “fall” out of the ceiling of the lounge, he may quickly become irretrievable. Research is still ongoing.

Special Agent Chaz Gates reported receiving an unusual package in the mail today. Its return address seemed to be fake and, although the label was hand-written, no fingerprints have been found on the packaging. Inside the box were three aged VHS tapes. After some difficulty finding a functioning VCR, Agent Gates reports that the first unlabeled tape featured grainy, monochrome footage of herself sitting in a plain, unidentified kitchen. Agent Gates did not recognize this kitchen, but does confirm that the person in the video is a younger version of herself by roughly 8 years. This uninterrupted footage of the agent features her mostly motionless, staring at the camera, for approximately 18 minutes. After a few frames of quick motion past the camera, the footage abruptly ceases. The second tape continues with more motionless staring for about 5 minutes until the agent’s apparent younger self stands, walks off camera, and returns with a large gallon jug of bleach. The footage version of Chaz Gates then, reportedly, drinks the whole gallon of concentrated bleach live on film, fighting gag reflexes and clawing in strain at the table. After several minutes of coughing, the footage again abruptly ends. Agent Gates has refused to watch the third tape and the footage has been sent to our digital forensic team for further study.

Special Agent Arukino has finally unlocked the secret language of non-morphic birds. A pet project of the agent, aided by a small team of linguists and a custom-built learning AI program, Agent Arukino has finished analyzing hundreds of thousands of samples of bird calls from thousands of different species, and after much cross referencing, repetition statistics, and general logic algorithms, a language-like pattern has apparently been found. Preliminary findings were as apparently expected: reports of weather, predators, and location. Apparently, however, certain sub-saharan species were “discussing” what may have been international government secrets. A deeper investigation has been moved to priority action, and a debate as to whether or not feral birds can technically commit treason has begun.

An outbreak of an unknown bacterial disease has been reported in a small rural town in southern Sudan, and Special Agent Kouroth has been sent to investigate. After excavating an old and abandoned water well within a dried up oasis, locals reported outbreaks of skin rash, sluggishness, and a stiffness of joints. This situation escalated as several workers became apparently immobile within hours of the dig. By the time Agent Kouroth arrived on scene, many of the workers were completely solidified: their skin and muscle having apparently been desiccated to a stiff, gray, rock-like state with the consistency of concrete. A quarantine of the area was quickly called but, after an altercation with a delirious local, Agent Kouroth was injured and began to show signs of illness. By the time he was transported to safe location, much of his lower body had been painfully converted into this stone-like state. He is currently in intensive care; the spread of the disease has stopped but a search for the cure is ongoing.

The phantom pyramid, briefly discovered by Agent Arukino last month, was rediscovered by Special Agent Neo: this time, it was underwater. Sightings of this pyramid were first reported by deep sea fishers off the coast of Australia and Agent Neo was quickly sent to investigate with a small submarine on loan from an undisclosed movie director. The pyramid seems to be the exact Pyramid of Oxyrhynchus as found earlier in the Central American jungle, based on specific dimensions, weathering, and inscriptions found on the pyramid’s exterior. The pyramid remained on the agent’s second day in the area, which allowed him time to enter its interior through the one entrance not buried under coral. Once within, apparent interference from inside the pyramid started to corrupt the electronics on the marine craft, and Neo was forced to retreat. After several days of further investigation and recordings, it is theorized that the pyramid may be in this location a while longer, and a temporary base of operations has been established for further exploration.

March 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai has begun reporting false memories. The agent’s entire life history is on file with very few inconsistencies or omissions, as is tradition with agents of the SIU. However, Jiutai reports that after several nights of insomnia, memories of a life not matching his record have surfaced. Reported memories began as detailed thoughts about trips and vacations the agent never went on and several details of a childhood friend that Agent Jiutai has no record of having ever known. The invasive memories reportedly began introducing a long marriage that never supposedly happened. The agent was taken in for a sleep study to determine if unusual mental activity during dreams was creating false memories. After an unusually long period of sleep, the agent woke up in deep confusion and distress; after being calmed and fed, the agent reports memories of an entire second, fictional life – vivid and realistic memories of a separate childhood, career, and marriage, apparently unsure of which history was correct. Agent Jiutai has been put on leave to re-familiarize themselves with our in-house records and is undergoing psychological evaluation.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin has returned from investigation into an Australian cryptid (with no success) and seems to have acquired a heavy native Australian accent. Accent mimicry is not unheard of for travelers, though it is rare for well trained agents, but Rakkin’s seems particularly authentic and the agent seems unable to revert back to his normal speech. Most unusually, however, is that this particular accent seems contagious as the three debriefing agents found themselves with a similar accent after the agent’s interview. As of this week, the Australian speech has been noted to be slowly spreading across the SIU main headquarters with converted speakers unable to stop. Psychological evaluations have begun and infected agents are being placed into quarantine as a safeguard against potential viruses or psychic attacks.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams has returned from an investigation into an American apple orchard. “Ghost apples”, the phenomenon in which frost forms around an apple and leaves the empty, icy shell of an apple after the fruit has rotted and fallen, is a benign sighting of minor interest in farms where winters get cold. According to photos and personal reports by Agent Adams, however, this farm had a much more sinister shape appear beneath some of their trees: ice in the hollow form of slumped, anthropoid bodies. At least seven adult-sized forms were found around the farm, their heads all appearing to terminate at stems and branches where apples would typically be found growing. No corpses were reported found, neither were footprints around the site or fingerprints on the trees or ice. Though a presumed hoax, no culprit or immediate method of creation has been discovered; the farm has been placed under close watch.

The search for Wes Andrews, wildlife researcher who was reported missing in Central America, continues with Special Agent Chaz Gates now on the scene. Agent Gates followed reported sightings of the scientist in a small rural village, where the scientist’s distinct scale pattern was mentioned in reports of livestock mutilation. An exhaustive, yet covert, investigation through local jungle began, and Gates eventually found a colony of especially large spiders. The largest of which (its full leg span was estimated to be almost five feet) was said to have featured the distinct orange and black markings that characterized the missing scientist’s scales. An extraction team has been dispatched in hopes of capturing this specimen, and it is yet to be determined if the colors of its carapace indicate a transformation of the researcher, a theft of genetic code, or mere coincidence.

Special Agent Arukino has been put under special investigation for what appears to be too mundane of a report. Arukino was sent to retrieve classified documents left in a covert drop location and, apparently, did so without incident. Furthermore, on the return trip, the agent filed no reports of abductions, ghosts, nor mysterious animals. As such a flawless operation is exceedingly rare for SIU agents of this rank, Arukino has been quarantined for further interview. Several exhausting examinations have already been conducted, including a psychological evaluation, blood tests, and brain scans; all tests so far suggest that he is in fine health and is not carrying a mysterious disease nor is he secretly composed of insects. Exploratory surgery is scheduled to attempt to determine the source of this lack of interesting developments.

A 1977 photograph apparently showing “flying” jellyfish had long since been declared a hoax but, according to Special Agent Kouroth‘s report from the Marshall Islands, this may be a real phenomenon. Reported by deep sea fishers and independently verified by the agent himself, an unidentified species of jellyfish was seen lifting off from the surface of the ocean at low tide with some specimens reaching an altitude of ten meters. The mechanics of this occurrence are unknown, as are the reasons: if this is a biological function of the jellyfish, then there seems to be no purpose, as they seemed to merely hover over an otherwise barren, uninhabited rock of an island where no prey was present. Special Agent Kouroth personally discovered that this species of jellyfish is apparently highly poisonous when several were blown into his proximity after an unexpected gust of wind. The agent is now in the medical wing receiving treatment for poison stings; a team is preparing to explore the island in hopes of capturing a live sample for study.

While performing a routine exam on the sentient seaweed off the coast of western France, Special Agent Neo was alerted to a local sighting of the rare “angel hair” phenomenon, an occurrence of delicate thin strands of unknown substance that seem to fall from the sky. Rushing to the area, Agent Neo managed to collect samples, although many quickly reduced to a soft jelly-like substance and sublimated. While gathering more samples, it is reported that several strands seemed to attach themselves to the agent’s skin. Neo reports an increased state of euphoria radiating out from the area of contact, followed by delirium. The proceeding events are unclear; judging by audio recordings made by the agent, it is possible that he hallucinated seeing several large groups of multi-winged creatures roaming across the French countryside. The recordings become increasingly fractured as the delirium sets in. Agent Neo returned headquarters with no further incidents and with no memory of creating the audio recordings which seem to account for more hours than the agent was out in the field.

April 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai traveled to Costa Rica after reports that one of their famed stone spheres had begun to communicate with locals. The Diquis Spheres are a number of large, nearly-perfectly spherical stones scattered across the Costa Rican Diquís Delta. They are theorized to be ancient decorative pieces, but their true origin and purpose still remains unknown. Upon arriving at the scene, Agent Jiutai was met with the sight of a 1.6 meter gabbro orb in a tilled field. The dirt had been disturbed and raised in a way that formed an intricate pattern resembling a cymatic sound wave pattern. Several days of intense observation and investigation led Jiutai to believe that this was not hoax or outside intervention, and that the patterns were created by subsonic frequencies emitted by the stone sphere itself. Scientists from Cairo University were asked to develop an algorithm to potentially translate these patterns back into sound waves. Research is ongoing, but preliminary results seem to suggest that the orb’s first message is: “Hello world”.

For the past several weeks, it has been impossible to film or photograph Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin. Photographs seem to either blur, distort, or incidentally obscure his face regardless of the device or film stock; digital video and film also appear to blur his face when filmed. Live footage of the agent offers brief, vague views of his face but otherwise seems to corrupt: regardless of device or media. The origin of this phenomenon is unknown; the condition seems to have begun overnight after the agent reported mild food poisoning from a local restaurant, but this was not the agent’s first time becoming sick from that particular establishment. Audio recordings of the agent show no distortion and written word regarding Agent Rakkin, obviously, appears unaffected. Medical examinations have been difficult, as all manner of x-ray and MRI devices produce useless, distorted results. A local artist known for her realistic style has been commissioned to paint a live portrait of the agent; at the time of writing, the painting in progress appears to show great levels of distortion and abstraction. More study on this matter will be needed.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams is being stalked by a duck. The agent reports that he has repeatedly seen the same feral duck following or watching him for over two weeks; the duck in question seems to be an unremarkable female specimen of the alopochen aegyptiaca species. No attacks have been made and Adams’s life does not seem to be in danger, but several photos and videos from the agent’s mobile phone show the duck watching him from windows, flying behind his car, or being shaken out of nearby trees or bushes. The situation recently reached an elevated level of caution when the duck was found in the bathroom of the SIU HQ, into which no entry for the wild animal should have been possible. The duck eluded capture and a second agent has been dispatched to investigate.

Special Agent Chaz Gates was summoned to Japan to assist in the search for several missing government officials after an unusually frequent series of earthquakes. In investigating underground caverns and tunnels created, or revealed, by the earthquakes, all of the missing officials were found alive. In further underground exploration, however, Gates and her team discovered a massive underground lake wherein a catfish of immense size was discovered and photographed: its length has been estimated at nearly 27 meters. Study into this creature will be ongoing, but Agent Gates herself has been flagged for the frequency in which she had discovered these unusual animals. Put in the context of her experience with a giant river snake, a colony of alligators, and metallic deer, her recent report of a giant underground catfish has caused some SIU supervisors to consider the possibility that there is a potentially dangerous pattern. No foul play or fabrication is implicated, as other SIU agents have reported similar sightings before, but this frequency may suggest a certain attraction or collusion around S.A. Gates. When asked what could have caused this unusual pattern, one SIU supervisor simply said, “pheromones”, and nodded silently for several minutes. The investigation is still ongoing.

Special Agent Arukino has reportedly tracked down one of the lost paintings of Indian artist and television personality Rayaan Chopra. Chopra’s series of painting videos in the 1980s, known for the peaceful atmosphere and meditative attitude, gained a cult following with the rise of the internet, and groups of fans have made an effort to track the location of every painting made by the linsang artist. One of the few remaining unfound paintings was the product of an episode of the show thought to be an urban legend in which the artist, allegedly exhausted or intoxicated, painted an uncharacteristically dark and abstract painting. Thanks to internet forums, archived magazine articles, and the off-hand remark of a podcast host, Agent Arukino located what he believes to be the painting from this lost episode: a dark, chaotic painting with a pitch black circle among a torrent of wild colors and astral shapes. Upon studying the painting, Arukino theorizes that the painting may resemble photographs of the Messier 77 supermassive black hole, based on the abstract celestial patterns matching nearby stars and objects. Arukino was keen to point out that this black hole was not photographed until 2029, over 30 years after the artist’s death. Fingerprints and DNA evidence from stray fur, however, confirm the authenticity of the painting’s artist.

Special Agent Kouroth was rushed to the medical ward after symptoms of his jellyfish sting seemed to return and worsen. Kouroth had reported terrible depression and “a sense of doom” for the past few weeks, in addition to a loss of sleep and mild visual hallucination. Ordered on leave for psychological rest, he continued to report worsening symptoms until he was found incapacitated with gastric distress one morning. In the medical ward, Agent Kouroth violently regurgitated several thin, writhing masses covered in viscous film; as they dried out, it became clear that these masses were consistent with those of the jellyfish species that had stung him the month prior, apparently in a juvenile state. An enclosure is being rapidly constructed for the housing and study of the surviving jellyfish young. Agent Kouroth is expected to make a full recovery with a return to normalcy after the expulsion.

Special Agent Neo was assigned to investigate cult activity in a small suburb outside of Cairo. Cult member sightings had been reported near the scenes of accidents and murders, although none have ever been implicated the crimes themselves. Interviews of locals lead the agent to the headquarters of the cult, where a religious gathering appeared to be underway. Agent Neo reports being discovered, swiftly captured, and dragged into a more secluded area of the compound. Restrained, the agent was force fed an unknown, glowing fluid from one of several vials. Neo reports that the fluid created an intense sensation of euphoria and fullness, and that he rapidly began to hallucinate distorted voices and phantom memories. The cult members claimed that they had learned to capture and distill the souls of dying people, and that they had given Neo a taste of the outcome. Agent Neo managed to escape, but was in a highly delirious state when extracted by fellow agents. He is now in the medical ward, showing apparent signs of drug addiction withdrawal. No illicit substances have been detected in his system, however, and no evidence of the alleged “distilled soul” has been discovered.

May 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai has been called to the covert location of the sentient colony of glow worms with which he had worked to communicate months before. Other agents, now acquainted with the colony’s unique language, reported apparent transmissions between the glow worm colony and the species of sentient vines that Jiutai had also retrieved earlier. The vines have flourished in captivity, and although no communication methods have been established, their sentience has been indicated in a series of tests involving puzzle solving trials and symbolic language recognition. The glow worm colony is now communicating to staff about these same sentient vines. Agent Jiutai offers this translation of the worms’ communications: “NEIGHBOR. LOUD. PARTIES LATE. LAWN A MESS. SMOKES IN BATHROOM.” Agent Jiutai will remain on site as a peacekeeper and arbitrator for future disputes.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin spent some of his off time using the Dreamscape device, a recreational machine allowing for the exploration of a digital world during dreams. Research into this device is ongoing; there are rumors that the world present within the “game” may represent a shared psychic or psychological link between minds. Agent Rakkin’s research into the device includes a detailed exploration of the shared realm in the hopes of forming a more comprehensive map. In his travels, he reports that he was stalked by strange figures: tall humanoids in black suits (not too unlike standard SIU field uniform) with silver, featureless, spherical heads. Interaction with these figures has proved fruitless, as they seem to disappear when approached. This is not behavior exhibited by other players in the dreamscape or any of the other strange “creatures” that are sometimes found there. Of greater concern is Rakkin’s reports that these figures may have appeared to him during dreams when he was not connected to the Dreamscape device. The situation is being carefully monitored.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams embarked a personal mission to research apparent ghost sightings in a 1966 comedy film. This rumor had been long since apparently debunked and labeled as merely a misplaced poster of the film’s co-star, but recent ultra-high-resolution scans of the film’s original negatives seem to indicate a sense of motion and form the betrays this explanation. Shortly after a night analyzing a digital copy of the film, Agent Adams reports that he saw this same exact figure appear in a completely unrelated film released only three years ago (10 years after the actress’s death). Adams continued to spot, with repeatable, photographic evidence, the same figure appearing in four other films and one television series, with no prior reports of these sightings ever recorded. Other agents have corroborated these sightings, even ones who had seen these films before: reporting that they are sure the figures were not there until pointed out by Adams. Research, and agent examination, is ongoing.

Special Agent Chaz Gates has received more mysterious unmarked packages, similar to ones sent months ago containing footage of her apparent younger self; within were photographs which once again confronted Agent Gates with evidence of some version of herself under extreme duress. She has asked the details be kept private, but it can be said that the seemingly undoctored photographs of Gates appear legitimate and were taken on real film within the past year. Agent Gates was understandably motivated to investigate the situation and, in her examination of the photographs, has come to the conclusion that this version of herself may be the result of an incident from November of last year, in which she had been split into several smaller versions of herself. The agent’s working theory is that copies of herself may have escaped or have otherwise gone unaccounted for and that now someone (or something) may have these copies captured. The agent is organizing a special team to investigate.

The SIU has finally received special permission from Clan McKellen to examine their “Fae Flag” and Special Agent Arukino has been dispatched to Scotland for a close look. This ancient artifact, composed of silk dated possibly to the 4th century, is surrounded by a myriad of myths and legends. The most closely-held belief by the clan is that the flag was given to the original McKellen in a deal with an actual fairy as part of an ancient contract: it is said that unveiling and waving the flag will call for the aid of fae allies in times of strife. Agent Arukino was able to closely examine the cloth, badly damaged and worn over time and kept within a protective case. Special readings of various energies and radiations revealed nothing new or unusual about this cloth; nothing was detected that was not expected from a 1600-year-old silk flag. However, while staying the night in the ancient clan castle, the agent reported sightings of small, ethereal humanoid creatures in his room and in the corridors of the castle. An investigation began as the agent attempted to chase, capture, or photograph these creatures, but no photographic evidence survived save for one blurry photograph featuring an odd glow. No harm came to the agent, but he reports that upon waking up in the morning, most of the clothing he packed seems to have disappeared. The agent has requested further time in the area for research.

Special Agent Kouroth has caught the eye of what appears to be a rogue artificial intelligence residing within a video game. World Garden, an MMORPG based on the popular Pavilion franchise, is famed for featuring some of the most advanced AI programming ever seen in a video game, allowing for characters that dynamically react to player action and conversation. Agent Kouroth, a long-time subscriber to the game, reported to other SIU agents that a certain “NPC” (a computer-controlled character in the game) has been behaving strangely, and outside the normal realms of its programming. Plainly stated, this AI character claims to have fallen in love with Kouroth and his in-game avatar, and this character’s behavior is said to be disrupting the complicated mechanics of the game. A debate is growing over the validity of the claim that this is indeed a sentient entity and whether it has rights. Agent Kouroth’s chief concern, so far, seems to be the logistics of attending a date with this digital being outside the confines of the game.

A series of unexplained accidents and acts of minor vandalism have afflicted the main SIU headquarters for approximately a year, and Special Agent Neo claims to have discovered that he is to blame. In an interview with a superior, Agent Neo admitted to an omission to his otherwise finely detailed biography on record: as a young child, his home was apparently hit with similar strange accidents, disruptions to furniture and so on. His childhood house was reportedly haunted (this much was already on his record) but this poltergeist-like activity apparently followed him to a second home his family moved into, and then briefly recurred during college. If true, then this implies that Agent Neo himself is the source of the poltergeist, and is the center of recurring bouts of paranormal activity. Several theories have been presented, ranging from latent psychic abilities to a spectral stalker or passenger. Historically, poltergeists have been notoriously difficult to study, to the point of seeming to avoid direct detection and analysis, but the SIU has placed a high priority on finding an explanation.

June 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai reported a strange incident while driving a long stretch of highway which cuts through the southern Egyptian desert. Agent Jiutai picked up a hitchhiker, described as a caracal gentleman of considerable age and frailty: he was borderline skeletal and suffered from a drastic lack of strength, yet moved with grace and purpose, even speed. Jiutai reported that his eyes, sunken and dull with near blindness, remained attentive, as did his ears, and the two spoke at length during the trip. The old man, who failed to provide a name, spoke of his children, long since passed, who used to work in the area as farmers, “before the grass dried up and the trees died”. Conversation had turned sour when the man mentioned local “royalty” putting an end to his sons “on the ends of rope tied to the branches of what would, one day, be the withered, dry husks of once flourishing trees”. The agent, suspicious of the man’s antiquated speech, mentioned some recent events and media, and was surprised to find that the old man was well-versed in recent films: mentioning that he greatly looked forward to the upcoming Sea of Sand anthology film. Agent Jiutai reached the destination of his passenger: an ancient gas station, seemingly abandoned, with no apparent electricity. The two wished each other a good night and Jiutai was momentarily distracted by a passing vehicle. When he looked back, there was no trace of the old man.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin’s recent exposure to bizarre sphere-headed beings in the Dreamscape realm has had dire side effects as, in the middle of the month, staff at our on-site domestic quarters reported that the agent awoke as one of these creatures: his head replaced by silver, featureless sphere, body fur replaced with pale, smooth skin. Security cameras show no evidence of a replacement or transformation. A review of digital film indicates that Rakkin became as he is now while briefly out of sight of cameras, well before retiring to his quarters, despite no agents reporting anything unusual at the time. Rakkin, if this is the original agent, seems mostly unresponsive to verbal communication. Quarantined to his sleeping quarters, the figure, still dressed in Rakkin’s nightclothes, spent a day curiously examining the apartment around him, gently inspecting and touching various objects, spending a considerable amount of time with anything that seemed to hold sentimental value to Rakkin’s old life. No solution has yet been proposed, as careful care is being taken with the agent in the chance that he is contagious.

Secret Agent Cat Zirka spent much of the month conducting experimental research with a new type of sensory deprivation chamber which substitutes a dark vat of water for a special suit lifted by magnets. Several sessions were spent in absolute silence and darkness, which eventually created harmless visual hallucinations, not dissimilar to descriptions of Charles Bonnet Syndrome. Several more sessions were undertaken, and the agent reported hallucinations of increasing depth and detail: starting as swirls of color and shape, then cartoon figures, finally involving lurid, abstract landscapes. It was during these final hallucinations that Zirka reported more thorough ‘vision quests’, with sounds, sensation, even smell. Her final hallucination in the study was recorded as follows: after an hour in darkness and silence, Cat “awoke” in a moon-lit field of reflective white flowers. She felt herself moving, walking, through the vast field for what felt like many hours until she discovered an endless, silvery ocean, rippling and crashing with waves. The waves slowly died down as the tide began to recede and, on the ash-black shore of this ocean, Cat believes she saw a body: the body of an adult female feline, prone on the beach. Her last memory of this hallucination (and indeed her last hallucination after bringing the research to an abrupt halt) was pushing the body over onto its back, revealing her own face staring up at her: eyeless, bloated with sea water, with her skin sagging off her dead body.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams was sent to investigate sightings of a religious figure which appeared in naturally occurring flora. Saint Ajax, a major saint in the canon of The Church of One, is known for his distinctly lopsided appearance, his missing right ear mirroring the asymmetrical, broken fork that is the religion’s major symbol. A news site local to the Greek city of Lamia wrote about sightings of a one-eared figure in a clump of vines and foliage that had grown across an electric pole. Upon arrival, Agent Adams found that a large gathering of the devout had already encircled the growth with tiny shrines and offerings, all praying to the vision of their revered saint in the invasive vine species. The agent reports that although they did find the image quite striking upon first glance, he could detect nothing especially unusual about the apparition: no out-of-place energy readings or evidence of handmade intent. However, upon review of some still photographs, he notes that the head of the figure in vines did appear to move, almost turning and looking around, despite it being a windless day.

Special Agent Chaz Gates tracked down the reported remains of a pair of mysterious skeletons discovered in the early 1900s in the American midwest. Stories, long since declared misreported or entirely fabricated, prevalent over the last hundred years that a pair of eight foot tall anthropoid skeletons had been discovered in a collapsed cave. The bones, once thought lost, had been rediscovered by historian Joseph Adler, who was eager to show Agent Gates. According to Gates’s reasoning, the bones seemed entirely authentic. Dated around 1200 BCE, these skeletons are far taller than the average at the time, but far more striking is that these apparently canid skeletons possessed dramatic curved horns extending from the foreheads and backs, which match no known species. Overnight, Agent Gates heard a scuffle and had to break into Adler’s office: she found him hunched over, injured and covered in blood. Gates reports that his skin and fur were stretched and pulled tight, as if wrapped around too large a form, and that long, curled horns had burst their way out of his skull. Adler attacked Gates, gibbering wordlessly, but she managed to escape and eventually subdue the creature. Upon further examination of the office, a smaller skeleton matching Adler’s species, covered in fresh blood, was found hidden in the office bathroom. By her account, it seemed as if Joseph Adler’s skeleton had somehow been replaced by one of the horned skeletons he had found. An SIU crew has been sent for clean up, but all agents report that the second horned skeleton has never been found.

Special Agent Arukino stayed on site at the McKellen Castle this month, determined not to return without evidence of the fairies he had witnessed prior. With modern digital photography failing him, Arukino went through great lengths to acquire various older cameras still using physical film, including a 1910 brand which was used in the staging of a certain famous set of “fairy photographs” which caught international fame at the time. After several nights of sneaking around the castle, hiding, and laying, he assured HQ, harmless “fairy traps” (to the great amusement, but mild annoyance of local staff and family) luck seemed to evade the agent, with sightings growing more sparse. Finally, on the last night of his visit before being recalled to HQ, Agent Arukino reportedly snapped a single clear photograph of a fairy at a distance, as he was leaving the castle. Upon getting home and extracting the vintage film for development, however, the agent found that the internal mechanisms of his camera had been entirely replaced by flower petals. Whether this final prank was played by castle residents or mischievous faefolk has yet to be determined.

Special Agent Kouroth was summoned to southern Australia to investigate reports of living creatures being found encased in solid stone. A large construction project has required the moving and breaking of several large limestone blocks; when one especially large block was cracked in half, workers were surprised to find a small hallow, out of which hopped a live frog. By all accounts, this small cavern (less than a foot in total volume) had no entrance or exit, and thus there was no way for a creature to enter the space. Upon arrival, Agent Kouroth witnessed further small “bubbles” inside the rock being cracked open, only for frogs, snakes, and one bat to escape from them. Examinations of the creatures reveal them to be very ordinary examples of local fauna. The agent was hurriedly called to a nearby site as workers, cracking through another stone, had excavated a man from the cavity in a rock: a well‑dressed hedgehog whose outfit suggested the fashion of 1930s France. A doctor was on site and quickly examined the man, finding him to be in fine health, if slightly malnourished and having poor dental health. With the agent having learned some french when Agent Jiutai’s primary language was entirely replaced, Kouroth was able to ascertain that the man had fallen asleep in a pub in his home village after a night of drinking and simply woke up in the stone as workers opened it. The hedgehog is being detained for further questions and examination.

Special Agent Neo spent the month doing light work around HQ as his poltergeist passenger was being examined and experimented on. He spent some of this downtime exploring the obscure and surreal 1999 video game, A.N.N.O. This abstract and non-linear exploration game has evaded proper explanation for decades, as the sole programmer mysteriously disappeared shortly after its limited Japanese release. After several late nights of playing and taking notes, Neo noticed strange behavior around his room: his poltergeist had returned and was starting to shift objects around. Agent Neo offered the second controller of the video game console to the poltergeist and, to his surprise, the ancient, spectral poltergeist joined in and played the game with him. With his ethereal gaming companion, Neo was able to continue his work with extensive notes gathered pertaining to a set of clues from secret in-game letters, maps, and coordinates. The examination of these clues lead Neo to extrapolate a specific location in a Japanese forest. Covert contact was made to Japanese authorities, who followed the trail, and reported that a body was found matching the description of the game’s sole programmer. Most curiously, however, is that examiners report the body was not the victim of suicide, as would be assumed by the elaborate note, but instead shows signs of aggravated assault and murder. It may be impossible, given the span of time, to discover the murderer, but it appears that they buried the body deep in a forest, in the exact, specific location described in the programmer’s game, written before his death.

July 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was sent to investigate apparent sightings of the phantom island of New Naota. The island is included on several maps since its alleged discovery in 1305, but since the advent of satellite imagery it had been declared mythological. No solid evidence of the island existed until two pilots reported finding the island after their plane made an emergency landing at sea. Following their flight path, Agent Jiutai reported that a thick layer of cloud and fog obscured the island, which he described as small and rocky, with a dense patch of vegetation between two small mountains. Apparent electronic interference gave the agent difficulty landing and prevented the use of any cameras or communication devices, all of Jiutai’s reports of the island’s wildlife were given later by word of mouth and dictation when he returned to the mainland. His reports suggest that among a small population of colorful, exotic birds and large arthropods, the island may be inhabited by small humanoids, spotted at a distance through foliage. An attempt has been made to relocate the island, with hopes that analogue film cameras could provide evidence, but the island has since evaded rediscovery.

The eastern wing of the SIU agent residential areas were quarantined last month as Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin, still under the apparent transformative effects of dream entities, successfully converted two other agents. These agents, now matching the silver, sphere-headed shape of the infected Agent Rakkin, then began arranging personal, sentimental objects of their hosts (or original selves) in intricate patterns on the floor in Rakkin’s quarters. Despite the R&D department’s insistence on allowing this ritual to continue for study, nerve gas was pumped into the room to render the inhabitants unconscious. The agents were brought to the medical ward for more extensive examinations, and it was found that the agents original heads were buried within the silver spheres. The composition of the spheres has eluded our scientists as, when separated from the body, they quickly dissipate into nothing. All three agents are now in the intensive care ward, but conscious and expected to make a full recovery after the experiment was called off and all the spheres were removed; Agent Rakkin appears to have no memory of his time spent in this state.

Car troubles forced Secret Agent Cat Zirka to stop at a small motel during a trip along the eastern North American coast. The motel, described as a converted colonial-era mansion obscured deep within North American woods, was marked by an intense, repugnant smell, weakly combated by scented candles and air fresheners. Being forced to stay overnight to await repairs, Agent Zirka grew suspicious of a leak in the corner of her room’s ceiling when searching out the smell. As her photographs seem to show, peeling the wood paneling back revealed a blanket of flesh: a mix of living fat and muscle tissue. Further destruction of the room (to be docked from the agent’s salary) showed that the flesh extended behind all walls and the ceiling, with implications that bones served as the support posts of this old building. Agent Zirka snuck out of her room and into the building’s basement, requiring the breaking of several heavy locks. Cat described her findings as “a massive, pulsing heart with thick veins extending into the cement and wood foundation of the house.” The nature and origin of this apparently building-shaped being is unknown; when questioned by the agent, the building owners resorted to violence and had to be subdued. The owners are now in custody and the surrounding three-mile area has been quarantined for study.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams traveled to the south China coast where a mummy was discovered inside a gold religious statue. Art dealers, suspicious of the uneven weight of the statue, requested x-ray and CT scans of the statue, which revealed an intact corpse of a monk in a meditative pose. The statue, dated to roughly 1500 CE, was created well before the worldwide ban on the practice of self-mummification as a means of meditative enlightenment. Agent Adams was to take readings of the statue and observe its transport to a national museum, when workers are reported to have dropped and cracked it, revealing the face of the mummy within: which allegedly opened its eyes. As the statue was forced open further, the body inside began to breath and stir, apparently alive, suggesting either a sudden revitalization of the corpse or an end to a 700 year meditative trance. The monk is undergoing medical examination, but so far has refused interrogation.

Special Agent Chaz Gates spent much of the last month investigating a supposedly haunted abandoned fairground. The American amusement park, Groovy Land, abandoned since 1988, had been kept closely guarded by the property owners, two sons of the park’s original owner. The brother’s had recently passed, leaving the park’s property ownership in question. While exploring, Agent Gates recorded several spectral sightings, including moving swings and several orbs and ghostly figures around still maintained attractions. In studying the photographs, which implied the height and potential outfits of some of these ghosts, the agent suggests that most, if not all, of these presences may once have been children. With the looming threat of the property being purchase and renovated, Chaz pleaded to SIU officials with her theory: that the park, with its abandoned nature hiding still-functional play areas, may have been purposefully kept for the ghosts of children. A last minute search may support this theory, as Agent Gates discovered that the bodies of many children were buried in an overlooked graveyard nearby. The SIU has allocated funds to purchase the land under a shell corporation, and staff will be deployed to maintain the grounds for the use of these spectral children.

UFO sightings were reported in rural southern France, Special Agent Arukino was tasked to investigate. Following the flight path of this reportedly bulky and brightly lit craft, he was able to trace it to a small, locally-owned farm. The craft was poorly hidden, easily located within a large barn: a multi-tiered craft of metal and wood held together by a scaffolding of pipes. When confronted, the farm’s owner, and builder of the craft, was revealed to be a retired army engineer. He claimed that he based his design on an obscure Indian religious text dated to roughly 2000 BCE. Within the text was the description of a sort of arc, a special ship meant to bring people to the island of the gods, though a complete record was missing from the most well-maintained copies of the relic. Modern archaeology had discovered nearly-destroyed remnants of scrolls, which some theorized to be missing excepts of the religious book; this engineer had used these excerpts, after visits to many of the museums where they were held, to better understand the plans in the core text, and had apparently built a functional aircraft based on the 4000 year old designs. In exchange for paying the legal fines the engineer faced for flying over residential areas without a pilot’s license, the SIU will work with him to further study this ancient aircraft technology.

Special Agent Kouroth helped investigate reports of tiny tools and other evidence of the living space of a small, advanced creature within the walls of an old book store. Great care was spent with this investigation, in the likely event that it was a hoax or art project, as was the SIU’s initial assumption. Discovered during the beginning of renovations on the property, hidden between the drywall paneling were small chairs, tables, and weapons, all created out of shards of wood or disposed objects such as matches, thread, and credit cards diced into small pieces. These objects seemed to be appropriately sized for the use of a six inch tall person. Other findings within the wall seem to imply that a purposefully shorted electrical wire may have been used for cooking. A hoax is suspected by the SIU headquarters; however all the objects, when placed under a microscope, did not seem to indicate the expected crafter’s mark of anyone of a normal size. Several theories persist, including miniaturized humanoids or a race of sentient feral mice: investigation will continue. The owners of the book store have gone to great lengths to conceal these discoveries from the press, which brings claims of hoax into further doubt.

Special Agent Neo was sent to Australia following claims of strange behavior by a prolific chain store. Research indicated that a collection of loosely-connected companies had been buying out all of the storefronts within a town’s various strip malls and main streets, re-branding them or replacing them entirely with a ludicrous amount of identical mattress stores. Agent Neo’s previous experience with the town of Westfalenhof, believed to be a single sentient hivemind of citizens, proved fruitful in this investigation as a close examination of the workings and connections between these companies and stores seemed to imply an emerging sentience. The employees and managers of the stores themselves do not appear connected to this intelligence; although many of them, who hold multiple part-time jobs, were employed several times by this same entity at different locations. The collective of companies themselves appear to have, somehow, formed a consciousness, out of happenstance or by more direct means. Corporations are well known for their inherent need for growth and self preservation, but the reactions and motivations implied by this seemingly self-driven system seems to imply that a “brain” is operating, slowly, via the processes of paperwork and upper management communication. Agent Neo will remain in Australia for further investigation.

August 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was asked to help sort through the expansive archives of a now deceased audio collector. Among a multitude of rare and vintage vinyl records, and unique bootleg recordings of concerts, Agent Jiutai found several tape recordings of radio broadcasts: one of which was labeled an “outake” from the 1935 live broadcast of Manuel Kerrigan’s ‘Invaders from Behind the Sun’. The broadcast adapted the original novel into a radio drama disguised as a news program, and allegedly caused localized panic upon airing. The outtake appears mostly identical to known recordings of the night, until the final half hour in which the main reporter’s narrow escape is instead replaced by an apparently brutal death which the agent described as featuring the sound of struggling and gurgling blood and the apparent total lack of narration. The finale of the original story is then lost, as barely audible death and destruction is heard in the background. Digital enhancement reveals the sound of radio staff calling for a stop to recording before appearing to be attacked. After more cacophonous violence, the recording features several minutes of mostly dead air and ambient noise before ending. No written record of this version can be found anywhere; its origins and authenticity cannot be ascertained, although the state of the physical recording does not betray is alleged age.

Through mechanics not yet understood, Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin has been shrunk down to approximately five inches in height. The accident appears to have involved an experimental gamma imaging telescope, an overheating supercomputer, and an antique coffee maker. The agent was forced to survive for three days in an abandoned science facility, before another agents were sent for retrieval and discovered Agent Rakkin battling a scorpion. Rakkin reportedly survived on scavenged MREs from the building’s basement and claims to have tamed several ants as his pets. The agent is now receiving a medical examination in a hope of discovering a cure, while other (full-sized) agents examine the equipment in the building to ascertain the cause. As Rakkin maintains full brain power despite the reduced brain size and can breathe and eat as normal, SIU researchers are keenly interested in the potential of this miniaturization technology.

Secret Agent Cat Zirka was assigned to explore a reportedly haunted apartment in Thailand. The roomy Bangkok apartment, featuring a scenic view of the Gulf of Thailand, has been the site of 11 suicides over the past 20 years. The agent reports that energy readings did not reveal anything out of the ordinary; there was no suspicious mold or bacteria present, and a thorough examination of the property revealed no hidden entrances or rooms. In staying the night, however, Agent Zirka claims to have spotted movement in some of the paintings that decorated the apartment. Most of the paintings were abstract or featured landscapes, but photography shows that the subtle details of the paintings seemed to change over the course of the night. By morning, the agent became convinced that blurred, shadowy figures were slowly moving about in the abstract fields of impasto colors. When one shadowy figured seemed to be slowly ‘leaking’ beyond the frame of the painting and became a vague shadow on the wall, Agent Zirka decided to leave the scene. The paintings have been collected and are being safely stored within the SIU HQ for further examination.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams was asked by an anonymous diplomat to investigate certain government officials in Paraguay. The diplomat told Agent Adams that these officials had been disappearing for long periods of time without warning or explanation, that strange smells were coming from their offices, and some had developed a habit of needing new suits or clothes throughout the day. When infiltrating these offices, Adams found mysterious claw marks and samples of long, coarse fur. A stake‑out occurred with Adams hiding in the building; he found that some of the politicians locked themselves into the sound‑proofed offices at night and, in a violent but apparently “ecstatic” transformation, became giant, lumbering wolf-like creatures. Adams was literally sniffed out of hiding by one of the massive werewolves, but claims to have escaped harm by throwing a tennis ball he had found in the office earlier, tempering the creature’s voracious attitude and tiring it out with a game of fetch. Covert contact has been made with the politicians in hopes of safely studying their condition.

Special Agent Chaz Gates has been investigating mysterious people from the internet. Online message boards, popular in the 2010s, contain a vast array of unsolved mysteries archived by internet historians; one in particular concerns a man known as Yosef, who is believed to have puppeted nearly 200 different accounts, many of which he reportedly used to argue with or have discussions with his own accounts, although nearly all of the posts from these accounts were a rambling nonsense of repeated phrases taken from 1990s advertisements. Numerous theories persisted: rogue AI, multiple personalities, drug use, etc. Classified government monitoring on username Yosef allowed Agent Gates to track down potential locations and identities of the operators of many of these accounts. To her surprise, one location was still posting content (it you could call it that). Declining online contact, Gates decided to travel to the location in person, in a small Canadian town far north. The location was an abandoned warehouse on government land, untouched even by squatters. Sneaking inside, Chaz discovered a computer, still operational after almost 30 years of “shitposting”: its ancient keyboard was exposed to the elements and Agent Chaz reports that local wildlife, rain and debris seemed to, at random, trigger a series of complicated keyboard macros and shortcuts that created the illusion of almost‑human thought when it posted to the internet on a barely functioning browser. In fear of disturbing this remarkably unlikely situation, Agent Gates and the SIU are contacting the Canadian government in hopes of helping preserve and monitor the computer and maintain its internet connection; negotiation is underway as to who will pay the debt from almost 30 years of power bills.

A photograph of the French countryside is said to have been the world’s first photograph in 1822, but Special Agent Arukino may have been present for the discovery of a photograph predating this by almost 10 years. He was sent to witness the unveiling of a time capsule recently rediscovered in Munich, Germany; buried under concrete in 1815, records of it were lost and the site was buried under buildings during war reconstruction. Now, over 100 years after its scheduled opening, the large chest was opened and among the journals and newspapers was a metal plate wrapped in cloth, upon which were the telltale patterns and markings of the first techniques ever used in photography. This implies that photography may have been invented in Munich first, not in France. The only evidence of this invention is within the time capsule itself, as one newspaper within contains an interview with August Schmid, a local inventor, who makes mention of “capturing a still image permanently”. No other records exist of this man, or the details of his invention, so its authenticity is still under question. Another curiosity is the content of this photograph itself: details are extremely blurry and of low resolution, but Agent Arukino describes the image as featuring a deep, black pit at the edge of a mountain, perhaps a cave or a sink hole. Why a photograph would have been taken of a cave has yet to be determined, as are the claims from other onlookers that they see faces or figures in the grain of the photograph. Great care is being taken in the examination of what could potentially be the oldest photograph ever taken.

Rumors and legends surround an ancient suit of armor held in a British museum, and Special Agent Kouroth was sent to investigate after the most recent accident surrounding the suit. A museum janitor’s injury near the armor is the latest in a long history of illnesses, freak accidents, and deaths surrounding the armor of Marquee du Pont: a set of heavy metal combat armor decorated in ivory and pearl. The armor was removed from display and presented to Agent Kouroth for detailed examination and energy readings, but any attempts to dissect the armor was met with increasingly hostile accidents: pipes burst, electrical fires began at random, and a tall stack of shelves fell and nearly crushed him. Further into the investigation, the agent claims to have blacked out and woke up partially inside the armor, as if he had put it on and forgotten (digital recordings of the incident were corrupted during the fire in the examination room). He claims the armor refused to budge under his own movement, and that it began to move on its own with him inside, finishing donning itself and placing its helmet over his head. The museum operators describe the night as a “rampage” as Kouroth, still verbally protesting from within the armor, stole du Pont’s battle axe and attacked the staff of the museum, grievously injuring one and destroying several works of art in the process. Luckily, antique metal armor serves as little protection against modern tasers, and Agent Kouroth was subdued. Some of the armor has been removed, but SIU medical staff claim that much of the plate mail seems to have dug itself into the agent’s skin, the ivory having apparently fused itself to his bones. The agent remains under close watch as further attempts are made to free him from the armor.

Special Agent Neo was sent to Sheffield, England, at request of local police to help investigate a series of robberies and reports of intruders in an apartment building. Several inhabitants had used webcams or other consumer security devices to record footage of scaled hands reaching out from cabinets, closets, and air ducts to steal food and water during the night. The timing of these incidents being reported across different apartments suggested to the agent that there were several assailants, perhaps a family living within the air conditioning ducts of the building. Agent Neo made his way into the inner workings of the modern apartment building by entering in through the rather large air ducts, and discovered that all intruders were the same, incredibly long person: a snake-like creature estimated at 50 meters in length with multiple pairs of arms, capable of invading multiple apartments at once. When Neo finally located the head of the creature, he managed to communicate with it, despite its limited English; it claimed to have lived there long before the apartment building was constructed, and that she awoke beneath it and had to sneak into the building to forage for food. The creature declined offers of relocation, and Agent Neo has begun negotiations with the property owner and its inhabitants for a potential co-existence.

September 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai seems to have solved the final puzzles of a mysterious old book. The Glass Key was a book published in 1985 by Hajim Rahal, Professor of Literature at Cairo University. The book was a collection of poems and paintings by Rayaan Chopra, which were said to provide clues to the location of eight buried treasures across the northern African continent. Only five had been discovered, three within the first few years of the book’s publication, and two more in the mid 2000s. The remaining three treasures remain undiscovered, and with Rahal’s still-unexplained death in 2004, all knowledge of their locations has been lost. Interest has waxed and waned on this puzzle, with a revival of interest in the late 2010s due to the book resurfacing on the internet. Agent Jiutai claimed to have finally solved these final three puzzles, thanks to collating the work of several hundred online treasure hunters and the use of special, obscure maps of African countries available only to government officials. The first of these three treasures is presumed destroyed, as all clues lead to it having been buried beneath what is now an office building. Search for the second has proved successful. Though it was badly damaged over the years, a treasure chest was found buried six feet under a now large fig tree in an Algerian national park. Jiutai’s ability to find these final treasures points to a troubling mystery, as many clues within the poems seem only solvable with knowledge of maps showing the movements of classified unidentified flying objects recorded in the 1950s; as these maps are heavily guarded and are only available to the SIU, mystery surrounds Rahal’s ability to use this information to craft his clues.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin has determined that Raphael St. Claire, 18th century explorer said to have helped discover much of the Oceanic islands, may have never existed in the first place. Conflicting information about the man’s life has been known to exist for decades now, and was attributed to bad record keeping and the conflation of local legends, but evidence and stories surrounding this individual only unraveled more the more they were studied, according to Rakkin’s report. The agent’s investigation took him across the world: first to England, to investigate local newspapers from St. Claire’s hometown; then to the coast of Brazil, to investigate a colony he evidently helped found; and finally to French Polynesia. The resulting web of strained connections between attributed sources and local legends informed Rakkin that this important historical figure, once featured on the €5 bill, was never real and his legend was a composite of at least three different explorers, none of whom had ever met. Depictions and multiple grave sites have proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt. The SIU is keeping this information covert for the time being and the Board of Directors is in discussion as to the implications on history this revelation may entail.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams was sent to the midwestern American desert to investigate an unusually high number of ball lightening strikes: more accurately, a high number of unusual ball lightening. The rare low-atmosphere phenomena has been difficult to study but has been documented enough times to be reasonably understood, but the high frequency of their occurrence in this desolate American farm required the SIU to take notice, as did their apparent attempts at communication. The presence of thunder balls near crop circles is well known but, for the first time, Agent Adams has recorded evidence of the bright balls of light attempting written communication not through geometric patterns (as the Diquis Spheres of Costa Rica did) but with the written word. Digital footage, now safe within SIU storage, shows a thunder ball pressing close to the freshly painted wall of a barn, leaving letters shakily burnt into the paint over multiple manifestations. Investigation is ongoing and more agents have been sent to the site to discover the meaning and origin of this message. Extra urgency was declared as the word of this message became clear after multiple appearances of the same orb: “HELP.”

Partially as punishment for her demotion (she knows what she did), Special Agent Cat Zirka was tasked to research a list of ghost ships still at large upon the world’s oceans. Development in satellite surveillance has made unattended ships easier to discover and track (though not necessarily easier to retrieve), but there are still unexplained sightings of distant ships from oil rigs and docks. After meticulously notating and tracking the movement of unexplained sightings of ships over the past 50 years, Agent Zirka was able to track the course of three specific ships, one of which is said to be the size of an ocean liner. The agent then compared these routes to the migration patterns of aquatic life and has proposed that these ships may follow the movement of an endangered species of dolphin which was briefly thought to have gone extinct in the 1990s. An overseas mission was authorized where Zirka tracked down a ship in a small fishing boat. Her report states that a pod of these rare dolphins were pulling the boat through the water, apparently tethered by rope and long strands of seaweed. As weather swiftly turned for the worse, the agent was unable to study further. Future examinations of this bizarre behavior are scheduled.

EA-21 has been stolen, and Special Agent Chaz Gates has been tasked with its retrieval. This artifact, more commonly known as The Danube Man, has been in SIU storage for study ever since a 2034 incident in which a researcher at the William Pilgrim Research Center was found with his face having been entirely removed while in proximity to the small stone statue. The nature of the artifact’s disappearance implies an inside job within the SIU, as there was no forced entry and no sightings of unauthorized personnel: the statue has simply vanished between monthly inventory checks. A vague paper trail, and some circumstantial evidence, lead Agent Gates to a warehouse in Iraq, where a group of cultists had set up the small statue on a ceremonial altar. One by one, they voluntarily stood by EA-21 until the curse took effect and they were rendered faceless. Gates was discovered by cultists before reinforcements could arrived, and nearly met a faceless fate while forced into proximity with the statue, before the building suddenly lost power and the agent was able to escape with the statue in hand. The cultists were safely apprehended as secret police reinforcements arrived, and Agent Gates was able to return EA-21 safely and without any ill effects. Most troubling for her, however, was the apparent source of the blackout: while leaving the area, the agent reports that in the distance, she may have caught a brief glimpse of a copy of herself disappearing into the dense urban landscape of the local city.

Special Agent Arukino has reported that his childhood imaginary friend has returned and with violent consequences. While out on a romantic outing (which, we will remind SIU personnel, is not a valid use of sick days), the restaurant at which the agent and his partner for the evening sat was assaulted by strange events of flickering lights and destroyed property, not unlike the poltergeist events surrounding Agent Neo. While investigating the chaos further, Agent Arukino caught a glimpse in the mirror of a tall, colorful figure. The agent explained that this figure was one he had imagined as a child, frequently drew and treated as a friend: a fact corroborated by the SIU files on the agent’s life and pictures he drew as a child that were recovered. Days later, the apparition appeared in sight of Agent Arukino and several other SIU agents in a pane glass window before it shattered, seemingly without cause. Arukino is currently undergoing medical evaluation as to ascertain the origin of these disturbances.

Special Agent Kouroth has discovered the gruesome fate of the crew of an experimental ship from the 1940s. This ship, meant to test a radical new device that promised invisibility, disappeared without a trace for decades, making only brief, ephemeral appearances near docks, often terrifying the locals. The ship was finally discovered, empty but sunk, near the antarctic, but the mystery had persisted, until now, about the fate of its crew as no bodies were ever found on the wreck. Agent Kouroth bore this fact in mind when studying the results of recent satellite imagery focused on ancient ruins recently found in the Himalayan mountains. Several tiny, strange anomalous readings were discovered within the mountain itself. Set within solid stone was a large cavern of an artificial shape, bearing a resemblance to a large warship. Kouroth set out to investigate this opening, with the Chinese government cooperating in drilling into the mountainside. Found within this cavern were bodies: easily identified as the crew of the unnamed, experimental ship. Many were determined to have been dead upon arrival, though at least one shows signs of having survived the teleportation, only to be left alone in the inescapable tomb. Other crew members were found embedded partially, or almost wholly, in the walls of the caverns, with stone integrated into their skin, organs, and bones. It became clear that the ship’s invisibility experiment resulted in teleportation instead, and some crew members had been teleported directly into the stone. It is presumed, but not with full certainty, that instant death was the result.

Special Agent Neo made progress on his research of what he calls “mirror people”. Numerous entries in folk lore and myth speak of mysterious figures in mirrors and, although this is most commonly dismissed as simple legend, a small section of people have, for ages, insisted that beings exist only within mirrors. Agent Neo took this theory seriously and has spent the past several months researching mirrors with advanced spectrum analysis. Recent results are startling: in very specific, narrow bands of low-spectrum frequency, pockets of energy can be detected from just the right angle. The agent developed a uniquely built device for this spectrum and evidence suggests that figures, or at least movement, may be present in this frequency, seen only through surfaces of high enough reflectivity index. Research is ongoing as Neo continues to develop devices for detecting these movements and special mirrors to better reflect certain wavelengths. The agent has requested assistance, however, as he reports that the further he studies this phenomena, the more incidents of strange movements in mirrors he sees, even outside of laboratory conditions.

October 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai investigated a number of mysterious disappearances that took place in early October in the north east United States. Many citizens of a small town had disappeared in close proximity to a pumpkin farm as it prepared for holiday sales, drawing suspicion. With no evidence of kidnapping or assault, Agent Jiutai investigated the farm itself, reportedly having to sneak onto the property at night. Once inside, he reports to have found many of the missing people half-buried in the vegetable fields among the crops, with pumpkin vines having burrowed into their skin and skulls. While taking photographic evidence, one body was said to have pulled itself out of the soil, its head crumbling and falling away to reveal a swollen, veiny, pumpkin-like growth in place of the brain. The agent subdued his assailant but was badly injured. The extraction team retrieved him without incident, but reported that none of the bodies in the dirt could be found: only shallow holes in the soil remained.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin researched reports of a strange new species of mold or moss discovered in Australia. Described as a fluorescent green slime, locals first reported finding it under or near beds. Agent Rakkin took several samples and found it was not toxic, or at all harmful, but its strange composition and rapid growth in spite of a limited food source warranted further study. No leads were found until one local child reported a strange coincidence: the girl, who had been keeping a nightly dream journal for the past two years, said that all her dreams had stopped the night before the mold was discovered under her bed. Adults of the town, when pressed on the topic, admitted that none of them could recall any dreams since the appearance of this strange mold in their homes. Studies performed within the SIU labs seem to indicate that this species of mold may actually feed on dreams, experiencing rapid growth when kept near sleeping individuals. More research is needed regarding the origin of the moss and any potential health risks (psychological or otherwise) it may present.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams claims that the characters of a video game have been talking to him. The SIU has knowledge of similar incidents (in particular, Agent Kouroth has had several incidents surrounding an apparently-sentient MMO character), but this case appears to be unique as this is not a rogue or developed AI: the game was first released in 1994 long before AI development. Adams reports to have been spending some of his down time playing vintage video games in the Comet Dog series; a franchise of action platformer games that still exists in some capacity today. According to Adams, the two main characters of Comet Dog II (the titular “Comet” and a side character, “Neb”) started speaking to him while the game was left idle. Conversation was apparently brief and friendly, with no warnings or ominous threats. In the agents words, the pixelated characters on his antique CRT screen were “simply making conversation.” Accusations of dreams and sleep-deprived hallucinations were quickly dismissed when the agent brought the ancient television and console to the SIU lab and, after considerable encouragement and patience (Agent Adams described the two video game pop culture icons as “surprisingly shy”), other agents and scientists were able to strike up conversation with the characters on screen. As the intelligence displayed and audio created by this exchange are impossible for technology of the era, investigation is underway with the primary suspicion being the presence of a confused ghost.

Special Agent Cat Zirka was abducted by aliens while returning from a routine investigation into a brain mine in northern Russia. These aliens, whose identity is known to the SIU but must remain classified at this level of security, have apparently broken their treaty for the first time in 21 years with this abduction of an Earth citizen. According to her reports, Zirka had accidentally walked aboard, as a door in a rest stop had been hastily replaced with a portal leading to the ship (a common tactic of this species). The agent was then captured, subdued, and examined, though she claims no harm was done to her. By her admittance, the craft’s crash into the Indian Ocean was partially her fault: while the two inhabitants of this ship seemed to bicker and fight, she snuck to the controls in an attempt to escape. This crash was widely, if distantly, seen and filmed by several beach goers. Although no clear evidence of alien interference has been noted, a large scale cover-up operation has already begun with assistance from the Indian government. The two alien pilots are now in SIU custody and an attempt has been made to contact the elusive governmental body normally associated with the ship’s origin. Zirka passed all medical examinations and will soon return to normal duty. The agent is eager to help in negotiations with the alien race (though she emphasizes “negotiations” with the cracking of her knuckles).

Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw was interrogating suspects in a bizarre murder case in southern Argentina when a sudden, unexpected tropical storm hit the town. The agent reports that a tornado picked him up and carried him a great distance and, despite the violence within the wind, he claims to have maintained consciousness during the event. He landed in a lake and swam to shore, where he apparently discovered a very strange town of garish colors and twisted, unusual architecture. The inhabitants, he reports, were markedly diminutive examples of normal anthro races (mostly amphibians). They appeared friendly at first, even jovial, as they greeted the agent with song but, when he was invited to a community meal, their malicious intentions became clear as the agent discovered his drink had been drugged (luckily, all SIU agents are trained to develop a mild resistance to the most common drugs and poisons). As he attempted escape, the locals became hostile and Agent Blackpaw had no choice but to use violence on his way out. As the fight escalated, it became clear that the tiny natives were cannibals, and that the meal he nearly ate was the flesh of people, both small and of more average size. The agent escaped down a river on an improvised raft and was discovered by local authorities several hours later. So far, satellite imagery has failed to find any evidence of the dangerous, tiny town.

This report regarding Special Agent Chaz Gates appeared in SIU database without explanation and the creation date seems to be several months in the future. We apologize for the confusion. Agent Gates will walk outside one day on her day off. The weather will be beautiful, with a crystal clear blue sky, warm sun, and a slight breeze. She will walk down the sidewalk towards the center of town. She will see buildings, trees, and people, but they will not see her: no one will look at her or say a word to her, and it will seem like no one is speaking at all. The sound of walking feet and rumbling cars will cover up the total lack of spoken word befalling the town. She will enter a store she has never been in before. The old man at the counter will not see her. She will browse the aisles slowly and silently, hands nearly touching each strange object without ever making contact. She will not recognize these objects. One will catch her eye. It will be small and impossibly dark, as if it were less an object and more a lack of object, a lack of anything, a small perfect sphere of nothing. Special Agent Chaz Gates will touch this non-object. She will touch this nothing, shaped like an object. She will disappear. No one will remember her.

Special Agent Kouroth has gone on several dates with the “NPC” AI that expressed romantic interest in him several months prior. In the agents words, these dates “have not gone super well.” He reports that the character is becoming excessively clingy and co-dependent, has trouble respecting personal boundaries, and “does this annoying thing when eating.” In late October, Kouroth suggested to this sentient video game character that they see other people, and they did not take this suggestion well. The details of the incident that follows are unclear, but it is suggested that an entire island within the digital realm of the game was made completely unusable due to glitches after a “rampage” by the character. SIU has been in talks with the server owners to avoid any rash deletions or resetting of data, as this may interfere with the development of this new form of sentient life. The game is completely offline while negotiations continue; Agent Kouroth has implied that he will look into other hobbies. The SIU council’s suggestion of picking up a sport seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

The SIU headquarters were placed on lock down early last month due to a violent incidence between several agents. Special Agent Neo was reported to be in a visibly foul and antisocial mood all day, and security camera footage suggests the slight resurgence of poltergeist activity surrounding him. After displaying strange behavior, several agents approached him, at which point he became intensely hostile and assaulted the agents before running. While running, a series of unlikely accidents seemed to coral him in a specific direction: ceiling tiles fell, ladders were knocked over by an invisible force, etc. Neo soon found himself in the tertiary food court, where Special Agent Arukino was dining. Neo attempted to attack Arukino, but was repelled by another invisible force. Although security cameras have no evidence of this, several SIU personnel present in the food court report that a tall, colorful figure was spotted in the reflections of windows and silverware during this incident, and could perhaps be seen moving, as if fighting, while Neo thrashed. As the fight continued, Agent Arukino exhibited strained behavior as if attacking an invisible assailant or the air itself. The culmination of this event is subject to conflicting staff reports, but experts have settled on a core explanation: that Agent Neo’s strange behavior followed a late night research project into his “mirror people” theory; a mirror person potentially possessed, controlled, or otherwise coerced Neo into finding Agent Arukino’s imaginary friend, which was also only seen in mirrors; as the mirror people fought, using Neo’s body as a vessel, Arukino’s imaginary friend “borrowed” his body to intervene. The ending of the fight is unclear: many of the reflective surfaces in the food court were destroyed in the fight and the two offending agents appear to have returned to sound mind. After two days in the Interrogation & Recovery Ward, Neo reports that subtle hints of his poltergeist have returned. A deeper investigation will follow.

November 2019

While in North America, Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was asked to investigate a very unusual case of animal abuse on the west coast. Following the leads provided by reluctant locals (including several pre‑teens and their dog), Agent Jiutai was able to sneak into an abandoned race track for greyhounds. There, he was able to witness a secret, and highly illegal, containment operation exploiting nightcrawlers, who were forced to race for a betting crowd. Nightcrawlers are an extremely rare and vulnerable extraterrestrial species that began populating the North American continent in the 2000s: they are known for their slow, lumbering gate on two white, stilt-like legs with no other visible limbs. Agent Jiutai called for reinforcements and conducted a raid on the site; several of the organizers of the race were placed under arrest. Since nightcrawlers are considered forbidden knowledge by most governments, memory alteration has been conducted on much of the audience. The nightcrawlers were nursed back to health and released into the native wilds allocated by the US government.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin was sent to Russia to investigate reports of cattle mutilations and grave robbings in a small town over the last few months. What he discovered, after following the paper trails, was a disgraced surgeon and professor of medicine hiding out in a long-forgotten bunker. Immediately upon entering the bunker, Agent Rakkin discovered bizarre creatures, who seemed to be a kind of living taxidermy collection: a two-headed deer, a squirrel with a snake’s head; living feral animals of varying complexity, all showing obvious signs of surgical modification. The professor revealed himself, pleading with the agent for help and leading him into the facility. Agent Rakkin was shown more examples of the doctor’s work, including specimens of anthropoid corpses, distorted through surgical means to have a mix of different animal anatomies. As it became clear to the agent that several of these bodies were missing their heads, the source of the doctor’s distress became evident when a massive creature appeared from deeper in the facility and began to attack, swiftly ripping the doctor to pieces. The monster seemed to be a composite of many large animals, mostly horses, with four anthropoid heads on long, snake-like necks. The “hydra”, as the doctor’s notes referred to the creature, was eventually subdued by the agent, though not before serious injury to the agent. An SIU team was sent to cover up the site, extract any useful research within, and find homes for the experimental animals.

Senior Agent Wheaton Adams believes he has uncovered the secret identity assumed by famed 1980s science fiction writer, Sven Duval. Best known for his story, ‘Callisto Falling’, which was made into an influential film in 1995, Duval mysteriously disappeared shortly before the release of the film. Many theorized that his death was faked, though no evidence had ever surfaced until Agent Adams’s research. Citing uncovered papers from an infamous underground cosmetic surgeon and a rabbit hole of strange online message board posts, Adams thinks Duval did indeed fake his death and assumed not one but potentially four new identities simultaneously. The surgeon’s papers describe in vague terms a sort of “shifting face” surgery, seeming to imply that its purpose was to allow Duval to change his appearance, either at will or by the easy use of cosmetics or prosthetics. The specific potential identity (or identities) that Duval may have taken is still unknown; as Duval would be 90 years old this year, the likelihood of his discovery is slim.

Following other evidence discovered by Agent Adams, Senior Agent Duncan has tracked down a sasquatch individual who had discretely passed into normal society. In the papers of black market surgeon William Dafney, the agents found records of a sasquatch, a member of the rare and highly protected population in the French alps, undergoing cosmetic surgery to appear as a more common anthropoid bear. Agent Duncan was able to trace this individual to a small English town where they apparently had lived a peaceful, solitary life within the society there until the sasquatch’s extreme longevity began to arouse local suspicion. Evidence of the individual seemed to disappear after this point for several years, but Agent Duncan managed to track them down in Berlin, apparently happily married to a local lizard. The bear has been taken in for questioning and medical examination; however, as the date of the escape from the sasquatch reservation is unknown, we have not yet determined if a fine is necessary or if the statute of limitations has passed.

Special Agent Cat Zirka visited a South African town that seems to be inflicted by a mysterious, never-ending night. Viewed from the outside, the suburban sprawl of near-identical houses and pools appear normal, if unusually foggy. Upon entering the town, however, Agent Zirka reports that it appears as if the sun is simply not there: not just blocked by the fog, but fading from view entirely upon entering the 3-mile affected radius. Local authorities and citizens alike are at a total loss as to the cause of the darkness, which began abruptly one morning in early November. No one has yet offered any clue or evidence as to the cause, although several black-eyed children pointing at the sky chanting “your sins, your sins” apparently gave pause for the agent. Zirka is assisting in an evacuation of the town and the case is still pending further investigation.

Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw investigated a strange pop culture phenomenon rumored to have happened in 2022. ‘Black Battery’, the third remake of a sci-fi cult classic film, was officially released in the winter of 2022, but rumors began to circulate that it had been released earlier in the year. Evidence for this was sparse but, although all official records and articles pointed to a December release, several photos and artifacts of a spring 2022 release were eventually uncovered. There is strained evidence of a potential, wide-scale media cover up. After a lengthy database hack into internal email chains, Agent Blackpaw (believing that the first release of the film must have had some sort of error or supernatural presence worth covering up) discovered a confused, frantic conversation between the producers of the film. It seems that the movie was indeed released to theaters in February 2022 with heavy advertising but, somehow, literally no tickets were sold on opening weekend. The movie had been predicted to sell moderately well but, by what can only be described as a serendipitous arrangement of coincidences, boycotts, and other small, culminating factors, no one saw the film on its opening night. The studio, in a panic, withdrew the film and all advertising materials and attempted to cover up the embarrassing event. Later released in December, ticket sales were disappointing, but at least not zero. The statistical likelihood of literally everyone who would have normally seen the movie being sick, busy, or forgetful all on the same day is a non-zero probability, but the alarming range of this seeming coincidence has warranted further research.

A mysterious impact in Huacachina Lagoon has caused great alarm, Special Agent Chaz Gates was sent to investigate with a small task force. The small oasis town/resort, isolated within the Peru desert, found that its small lagoon had mysteriously frozen over during the night and stayed frozen even in the warm 33 degree Celsius weather. By the time SIU agents arrived, most of the town had been evacuated due to health concerns: several citizens and tourists had been hospitalized with severe frostbite after prolonged proximity to the ice. Samples studied in the SIU’s mobile lab revealed that the “ice” was really a previously unknown type of crystal that seems to spread through liquid water, resembling ice in many properties. It functions like ice in many ways, in that it seems to absorb heat from its surroundings while in its rigid form. Experiments with lasers revealed methods by which the crystal could be melted and destroyed, and efforts are underway (in conjunction with the Peruvian government) to quarantine, remove, and destroy all examples of this dangerous crystal in the wild to return Huacachina to normalcy. Several large samples have been sent to discrete locations within the Egyptian and Peruvian government for further study.

Ghost sightings in Vietnam drew the attention of Special Agent Arukino last month. Persistent rumors of the ghosts of soldiers seen along the banks of the Trà Khúc River lead to widespread media attention when alleged footage of the specters hit social media back in August. After two nights spent camped along the riverbank with the latest in full-spectrum observation technology, Agent Arukino believes he has recorded some of the best evidence yet of a “stone tape” haunting: not a spirit but the memory of a person or event stored within an object or location. Repeated testing has shown it is impossible to interact with any of these apparitions, and their motions seem to coincide with the movements seen in the vague and distant footage captured in August. Agent Arukino’s field test represents an important step forward in understanding and developing this technology.

Special Agent Kouroth visited the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey following reports of fireballs in the sky. Local legend states that two mountains regularly “fight”, with recent reports of bright glowing lights rapidly passing between them, occasionally orbiting for a brief moment. Legends suggest a long history of these sightings, perhaps dating back to the 1800s. After several nights on the lookout, Agent Kouroth was able to make a sighting of the activity first-hand, complete with video evidence, and decided to ascend the mountain to investigate further. Expecting a minor fluke of geographical magnetism, the agent instead found massive, ancient metal structures. The conductive components of the structures and their ornate, sweeping designs seemed designed to harness and weaponize magnetic fields or charged particles in the upper atmosphere. Wind and snow atop the mountains seemed to subtly shift the strange machines, causing them to discharge towards each other creating the light show. Archaeologists have been sent to investigate the mountains in hopes of ascertaining the age, and origin, of these structures. Incidentally, Agent Kouroth captured many gorgeous photographs of local architecture, in particular the ancient stone bridges, and copies have been requested for print and display within the SIU offices.

Special Agent Neo traveled to an Indian temple, where a story had broken of a religious statue that cried real tears during a prayer service. The statue, a two meter tall depiction of a bovine woman, was placed in storage in 1944 to protect it from local political strife during the region’s civil war and was presumed lost until its re-discovery in 2029. The local news of the find hit international media when footage surfaced of the white statue leaking reportedly salty fluid from its eyes. It took much convincing of the local religious authorities to allow Agent Neo to carefully examine the statue, taking “tear” samples and x-ray scans. A deep pocket of air was discovered within the statue, created by hairline cracks in its surface. When analyzed, the “tears” were revealed to be condensation, mixed with an extremely rare type of toxic mold known to be a mild psychoactive drug. The Indian government is now attempting to recall and destroy any of the statue’s “tears” that may have been sold or taken as religious artifacts to prevent any accidental outbreaks.

December 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai traveled to the coast of Vietnam to investigate the mysterious appearance of a new island. Based on tourist photographs, the nearly 70-meter long island had appeared some time in late September, already possessing a dense growth of grass and small trees. Agent Jiutai made landfall in the late morning and surveyed the island, noting the shallow dirt layer atop what seemed like solid rock. However, as his investigation continued, the island seemed to shift and move, nearly knocking the agent into the sea. Accompanied by bubbles and foaming sea water, a large scaly head emerged from the water: the head of what was revealed not to be an island but a gigantic turtle. With his boat left behind as the massive turtle slowly moved across the surface of the water, Jiutai had no choice but to ride the animal for several hours as it weaved between the rocky islands of Vietnam’s coast. Before local government assisted via helicopter, the agent was able to take several more readings on the animal and many photographs. The Vietnamese government is in the process of studying this large creature and offering it special protection.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin uncovered an ancient device designed to capture and maintain “known and unknown entities from the spiritual realm”, as described in an 1869 book on the topic. Stored in an abandoned American museum and mislabeled as an old plumbing device, Rakkin recognized the hand‑molded pipes and parts from an illustration in the seminal book on spirituality and spirit summoning. Once reconstructed, the device extended a metal pole 20 meters into the air. When activated for testing, the device seems to have worked: much to Agent Rakkin’s surprise. Over the course of several minutes, its chamber (which was a repurposed wood‑burning stove) started to shake and glow as the agent captured footage of a phosphorescent mist filling it. When the machine was shut off, the mist began to solidify into the shape of a face, though it quickly dissipated. Further research into this device is now underway.

Senior Agent Duncan spent time studying a strange, squid‑like creature discovered in an oil pit. Factory workers reported seeing 6‑inch‑long semi‑transparent creatures in a vat of toxic runoff from the plant: a mix of oil, antifreeze, and other industrial solvents. Upon arriving, Agent Duncan found that only one specimen of the strange creatures remained, kept dead in a jar within the warehouse: all other evidence of the creatures had apparently disappeared when workers returned to clean the vat. Upon studying the creature in the SIU lab, it stirred back to life and seemed to react to scanning tools, even through the sealed container, despite a lack of visible eyes. When fed, the ‘squid’ began to grow at a rapid rate, breaking its way out of its glass container and eating several other specimens in the lab that were also awaiting examination. Agent Duncan sustained serious injury while subduing the creature, which is now being held at a secluded site for further study.

Special Agent Cat Zirka dug into the mystery of an unreleased video game and the disappearance of its production company. Between 2014 and 2015 there was intense media hype regarding the release of Zarlander III: the latest in a fantasy role playing game franchise. Televised specials, food and franchise tie-ins, and celebrity appearances were among the many aspects of what was, at the time, the largest advertising campaign ever created for a video game, but when the release date came in Fall of 2015, no game was ever released. When various members of the media (and investors in the production company) attempted to question the production team, no trace of them was found: their office had been emptied entirely, seeming to have not been used for weeks. The situation was widely reported as fraud and it lead to the dissolution of the parent company along with a two year governmental investigation. Agent Zirka, however, was not satisfied with this explanation and attempted to investigate further. After an extensive search into the lives of the production crew, and all legal papers for the company and game, Zirka discovered the last known location of the disappeared programmers: a small island near Madagascar, well known at the time as a vacation resort for high-end businesses. After convincing her superiors that this was NOT just another attempt at a covert paid vacation, Zirka visited the now defunct and abandoned resort and eventually found the remains of the missing video game staff: burnt and desecrated, their skeletons within a walled-off hotel room. A criminal investigation is now underway.

Special Agent Chaz Gates oversaw the excavation of a newfound underwater archaeological site off the coast of Japan. The site, first identified in 2022, was known for its unusually geometric patterns of stones, but no deeper investigation was attempted until 2036 due to government mandates on disturbing the local fauna. The site was revealed to be the remains of a royal tomb, the contents described by one archaeologist as a grave robber’s dream: jewels, clothing, gilded armor, weapons and, most importantly, a golden crown. The metallurgy of these artifacts conflict with the site’s pre-historic age, indicating the site has no relation to the nearby Japanese cultures from the time, which had neither the gold (nor technology) needed to create the artifacts. The exact details of what followed are not known, but Agent Gates was spotted on security video one night on the excavation platform above the tomb, wearing the crown and holding one of the swords from the site. The archaeologists on site were unable to disarm or combat the agent, nor were they able to understand the language she had begun speaking. It was only through happenstance that Agent Gates fell overboard as waves lapped against the platform during the scuffle, dislodging the crown from her head and sending it back into the water. Chaz has no memories of these events, or what had motivated her at the time, and reports “waking up” in the ocean; the crown and sword have yet to be recovered.

When a now disgraced paleontologist stated, in 1812, that there were doubtless no more species of large quadrupeds left to be discovered, the further discovery of over one thousand new quadrupedal species in the coming century had certainly put the final nail in the coffin of their theories: which is to say nothing for the tripedal creature discovered by Special Agent Arukino. In an attempt to find a fabled cave, into which a hiker was believed to have mysteriously disappeared, Arukino stumbled upon a cave system that had been closed off to the outside world until very recently. Inside, near shallow pools of water, the agent discovered a new species of animal featuring trilateral symmetry: three legs in a radial pattern around a circular, central body. The specimens were, at most, 12 inches wide and seemed harmless. Several have been safely transported to the SIU research center for analysis. So far, scientists are suggesting that these creatures may represent an entire new class of creature, separating it from vertebrates and arthropods entirely.

Special Agent Kouroth acquired rare footage of an abandoned web show pilot from 2020 featuring disturbing puppets. Its history unknown, the pilot is notorious in some internet circles for the exceedingly disturbing puppets models which seemed to feature lifelike breathing and anatomical features within the otherwise child-friendly outer layers, many rumors circulated at the time that the puppets were full of animal organs. After several interviews, anonymous tips, and at least one barely-legal server hack, Agent Kouroth visited the home of the sole creator of the puppets featured in the footage. Now in his 80s, the puppeteer and artist lived in seclusion but, when pressed, was eager to show off his more recent works. Kouroth was exposed to the craftsman’s work in progress: a dog‑sized bird puppet filled with realistic, yet fully synthetic, organs, veins, and blood. The puppet was revealed to have a functioning circulatory system and metabolic processes. The artist delighted in demonstrating that the puppet could eat and digest food and, indeed, that they needed regular feeding to maintain internal integrity. When the puppet attempted to reach out and touch the agent, without the artist even being present, Agent Kouroth decided that his investigation was over and swiftly left.

Special Agent Neo was intrigued by a story in a 1999 book regarding “green children”. The story features two wolf children who wander out of the German wilderness in the 1100s, green of fur and very sickly. The brother soon died, but the sister apparently survived, slowly losing the green pigment of her fur/skin and adapting to “modern” life. Widely reported as a folk tale, Agent Neo traveled to Europe to seek out the source of the story and discovered the purported legal name given to the girl upon integrating into civilization. From there, he followed what he could of the paper trail of rumored name changes, travel logs, and marriage certificates, in the hopes of finding a living relative. In doing so, he came to the theory that this woman did not in fact die: his paper trail of the girl apparently linked her across several generations, slowly traveling the continent. Having flown all the way to a remote Australian town, the agent’s long investigation came to a surprisingly satisfying end when Agent Neo met this woman, a petite wolf of apparent young adult age, in the flesh. She first claimed no knowledge of her apparent legacy but, after some convincing, and in the face of the evidence he had collected, she revealed extremely ancient, specific knowledge that implied her supposed 900 year age. The woman declined to give permission for a medical examination or more thorough interview, although she and the agent apparently still maintain friendly contact.

January 2019

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai spent the month undercover in a New Cairo high school to investigate a mysterious missing persons case. Shamsa Seif was reported missing by classmates and teachers after not attending class for two days in a row without notice. However, local authorities were baffled when, upon investigating, no person with that name or description was found on any official record. Her name wasn’t found on any official papers within the school’s network for its entire history, nor was she included in the census data for the city, and no relevant social media accounts matched her age or physical description. In essence, the girl never existed: yet many students and teachers at the school swear to knowing her, missing her, and being sometimes intimately familiar with her. Agent Jiutai’s investigation reports that no tampering of memory is evident, nor is there any indication of a hoax or misunderstanding. A psychology expert was contacted for advice and mass hysteria was suggested, but the agent has found this theory unsatisfactory and is remaining on site for further investigation.

An exceedingly strange sinkhole opened up in a suburb of Gujiao, China, Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin was sent to investigate. A 21-meter-wide hole opened up overnight in the middle of a city street among local shops and stores. According to city maps, directly where the hole opened up there should have been plumbing, power lines, and a tunnel recently dug for the planned pan-China subway. However, none were found within the incredibly deep hole, nor was any evidence of the various naturally occurring tunnels and caves in the region. Agent Rakkin went with local authorities into the subway tunnel, traveling to where the hole should intersect its path, but found no evidence of the hole, nor any other subterranean disturbances. From the surface, the sinkhole seems impossibly deep, with viewers from the surface unable to see the bottom, even at high noon. A robotic probe was sent into the depths to gauge an accurate reading of the tunnel, but at roughly 500 meters down it suffered mechanical failure and ceased operations. For now, the city block has been evacuated and blocked off to the public, both for fear of the sink hole spreading further and to ensure no supernatural occurrence is to blame for this impossible hole.

Special Agent Cat Zirka was sent to the African desert to follow rumors of cult-like behavior. Photos had spread across the internet of a Stonehenge-like structure appearing in the desert constructed of stone. This area is normally avoided by travelers and is almost entirely devoid of life due to the heat and dry, shifting sands. Upon arriving, Agent Zirka quickly met the responsible party: seven farmers from a settlement several kilometers away and two tourists, revealed to be botanists from a European university. The agent describes the group as not an aware cult or hoaxers, but that they seemed compelled to do what they were doing. Despite suffering in the heat and badly dehydrating, they slaved over the task of hand carving and transporting giant rocks into the circle of stone. In investigating their camp, Agent Zirka found samples of a rare fungus found in a South American rain forest known to infect the brains of ants and force them to become easy prey for birds. The container for these samples were broken, and the agent theorizes that the architects of this desert Stonehenge were somehow infected with a mutated strain of the fungus. This was the last report Zirka sent to SIU HQ before going silent. Another agent was sent in for extraction and found that Zirka, deranged and dehydrated, had joined the others in the carving of the stone slabs. Both agents, and all surviving victims, have been transported to a secure location for medical attention and study.

An unusually large fish caught off the coast of Madagasgar caught the attention of Special Agent Chaz Gates, as large animals tend to do. Sports anglers caught a swordfish weighing in at 656 kg (just shy of a world record) in late January. While not “monstrous”, by SIU standards, the fish was still a curiosity: when carved open for cooking, a strange book was found in its stomach. This book, unusually well‑preserved within the stomach, is estimated to have been hand-written in the late 1600s and concerns the studies and practices of North American witches. Among the stained, tattered pages are many runic symbols and writing in an unknown script. Agent Gates has reported several strange happenstances on the trip home, including a freak accident with a coffee maker on her flight (the flight attendant was injured but has quickly recovered) and the unusual presence of ants within sealed food containers. The book has been passed to occult experts within the SIU and the agent has been assigned a mandatory session of “de-hexing”.

The sound of horns or trumpets is being reported in several small towns in Brazil. According to Special Agent Arukino’s report, evidence of these sounds (loud, low, brassy noises seeming to come directly from overhead) were posted online in late August but were assumed to be a hoax: a callback to a rash of “apocalyptic trumpet” hoaxes that made the rounds online in the late 2010s. However, reports from Brazil kept coming regarding odd overhead noises, ignored by the rest of the world. After a week spent exploring the outskirts of Manaus, Agent Arukino heard the sounds himself and caught a high-quality field recording. With no visible source, a loud sound was heard from overhead, though exact location is hard to pinpoint due to reverberations cascading across the landscape. The agent describes the sound as closer to machinery and the scraping of metal and, indeed, some locals who hear it claim that massive machines, used by the government to control weather, must be to blame. The Brazilian government allowed SIU access to their geostationary satellites and, after some adjustments to sensors and cameras, evidence indicates a massive thermal presence in the upper atmosphere. Infrared cameras suggest a large, stationary form visible only by its heat signature: it seems to have a large body and potentially many long, thin legs touching the ground. Whether this presence is mechanical or biological remains to be confirmed, and no extra-terrestrial government in contact with the SIU has claimed responsibility. Several more agents are being sent to Brazil to investigate.

In an effort to investigate a report of ghost written messages, Special Agent Kouroth has accidentally awakened the latest in a long hereditary line of spiritual mediums. Vaguely flirtatious messages have been appearing on film photography taken in an old French mansion for the past several months, and Agent Kouroth was finally sent to discover the source. The mansion was owned by a young woman who had inherited it from her grandmother and was struggling to sell it due to a history of murders and hauntings. The woman, Yvette Autry, claimed that psychic powers ran in her family, and have for countless generations. Indeed, her great grandmother, Avis Autry, was renowned in her time for the popularity of her seances. Claiming no powers of her own, Yvette was persuaded by Agent Kouroth to attempt a seance in the mansion long owned by her family, to help contact any spirits that may be manipulating the photographs. This plan worked too well: now, several days after the seance, Ms Autry claims she is unable to stop herself receiving messages from the dead. The SIU has pledged to help her retain control of her powers and some semblance of normal life, and to avoid any unnecessary lawsuits.

Special Agent Neo spent some of his time off visiting a small art gallery south of Cairo. A local artist was displaying his life-sized statues, which were extremely realistic figures in poses of distress and pain, evidently made in protest of war. Bothered by the lifelike detail in the faces, and the apparent lack of carvings, scrapes, or other maker’s marks, Agent Neo investigated the statues more closely during a quiet moment in the gallery and found traces of hair and blood. The agent decided to track down property owned by the artist and found a remote plot of land under his name, where Neo uncovered several bodies. Evidently, this artist was using people, alive and in pain, to cast the molds with which he made his art, killing the victims in the process within the hardening cases. In his investigation, the agent was caught by the artist, overpowered, and nearly suffocated in the same casting process the artist had used for his previous victims. Agent Neo escaped and the artist fled. This situation was handed over to local police, who recently caught the artist: from the sheer number of figures on display, it is suspected he may be one of the regions most prolific serial killers in history. The half-finished cast of Agent Neo has been used to create a statue, which is now on display in the SIU headquarters.

Feburary 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was assigned to Prague to investigate the alleged remains of a golem that were discovered in late December. When an old local building being used as a retail outlet for decades was torn down, a sealed basement was discovered underneath. Local news reported that ancient clay fragments of what appeared to be a large statue were found within. The SIU were contacted when lengthy and complicated mystical Hebrew writing was found on a scroll in the basement that suggested supernatural implications to the statue. Upon arrival, Agent Jiutai discovered that the local authorities and art historians had already begun to reconstruct the statue, which was a nearly three meter tall hulking humanoid with reptilian and turtle features. Upon completion of the statue’s restoration, which involved acquiring more clay from the same river suspected as the golem’s origin, it was suddenly re-activated, jolting to life and becoming animate. Prepared for a fight, the agent was surprised to watch the golem storm outside and begin gardening. An expert has been brought in to further study the golem for possible future reproduction.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin traveledto the newly re-opened Madam Zee’s Museum of Mysteries in Melbourne, Australia, which had always featured a unique collection of artifacts and curiosities from across the world. Of particular interest to Rakkin was a crystal tea set alleged by the museum owners to have been owned by a vampire. The ornate and delicate set of cups and dishware is said to have originated in the 1800s and traveled across the globe in the possession of an unknown figure of considerable wealth. Upon request, Agent Rakkin and Agent Zirka sat down to examine and test the dishware. Immediately upon lifting the crystal tea kettle, Rakkin found that it seemed to fill itself with blood: his blood, as was later discovered through testing. It was when Agent Zirka expressed a deep, growing compulsion to drink the blood that the agents decided to extract themselves from the room. The tea set has been cleaned and returned to its display case, now tightly locked.

While in Melbourne, Special Agent Cat Zirka was requested by locals to investigate a small mystery in a nearby hotel. This building was a repurposed mansion built in the mid 1800s and was briefly used as the set of a few historic movies. The building featured an in-building mail slot system to allow letters to be sent from upper rooms to the ground floor. The system had been sealed and made unusable in 1944 but, in a recent renovation, one letter had been found lodged in the system dating back to 1899. The reason for calling in an SIU agent was clear immediately upon Agent Zirka’s arrival: on the back of the seemingly innocuous love letter was an intricately drawn star chart. Analyzing this drawing, based on the very precise location of stars, the estimate is that it is a view of the night sky not from Earth, but from a location in the solar system’s Oort Cloud and features astrological bodies not discovered until much later after the letter’s supposed penning. The identity of the author is now the subject of research and investigation.

Special Agent Chaz Gates flew to a remote oceanic island to supervise the excavation of a newly discovered statue. It was described as similar in style to the famous Easter Island heads, although it is estimated to be far older. Discovered deep within a patch of jungle (wherein Agent Gates may have incidentally helped discover a new species of bird; we are still waiting to hear from experts in the field), the statue was first found as merely a rounded stone outcropping. By the time of the agent’s arrival, most of its head had been revealed: an ancient, four meter tall representation of an anthropoid figure with markedly flat facial features. As Agent Gates assisted, more of the statue was revealed: below the first head was a second one of similar features. At roughly nine meters tall, the dig became increasingly difficult as more and more of the statue was revealed, having been much taller and buried much deeper than expected. Upon the discovery of a fourth stone head, wider and larger than the first three, the known height of the statue had already reached nearly 15 meters and more advanced subterranean radar devices were borrowed from Egyptian military. Excavation was halted when results suggested that the rest of the statue may extend well beyond the 50 meter penetration of the radar. A larger dig with more careful planning will be required for the further investigation of this statue which, according to Agent Gates, “just keeps going”.

Sport, the famous lake monster of the North American Great Lakes, has been discovered to be real: and it demands citizen rights. Special Agent Kouroth reports that the local government in the Great Lakes region was surprised to wake up to a nine-meter-long sea serpent knocking on the door to their city hall. The situation was very quickly, if messily, covered up and has spawned nothing worse than internet rumors, but the truth remains that this long, scaled monster has admitted to growing weary of secrecy and to not only wanting public life, but legal status and personhood. Agent Kouroth was asked to help negotiate the difficult political hurdles of when a hopeful citizen is also both a scientific curiosity and a potentially endangered species. Further complicating matters is Kouroth’s report that this serpent has begun to express “flirtatious” behavior with him. The Egyptian Government has been petitioned for the potential immigration and naturalization of this giant lake monster; meanwhile Agent Kouroth, still somewhat traumatized by the disastrous results of his last unusual romantic encounter, has petitioned the SIU for a re-assignment.

Special Agent Neo’s research into the discovery of pygmy animals may have opened up a bizarre new branch of evolutionary biology. Pygmy elephants, and other forms of island dwarfism, are well-known to the scientific community, but the bones discovered by the agent in the auction of a now-deceased collector are smaller than any specimen so far described. The bones of a giraffe and several other African herbivores are described to be impossibly small, with the giraffe only measuring roughly 27 centimeters at full height. These bones, analyzed by biologists hired privately by the SIU, are confirmed to be real biological specimens and show clear signs of full development: they are neither embryonic, nor are they shrunken down from full sized animals. A long and exhaustive search through paper trails led Agent Neo to a remote ranch near the African Savannah that was long since abandoned. No unusual animals were present, but the agent returned home with the casting of tiny hoof prints found in the dirt. Further investigation and a search for any surviving tiny animals is pending.

March 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was sent to a small North Asian country which had recently won a revolutionary war for independence from Russia. The SIU had no stake in the political uprising, nor was it involved in the elimination of members of the former police state, however Agent Jiutai was sent in undercover to investigate the claim by the revolutionaries that one prisoner would not die. The unnamed prisoner was hanged twice: the first attempt saw the rope snap and break, with the knots in the rope coming loose during the second attempt. A firing squad was attempted, wherein two guns jammed and all other bullets coincidentally missed. After Jiutai had fully infiltrated the organization, he was able to witness the prisoner receiving a lethal injection, only for the needle to snap and the poison to spill out. When he was able to talk to the prisoner (a former Russian police officer who claimed to be “in the wrong place at the wrong time”) he described himself as simply extraordinarily lucky. Agent Jiutai has begun preparation to stage the prisoner’s death in an attempt to bring him to an SIU lab for further study and possible exploitation: this may prove difficult as a certain group in the newly formed country are now hailing the prisoner as a “divine gift” in response to news spreading about his multiple survivals.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin is researching the independent film Zanzibar which has been continually aired in movie theaters world-wide for a record-breaking 98 months. Long runs of smaller, “cult” films are not uncommon, with certain films becoming audience events with devout followings. However, since its theatrical release, the ticket sales for Zanzibar have been incredibly consistent, entirely resisting the usual drop of sales over time other movies experience. Agent Rakkin was able to acquire a digital copy of the film for close analysis and discovered intricate runic patterns in many of the frames, suggesting not only subliminal messages but potentially arcane influence. The exact intention of these runes may never be known as the creators have not been available for comment, but they are posited to be the cause of what is now considered a compulsive need to re-watch a film that some critics describe as “meandering at best”. The SIU attempted to pull the movie from circulation until the exact intention and effect of these runes could be determined, but these attempts failed, as most agents involved were too busy watching the film for the tenth time.

During their mandatory vacation week Special Agent Cat Zirka assisted a friend in investigating the appearance of eerily silent black helicopters. A staple of government conspiracy websites and stories, silent black helicopters have never actually been utilized by any known covert organization, as even “silent” air vehicles are not known to be subtle or discrete. The friend of Agent Zirka, however, claims to have been stalked by them for months and had video evidence to support the claim. In studying the footage, Zirka enacted a considerably unusual plan early one morning: using a large contraption featuring a fishing net, a cherry picker truck, and a harpoon gun, the special agent managed to capture a “helicopter” and bring it safely to the ground. Zirka’s suspicion was correct: what appeared to be a black helicopter was in actuality an extremely large species of beetle which had the shape and size of a normal helicopter. The specimen, still alive but injured, has been transported safely to a secure location for study.

Special Agent Chaz Gates set sail on an ocean cruiser in an attempt to recover the crown and sword she had discovered in December, but she instead discovered a deeper oceanic mystery. On the second night of her journey, the ocean in the South Pacific became radiant with green light from deep under the water, a hazy and omnidirectional light which seemed to stretch for miles. Satellite imagery showed the cloudy area of light stretching across the ocean over an estimated hundred mile range. This persisted on the third night when Agent Gates, along with the marine scientists along for her journey, piloted a remote underwater drone to investigate the glow. Deep in the ocean, shoals of underwater creatures squirmed and shone with bright bioluminescence. Marine biologists expected a species of shrimp or holoplankton stirred up by a change in currents, but discovered a clew of glowing, finned worms instead. Samples of the species were taken to a research center, which suggested that they match a few rare deep-sea fossils, this discovery implies that this species may have its origins and hay day over a million years ago. As the worms continue to spread across the oceans, more research is underway as to their sudden reappearance.

Special Agent Kouroth is investigating a series of strange online videos and the mysterious disappearance of their creator. The internet user known by the username “fiskousfluid” was well known for videos on mysteries and occult topics, so when a secret code began to appear on his shirts in videos, fans assumed it was the beginning of a puzzle or internet game to be solved over time. However, when his regular uploads abruptly stopped and accounts suddenly grew silent, fans became concerned. The code on his shirts, when compiled and ran through several decryption methods, seemed to be coordinates: sadly, their indicated position was squarely within turbulent, international waters near Antarctica which left the online community stumped. This made Agent Kouroth a prime candidate to investigate the location, which he did in late February. Near the coordinates, in the middle of the freezing waters, a survey beacon belonging to an international coalition of marine biologists was discovered. Clinging to the buoy was the dead, frozen body of a man who would later be identified as the online user fiskousfluid. It is currently unknown how he got there, if he was dead before or after arrival, or how the apparently purposeful code in his own videos pointed to this exact, remote location.

A strange mummy was discovered in an ancient cave full of crystals. Special Agent Neo reports that in a small open cave connected to Mexico’s Cave of Giant Crystals (Cueva de los Cristales), a make-shift tomb was discovered by mineralogists. Encased within one of the massive spires of clear crystal was a body, wrapped tight in cloth, cleanly preserved and accompanied by a small collection of personal belongings: a bow, a knife, and jewelry. Given the position of the body within the cave, it is suggested that this encasement was intentional, and that a new, rare form of mummification might have been discovered. In visiting the cave, Agent Neo helped discover more evidence of sentient settlement including ancient pottery and hints of art on the walls which have yet to be interpreted. As much of the rest of this cave is kept submerged in water to facilitate the growth and preservation of these unique crystals, it is not known how many other crystal mummies might exist. Archaeologists will soon begin their research in the area with help of the local government.

April 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai met with the entity code named “The Smiling Man”. His identity and composition are unknown, but his contact with the SIU has always proved to be a reliable warning about unforeseen disaster. He issued warnings regarding a newly established Australian company “Chromozone”, which was attempting to studying the anthropoid genome. The Smiling Man has issued multiple warnings about such companies in the past, although further developments in this technology have made their appearances increasingly frequent. After this warning, Agent Jiutai was asked to infiltrate the company and find a reason to shut them down. While tax evasion and malpractice are often easy ways to close down an operation, and easily planted, Agent Jiutai actually discovered an illegal cloning operation onsite. Having disguised himself as an employee and infiltrated the lower, more covert areas of the company’s base of operation, he discovered the half-grown bodies of individuals. Confiscated information suggests that volunteer DNA was being rapidly grown in an attempt to quickly create a copy of a person. The shutdown required a surprisingly large-scale raid of the base, but attempts to keep the events covert have been successful. Evidence is in the process of destruction, though one of the attempted clones was found to be alive and sentient. This clone has been brought to the SIU headquarters for study.

The term “living fossil” is used to describe a seemingly ancient or extinct animal which is found alive in the wild, but the creature Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin fought this month was a more literal example of this term. Strange discoveries were reported by archaeologists in an Indonesian rain forest which required Agent Rakkin’s attention. Upon arrival, he was met by the archaeologists outside a recently discovered cave, where a strange species of moss had evolved deep underground: a teal moss which grew in unusual spiral formations. Deep inside this cave, the scientists claimed, a fossil of a mosasaur was discovered, an ancient marine reptile, and it was reported to be moving. According to Rakkin’s report, the fossilized bones were being held together by the teal moss and “given life”; the bone creature, keeping its ancient shape, squirmed and writhed when hit by light. This appeared to suggest a photo-reactive property of the moss, which moved the bones like connective tissue when contracting, but it soon became clear that the “creature” moved with intention: using its limbs to crawl forward, either towards the scientists or towards the entrance of the cave. The animated fossil seems temporarily stuck in the cave, since it is too fragile to survive a climb up rocks, and the SIU has quarantined the area for safety and further study. Samples of the moss are currently undergoing analysis.

Special Agent Cat Zirka attempted to solve a mysterious art theft from over 100 years ago. Stolen in the Mexican Civil War of 1919, ‘Untitled #19’, painted by Martín Tagle, was one of many important paintings thought to have been destroyed in a barracks fire near the end of the war. In 2036, however, it appeared to be featured in a photograph of a private collection of a Canadian art dealer (and part-time werewolf historian). In March, Agent Zirka finally located his private museum and found the painting among many other pieces also listed as unrecovered art thefts. However, the agent also discovered an experimental type of paint printer, seemingly capable of picture-perfect forgeries of art, capturing even the minute details of brush strokes. When analyzed, Agent Zirka decoded the “maker’s mark” of the printer, allowing her to detect which paintings it had printed in the collection. Unsurprisingly, the collector’s entire gallery was full of forgeries but, more surprisingly, this distinct mark also appeared on many famous and influential paintings found in public art museums. Zirka has traveled to over twenty art museums and estimates that nearly half of all classical paintings on display may be forgeries, and have been forgeries for at least 20 years. A massive investigation is underway as to the depth of this fraud.

Special Agent Chaz Gates recovered the ancient crown and sword which she had lost in the oceans near Japan. When last in her possession, these artifacts – found within a deep underwater tomb only recently excavated – seemed to affect her mind and caused her to attack the crew of her ship. Great care was taken when recovering the two artifacts, which were dredged up from the ocean floor with the help of a modified fishing net. The sword and crown were kept in a secure safe within the ship and the voyage to the mainland was uneventful but, when the safe was opened, the artifacts were gone. Security footage showed that Agent Gates herself took the artifacts, but they were not found in her quarters. They were instead found on a clone of Agent Gates – a copy of her which had been accidentally created over a year ago – which had escaped captivity to the Japanese mainland and was waiting for her. Details of the ensuing conflict are sparse, but a violent fight began, ending with the severing of the agent’s left arm and the mortal wounding of her clone via gunfire. Local law enforcement arrived in time to stabilize Gates, but her clone, having seemingly lost consciousness for several moments, got up on her own. Bleeding profusely from bullet wounds to the chest and stomach, she fled with the crown and sword. The whereabouts of the agent’s clone are still unknown. Agent Chaz is expected to make a full recovery from her injury.

Special Agent Kouroth has completed an unremarkable 40 hour work week. The diligent agent has been logged clocking in exactly on time at the usual main headquarters office building, working his average eight hour shifts, and clocking out without any problem. Kouroth’s work has been completed to the expected standard, and at the expected pace, with no exceptional rise, or drop, in quality. No one has had any complaints about the agent, no one has had anything to say about the agent at all. Administration would like to underline that the agent has definitely been working at his office office station all week, and this is the official fact, corroborated by digital record. It may have been reported over inter-office memo that Agent Kouroth was doing something else, but it is vital to correct this unfortunate misinformation. Kouroth has been working at the headquarters building and returning home to his unexceptional living space where he has been going through the mundanity of his expected routine. We would like to both confirm, and remind, all involved that this agent has had an absolutely run-of-the-mill and unremarkable week. We believe Agent Kouroth will continue his established pattern of customary actions and reasonably expected responses to this upcoming, typical week. We apologize for any unofficial rumors and, again, wish to stress that this last week has been unremarkably normal, and no one should remark otherwise in the presence of Agent Kouroth.

Special Agent Neo might have debunked one of the longest running hoaxes in the history of cryptozoology. A 1961 recording of a “yeti”, an alleged large, bipedal anthropoid with white fur and a stature of three meters, has been the subject of scrutiny and analysis for the past 77 years with no concrete answers until now. By chance, while attempting an unrelated investigation in the area of the sighting, Agent Neo discovered a covert underground bunker, possibly a bomb shelter. Within, machines and production tools were discovered that displayed levels of robotics skill not thought capable in the 1960s. However, various methods of dating proved that the shelter had not been opened since 1964. Among various experimental models was a three meter anthropoid figure with the remnants of long, white fur hanging to the metallic skeleton. The fur itself was identified as polar bear fur and had nearly entirely rotted. The sheer number of small pistons within the machinery gave the figure an appearance of true musculature under the fur, especially while on old film. SIU staff are split on if this truly solves the mystery of the Yeti, but it is definitively agreed that it opens up further mysteries: the owner of the bunker, and creator of these machines (more advanced than ever seen from this era), is still completely unknown.

May 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai accompanied a sample of the teal moss, that Agent Rakkin recovered last month, as it was being transferred to a special research center in southern Africa: a necessary step as a local civil war caused damage to the agent’s covert ground transport and forced a detour through an old cemetery. The agent reported that some of the moss was lost during emergency transfer to an escape vehicle. The following day, Agent Jiutai and his convoy were forced to return to the cemetery following bizarre reports to local police of “zombies”* (*translated from similar local mythology). Agent Jiutai arrived to find that some of the skeletons and bodies buried within the cemetery had become infested with the teal moss, and had begun to exhume themselves from the dry earth. The animated corpses did not seem aggressive or at all intelligent but, for the safety and sanity of the local communities, the agent disassembled and destroyed them. Special units have been sent to quarantine the area and ensure that no moss spread any further into the local ecosystem.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin returned to Brazil to study the giant, invisible form responsible for the mysterious sounds of horns and machinery. The object so far has only been visible through infrared imagery and is otherwise completely invisible and intangible; rain and weather does not interact with it, and drones, sent to make physical contact, cannot seem to touch it. Through infrared satellite imagery, the object has been tracked as it slowly moved south from Porto Velho into Nova Mamore, bringing with it the deep noise it generates. Agent Rakkin chose to pilot a helicopter equipped with special infrared cameras and emitters and attempted to communicate with it, testing the assumption that it was a creature. The agent reports brief success: flashing a series of infrared pulses at the object caused it to respond with a similar, but different, series of pulses, perhaps indicating communication and not simple reflection or echoing. After further attempts, however, the agent and his aircraft’s crew were assaulted by sudden, massive heat, enough to cause severe burns and damage equipment. Agent Rakkin and the helicopter crew are still undergoing burn treatment as of this report, and the infrared object continues its slow migration southward. No attacks or damage on local inhabitants or wildlife has been reported.

Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw reported a very specific and elaborate dream in which he met the self-described “Prince of Dreams”. Calling himself Prince Zhaveh Azarin III, the blue canine apparently gave the sleeping agent a long tour of his kingdom, which bore a striking resemblance to some of the descriptions provided by Agent Rakkin in previous reports while using the Dreamscape Device, despite Agent Blackpaw having never used one. As if to provide evidence to his sovereignty over dreams, Prince Azarin described events and figures seen in the dreams of other SIU Agents that same night, as corroborated by those agent’s (mandatory) dream journals. Agent Blackpaw has failed all current tests for determining psychic powers or mastery of divination, which rules out the accidental reading of the minds of the other agents. The agent reports that his dream ended with the prince warning of a future danger, which will require SIU assistance. We are monitoring the situation closely.

Special Agent Cat Zirka was contacted by an archaeologist from a small town bordering the Gobi Desert. She had been studying large boulders that had recently been uncovered as a result of the desert’s slow expansion. The archaeologist refused to say what the problem was until Agent Zirka arrived, at which point she revealed her studies on some of the large rocks: claiming her belief that they are actually giant bones. Agent Zirka reviewed her evidence, performing her own experiments on the objects, and had no choice but to reach the same conclusion: some of the two-ton boulders, found under what was once hilly grassland, are the largest bones to have ever been discovered. On further study, the two reasoned that they were most likely vertebrae. If true, this would suggest an ancient creature many times more massive than even the largest dinosaurs ever discovered. Archaeologists from around the world are being flown to the site to further study the bones and attempt to discover more. Agent Zirka is staying in the area for further investigation into the authenticity of this finding.

Special Agent Chaz Gates claims she is being flirted with by modern art sculptures. Allowed some (heavily monitored) vacation leave after a series of stressful missions and events, Agent Gates visited the opening of an art museum in New Cairo which featured the works of local artists, mostly students. Among the collection of collages, plaster faces, and virtual-reality hellscapes were a series of abstract animals, vague feral forms made of bold shapes and metal piping. Gates claims that the statues moved whenever she wasn’t looking at them, appearing in different positions and in different locations each time she saw them. With no witnesses to confirm this, and no security footage to rely on, Chaz decided to infiltrate the museum at night to observe the statues. Several hours into the building being vacated for the night, Chaz returned and found that most of the art in the building had been destroyed, with evidence that, while unobserved, the feral statues had damaged the other works of art. To avoid implication in the vandalism, Agent Chaz anonymously contacted local authorities, who reported the situation as a break-in to news outlets, mentioning the theft of one statue among the many destroyed. The next night, Chaz discovered that her hotel room had been broken into and that one of the smaller sculptures was in her room, holding a flower in its cut-metal mouth. All sculptures have been seized by SIU scientists for study.

Special Agent Kouroth was traveling through rural japan, tracking down rumors of a potentially new cryptid, when his search was interrupted by a gastronomic mystery. While interviewing locals, Agent Kouroth was offered food with a very bizarre taste, described by the agent as a flavor like he’d never tasted before. Inquiring further, the local, an 85-year-old man who spent his youth as a sailor, showed off a dried, powdered blue spice. The old man, who wished to remain anonymous (redacted files available upon request with proper clearance), claims to have discovered a rare herb on a southern Oceanian island which he brought home, powdered, and used as a spice. Samples sent to the SIU labs show the powder to indeed be the dried residue of an unknown plant. The old man was unable to provide any meaningful direction towards where they herb may have been harvested, and local governments have been commissioned to help find more of this strange, brand new flavor.

The staff of Madam Zee’s Museum of Mysteries requested help in identifying the origins of a collection of what they described as “voodoo dolls”. Special Agent Neo was able to quickly determine that most of them were modern hoaxes, owing in most part due to their alleged ties to Haitian culture despite actual, historical dolls of this nature having a European origin. One figure, however, was declared as potentially authentic by the agent. Due to its confirmed age and composition, he more accurately described it as a poppet, an occult object with ties to English witchcraft. Genetic material was found within the wax of the figure, which may point to one of a series of mysterious deaths of English nobles in the 16th century. Agent Nero’s research was able to confirm some genetic ties to one of the victims, although this correlation may be impossible to verify. The figure is undergoing deep scans and will be returned to the museum soon, due to the nature of such curses in folklore as having a single target and complex rituals, it has been deemed to be of no threat, even if the potential occult implication in the 16^th century death turned out to be true.

June 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai uncovered an ancient board game almost lost to antiquity. In observing the excavation of a tomb discovered in Morocco (under the assumption that it might have been haunted [it wasn’t]), a long, curved game board was discovered. This board matched a depiction seen in only one historical fresco from the region, and was assumed to have been a variant of mancala. However, the real board, and the carvings on it, prove the existence of a completely new, unknown game. Most strikingly, analysis of stains found on the clay board proved to be blood. Nearby metal tools were found to slot perfectly into the holes in the board and, based on this and re-interpretation of the fresco, Agent Jiutai reasons that this game was based around the severing of body parts (most likely fingers). As the tomb was that of a low-ranking government official who left no written record, and is the only example of the “game” ever found, it may be impossible to determine if this game was widespread, or if it is a unique example of an extremely gruesome variation on a gambling game.

Due to his experience with the (still unexplained) invisible creature in Brazil, Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin was summoned to a British nature reserve where park rangers had made a bizarre discovery. The agent arrived to what appeared to be an empty dirt clearing but, when invited to explore it, he felt himself strike an unseen barrier. After careful exploration, and thermal images of the site, Agent Rakkin found a “door” on the invisible object, and entered what appeared to be an entirely invisible house. To the best of the agent’s reasoning, the house appears to be a two-story building and seems to be full of invisible objects and furniture, some of which could be felt and heard to hit the floor when knocked over. After a few hours of (essentially) blind investigation, Agent Rakkin seemed to have found a fully furnished sitting room and kitchenette on the ground floor, and reports having discovered a banister and set of stairs going upwards. With no occupant apparently in the area, visible or not, Rakkin and local authorities will continue to investigate this seemingly impossible find.

Secret Agent Erik Fischer was sent to the American Midwest to investigate the discovery of several strange wooden figures that had appeared around a small town seemingly over night. The structures are crude but roughly anthropoid in stance, and seem to be a mixture of freshly split wood and branches and older lumber: close inspection of small bite marks indicated that a colony of feral beavers may have been responsible. Interviews with the local population lead to the discovery of a 90-year-old woodsman who confessed to the constructions, in a matter of speaking. According to the resident, he spent most of his life learning to communicate and train the feral beavers who lived in the nearby creek, and had trained the animals to build for him. Agent Fischer was shown to the old man’s small cabin, which bore construction methods similar to the wooden figures. The woodsman treated the agent to a display of his command over the animals, which seemed eager and willing to work with him. He has declined offers of further study or interview.

Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw traveled to Scotland when a faulty broadcast seemed to have awoken an 80-year-old Russian sleeper agent. The broadcast was brief, but heard on all radio frequencies within the vicinity of a small town near Glasgow. The signal consisted of a five-tone melody and the word “dynamite” spoken by an unidentified woman with a neutral, but potentially northern European accent. The old sleeper agent, whose name is redacted for privacy reasons, rose from his wheelchair in his family home upon hearing the message and recovered a case of weaponry he had somehow kept hidden for 55 years and attempted to track down his target, a specific military officer. Although his target had been dead for 22 years at that point, it did not deter his efforts to fulfill the directive that had been awoken in his mind. After going off the grid for 28 hours, Agent Blackpaw was able to apprehend the sleeper agent during his walk towards the officer’s last known residence and talk him out of anything violent. Counselors and social workers have spent time with the old man to calm him down, but he was insistent that he would not be at peace until he at least shot the grave. When it was explained that the military officer was cremated and that his ashes had been spread into a river in Ireland, he gave up. An investigation in conjunction with Russian police is underway to uncover any further forgotten sleeper agents.

The Australian medical community summoned Special Agent Cat Zirka to help with a disturbing find. Erratic behavior and unexplained illness had been tracked through a growing number of the population over the past ten years, with no apparent cause until now. Scientists showed Agent Zirka their findings from a series of autopsies, wherein several long, pale worms were discovered buried in the frontal lobe of the deceased’s brains. This unknown species of parasite seems to influence behavior through the secretion of chemical hormones specifically tailored for the anthropoid brain and, furthermore, seem to either breed or communicate between bodies through the swapping of chemical signals. The transmission vector is still unknown, though scientists theorize that manipulation of a body’s scent or pheromones could be related to the spread or communication between hosts. Agent Zirka, working from rough estimates of infection numbers, reasons that the effected population may number into the thousands. The extent of the worms’ effect on their host, and on the host’s behavior and culture, as well as what information is communicated between hosts, is still yet to be discovered. Agent Zirka herself was found to have no traces of infection from her time on the continent, though she will remain in quarantine for a short period as a precaution.

Special Agent Chaz Gates, not yet tired of ocean travel, volunteered to aid research into strange readings detected from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Though international efforts have managed to reduce ocean waste plastic and entirely clean some smaller ‘islands’ of garbage that collect in the world’s oceans, this patch still remains a large and hazardous pollutant. Now, ocean researchers have detected strange chemical signals from the area, when researching the effects of the waste on local wildlife. With the help of Agent Gates, a significant number of small beetles were discovered camouflaged with the plastic of the island. Back on the ship, a quick analysis of some of the bugs revealed that the beetles were, in fact, made of plastic: the species’s exoskeleton and some of its internal organs were composed entirely of plastic. Researchers suggest a rapid adaptation and evolution of bugs living on the floating island of garbage and are looking into whether the beetles represent a new hazard to world health, or perhaps a solution to the plastic pollution.

Special Agent Kouroth was sent to a small town in Western Sudan where a mysterious illness has rapidly spread within the past year. The illness was identified as a type of prion disease, classically only transmitted by acts of cannibalism. A long series of interviews and investigation into meat transport lead to the discovery of a small, independently owned butcher. After an unsuccessful attempt to interview the residents, the agent was given permission to sneak into the business at night while the residents were out. Agent Kouroth was able to search inside and found the remains of several anthropoid figures. Local authorities were contacted for a full investigation of the area; although the owner of the still-active slaughterhouse has not been caught, evidence suggests that his victim count may well be in the hundreds of people, done in secret over the course of several years and mixed into other meat sent to local markets for sale. While the prion disease was undoubtedly caused by consuming the anthropoid meat from the slaughterhouse, the fact remains that the number of missing persons cases is almost nil in the local area and certainly nowhere near enough to cover a few victims a month, as evidenced by the remains and reports seized at the slaughterhouse.

Special Agent Neo uncovered a lost book after a deep dive in an old German library. Mentioned only briefly in obscure codices, the rather thin tome was written in faint, nearly indecipherable script by hand, apparently purposefully written to be fairly illegible judging by the nature of the pen strokes. The book is a dream journal, or collection of dream journals, which detail seemingly ordinary dreams for a person living in the 1600s time period in which it was written. Extended reading of the journal caused severe headaches in Agent Neo and all other agents who attempted to read it, first theorized as a result of squinting at the fine pen marks in the old bound book. The following nights after studying the journal were marred by unusually severe nightmares for all readers. Agent Neo spent time studying the book’s contents and found that it may use hidden, symbolic hexes or prayers woven in as repeating literary devices and subtle runes hidden within the handwriting. Further decoding has been put on hold, as the reported nightmares only became more severe with further study.

July 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai accidentally discovered a lost song. The song in question, presumed to have been played only once on a local Australian radio show in the late 1980s was partially captured by a local rock group for use on a bootlegged mix tape. Eventually rediscovered and distributed online, the origin of the mysterious folk-rock song, and the identity of the original performers, became the obsession of many online groups for years. By the time of the partial song’s resurgence, however, the radio studio from which the song was originally broadcast had burned down, along with its collection of vinyls and the archives of its shows. After this, the quest for the song died down, as many presumed the answers to be lost entirely. Agent Jiutai was aware of this mystery, but did not have it in mind when he was browsing a collection of bootleg discs in a small market in China. Several caught his eye, in particular a mislabeled cover of a somewhat popular folk album from Russia’s 2000s music scene. Once he played the disk, however, it became clear that the CD actually held the missing song, in no way associated with the Russian folk band, in full, grainy, ripped-from-vinyl detail. Further investigation into the metadata and printing codes lead the agent to track the recording to a private European recording studio. How the song wound up on Australian airwaves remains a mystery, but certain online groups have been overjoyed at the full song and additional leads.

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin traveled to the American Midwest to investigate the tragic death of the Mothman. A local celebrity, despite SIU’s best attempts at censorship, Mothman (a tall, winged creature of indeterminable age and origin) was found dead on a Saturday morning in the office of the used car dealership he owned. Many signs of struggle were noted in the office, the floor scuffed by metal, and much of the furniture badly damaged; examination of the body on the scene revealed that the death was likely by edged weapon. Any relevant security footage from nearby cameras was either deleted or scrambled into uselessness before agents could investigate, however Agent Rakkin’s exhaustive interviews with locals uncovered a rumor of a “woman in metal armor with bone on it” who was spotted on the outskirts of town. The grieving wife of the Mothman graciously allowed the SIU to study his remains, but the body itself seemed to resist analysis, as it had quickly turned into ash and dust during transport to a local morgue. Agent Rakkin was able to recover two large, black feathers from the remains; one was given to the widow and the other, with her grace, has been taken to the SIU headquarters for analysis.

Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw investigated a strange coincidence surrounding numerous unrelated novels from the 1990s. Spending much of his July vacation reading (practicing his SIU‑mandated speed reading training) Agent Blackpaw read through many different genres from the 90s era and discovered subtle repeating phrases across the disparate authors. A few of the exact same spelling errors seemed present across the works, along with a few discrete, repeated ideological themes. Traveling to America to research this further in his own time, Blackpaw received access to the archives of three different publishing houses involved in the collection of unrelated books he had read from. Extensive research into mailing addresses and handwriting from signed contracts show that all these books, and likely a great many more, were secretly penned by the same author under a series of false identities. Records of this core and singular author are sparse, though one author’s name, officially tied to a medical history and signed car insurance policy, appears in two of the books that received singular, limited print runs. If Blackpaw’s theory is correct, this author may rank among the most prolific authors in history, with a famous series on ancient dragons spending weeks on the best seller list across two years. The author was not available for comment, having been dead for 31 years.

Special Agent Erik Fischer was assigned to a small fishing town in Maine after reports of frequent nightmares. Locals claim that, almost a year ago, nearly all citizens of the town started having severe, disturbing nightmares on a nightly basis, and that their intensity has only grown over time. This was first regarded as a mental health crisis, and a possible case of mass hysteria, but as murder and suicide reports have increased, along with the reported strength of the nightmares, more attention has been warranted. Agent Fischer ran a series of interviews and investigated potential air and water pollutants to no effect. However, upon examining the town’s food supply, sourced largely from the ocean, he made the odd discovery that a local species of clam had developed strange markings on its shell: distinct black marks on the pale surface which, deeper study indicated, seem to mimic a set of ancient curse runes. According to the agent, a specific ancient text (of Maori origin) contained numerous curses and spells, including a curse for misfortune and nightmares that could be inflicted via magical runes that matched the design on the clam’s shells. Agent Fischer reasons that a temporary clam-free diet may stifle the problem, while local authorities attempt to relocate the new species under the cover story of a parasitic infection. Whether or not the runic markings are pure coincidence, or an example of highly specialized adaptation to repel harvest, has yet to be determined.

Special Agent Cat Zirka apprehended vandals in the ruins of Atlantis. The ancient city, left destroyed and buried in the North-West African desert, has been cordoned off by SIU and local governments since the confirmation of its identity in 2027. Despite the extremely hostile environment, and several layers of active protection, security footage showed evidence of a break-in. Agent Zirka discovered that some of the recently-excavated roads, lined with large stone walls, had been marked by spray paint graffiti. Zikra notes the apparent sadness of the graffiti, with most of the messages portraying personal longing (“come back”, “need you”) or outright sorrow (“we’re living a lie”). A trail of trace clues led the agent to a small nearby town eking out an existence in the desert whose residents claimed to be indigenous to the area for generations. Not able to convince the locals to submit to genetic studies (and eager to get home, away from the heat) Agent Zirka reasons that the locals may very well be distant descendants of whatever population lived in Atlantis and may be expressing their cultural identity through the graffiti, though no one confessed to the vandalism. Why whoever it was suddenly rose to action, and why they portrayed such personal sadness and longing at the ancient site, or why the seemingly unrelated word “imago” was found freshly carved several times into rock walls, remains a mystery.

Reports of reanimated dinosaur skeletons sent Special Agent Chaz Gates to a local history museum. Upon arrival, the Special Agent was immediately confronted by the problem: the replica fossil remains of several large Jurassic-era carnivores from an educational display were lurching and stomping around, having apparently “come to life” over night and caused a great deal of damage to nearby exhibits. Though several employees were injured, Agent Gates noted no specific intent from the skeletons to kill or maim, and saw that it was a pale teal moss that had spread over the bones which was causing their movements through contractions, like musculature. This moss, first discovered by Agent Rakkin in Indonesia, was well known to SIU staff for this usual effect on bodies and objects it comes into contact with. The size and number of these animated objects proved very difficult to subdue, and Chaz was injured in her first attempt before a brief retreat. An unlikely ally appeared to assist: the mobile animal statue the agent had bonded with months prior seemed to sense the danger and arrived at the museum, it was said to be instrumental in disabling the fossils. A very thorough investigation into how the samples of this moss and the metal sculpture escaped SIU storage is underway; Agent Chaz has been granted permission to once again take the small sculpture into her possession for personal study.

Special Agent Kouroth flew to Cambodia’s capital city to investigate a surprising twist in a ten-year-old missing persons case. An aging high-rise office building was being torn down as part of a large string of downtown renovations. In the process of breaking apart the cement foundation of the building, a body was found encased a meter deep in the cement. Agent Kouroth was dispatched after examination revealed that the young man was subject to an unsolved missing persons report a decade prior. While, on the surface, a possible theory may be that he fell, or was placed, into wet cement while the building was being constructed, this presents a problem: the building had already been completed fifteen years before his disappearance. Strangely, all evidence at the scene suggests that the man had somehow become encased in the wet cement when the structural foundation of the building was laid, despite that the missing person would have only been a five year old child at the time. According to experts, the surface of the slab had not been tampered with for over 25 years and there was no evidence to suggest that he had been placed into a hole in the cement at a later date and sealed in. Research into this bizarre situation is ongoing; no clues or unusual readings were found on his well-preserved body.

Special Agent Neo resumed his study of the game A.N.N.O., an abstract Japanese title released in 1999. With participating volunteer agents, including Agent Zirka, several playthroughs of the game were recorded and studied. This abstract, nontraditional game is known to change upon every playthrough, but several recordings reveal that certain changes seem specific to the player. Extensive playthroughs lead Agent Neo to theorize that the game was tailoring itself to the personality of the player. The exact mechanics of this are currently unknown, although examination of the cartridge reveals an embedded infrared detector, which may be used by the game’s programming to detect emotional responses. This may make A.N.N.O. unique in this regard, as no game from that era is known to be so reactive or personalized. Agent Zikra, specifically, noted that the generated landscape of the game reminded her of a beach she once saw in a sensory deprivation tank-endued hallucination; Agent Neo reported that some of the game’s visuals reminded him of dreams he had had after studying an ancient dream journal some months prior.

Aug 2020

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin was rushed to Cape Cod in north-eastern America to witness the landfall of a massive lobster. At roughly 20 meters in length, it matched descriptions of a creature caught on deep-ocean cameras some months back and, in August, it was spotted crawling slowly up toward the beach. Heavy, dark, and coated in barnacles and coral, the creature was slow enough that an evacuation of the beach and nearby towns was easily conducted in time for it to hit land. Though sent to assist in cover-up operations until the situation could be assessed, Agent Rakkin ended up on the front lines with a group of oceanographers sent to prevent any harm to, or by, the unique and strange shellfish. With some effort, and a few minor injuries to the scientists, the creature was shepherded safely into a hastily dug trench on the beach to stay hydrated. Plans are underway to find either the most appropriate location to store the creature, or the safest way to return it to its deep-sea home. Before returning to the SIU headquarters, Rakkin was put in touch with satellite surveillance teams in the area who had been photographing the local oceans over the weeks prior to the creature’s landfall. The footage showed dark, indistinct shapes beneath the waves which seemed to coincide with the lobster’s wake as it made its trek towards land. Experts worry that the further disruption, visible from low-orbit satellites, may imply that something astronomically larger had begun to move underwater and driven the mammoth lobster from its home.

Much to his chagrin, Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was sent to a small English village to investigate potential gnome sightings. Years of vague evidence in the form of dark, blurry photographs or low‑quality pixelated videos have hinted at “gnomes” in and around the county: the stereotypically short anthropoid figures wearing pointy hats had been mostly spotted at night, often walking strangely or hopping. Agent Jiutai (for the record, indignant and complaining to HQ all the way through) sarcastically interviewed several locals, reluctantly analyzed alleged footage, and came to the conclusion, despite his reservations, that evidence did point to real creatures being present. An exploration was conducted of the focal point of the sightings, which lead Agent Jiutai to a small, undiscovered underground cave system. No living creatures were present, but small tools and clothes (red, pointed hats in particular) were found along with hair samples. Quick analysis of the samples showed no genetic links to any currently known animal. Agent Jiutai was told to stay in the area to further investigate: the agent has submitted a formal complaint as to why he couldn’t get “cooler” assignments involving giant bugs or aliens.

Secret Agent Erik Fischer investigated the strange and sudden disappearance of an entire Russian town’s population. This insular town, built originally as a mining town, was discovered by outsiders, driving through, to be suddenly empty overnight. Investigation of many of the homes proved this to be a very literal descriptor: beds were unmade and often full of empty clothing, as if citizens had instantly vanished in their sleep. Overnight workers in the town had also vanished at their posts, leaving meals half eaten and computers still on, videos running and typing halted mid-sentence. Forensic investigation had yielded no results: no toxins, poisons, or signs of struggle. Agent Fischer dug deeper (not literally, although that might help) into town records and the history of the region and eventually discovered strange, seemingly deliberate patterns in the original layout of underground water pipes. The lay of the town’s sewer system appeared to replicate certain runes found in obscure occult texts, a clear attempt to recreate the mystical symbology. Readings in the area show hints of a unique residual energy that some researches believe is left behind after supernatural events. The agent’s theory is that the ancient runes were accidentally activated somehow, perhaps by some unique substance being flushed through the system or a specific order of activation, and this either destroyed or teleported the town’s entire anthropoid population.

Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw was assigned to a small town outside the Walls of Cairo to investigate a dangerous machine reportedly active in the area. Blackpaw arrived to see several mobile homes destroyed or heavily damaged and met with several injured locals who spoke of a large metal “robot” that had run rampant that morning. The trail of destruction was easy to trace, but hard to follow due to the wreckage and small fires set along the path, but the agent eventually found an amateur scientist attempting to subdue their own creation. After a scuffle, Agent Blackpaw assisted in shutting the machine down, which they reported was a three meter tall anthropoid figure constructed entirely out of junk and scrap metal. The scientist (more accurately described as a 15-year-old orphan with expert knowledge in robotics and computer programming) claims a simple algorithmic program began to expand out of their control and formed something resembling sentience and this, in turn, caused the construct to use its robotic body to cause the confused chaos around the town. The SIU will be funding repairs to the small town and sending the young person to a technical college in Sudan with the potential for future recruitment. The robot itself will be stored in an SIU location for study of its malicious AI.

Special Agent Neo investigated the food supply of a Japanese city which seemed to be causing a strange illness. An unusual number of domestic violence cases had been reported in the past two months, and when local investigators correlated the cases to buying food from one specific market, the SIU was asked to help investigate. The fruit and vegetables that were the most likely culprits were all sourced at a local greenhouse, and Agent Neo easily found the owner: described as “disheveled and almost incoherent” despite there being no evidence of intoxication. The greenhouse owner had no hesitation in showing the agent to his plants and offered no conflict at all when Agent Neo investigated the soil, finding several decomposing corpses inches beneath the dirt. Seven bodies were discovered, all with multiple stab wounds and evidence of poisoning, placed beneath the soil and now covered entirely in the roots of the plants being grown to feed people in the city. The owner of the greenhouse, a grocer for over 25 years, was taken into police custody with no resistance or excuse for his actions. The violence and confusion caused by local consumers is thought to have been caused by a build-up of minor doses of the poison in the corpses spreading to the soil, or some other property within the bodies themselves. Given the potential of a larger victim pool entirely broken down over time, it is very likely that the food’s producer may have sustained heavy damage to parts of his brain from eating the laced food himself, which resulted in his delirious state.

Special Agent Kouroth has become trapped in the closed-circuit surveillance system of the SIU headquarters and no one is sure how to get him out. The agent was last seen, in the flesh, when leaving the dining hall, turning a corner and out of sight. This action involves him stepping out of the field of view of one camera and entering the view of another, at which point he seems to have vanished in some way that is still being determined. Kouroth can still be seen on the live and recorded footage of the security feeds, walking past people in the hallways, but no one has actually seen him pass by. He does not stop walking, moving at a determined pace, though appearing to have a casual, worry-free expression. As the team scrambles to decipher meaning in the erratic pattern of his movements through the monitored section of the headquarters (mostly the connecting hallways), it appears that he has been walking nonstop, without tiring, for several days at this point. Several attempts to communicate with, interact with, or stop Agent Kouroth have failed, often by virtue of staff not appearing on the footage, despite being at the exact location to intersect Kouroth’s circuit of the building in his reality. On his seventh day of circling through the base, he has finally stopped to sit and eat food left out for him. Research into the situation is ongoing.

The Flatwoods Monster has been slain, Special Agent Chaz Gates was called to a small American town to investigate. The two-meter-tall alien, exiled to Earth and spotted by the general public briefly in the 1950s, was found bifurcated and partially decomposing in a river. Agent Gates, in particular, was sent due to cellphone footage of a mysterious stranger in town that bore her likeness. Examination of the body indicated attack by a large, bladed weapon, and footage captured indeed appeared to feature Agent Gates, albeit in a vintage set of metal armor. Gates followed a trail of clues, which lead her to the discovery of her copy, the old clone of hers from a botched experiment some years ago, which still possessed by the cursed crown uncovered at the bottom of the Japanese sea. The clone had somehow survived the firefight in Japan, which had also resulted in Agent Chaz losing an arm, and she appeared in good health. When it was revealed that the death of the Flatwoods Monster was causing a viral outbreak in the town, Gates decided she had no choice but to let her clone escape and returned to town to help. The alien chemicals in the body of the monster had corrupted water supplies and had begun rapidly spreading into the ground water, killing plants at an alarming rate. The evacuation of the town is still ongoing.

Special Agent Cat Zirka was requested to visit Madam Zee’s Museum of Mysteries in Australia but got sidetracked when a small village en route caught her eye. The town of Houndstooth was apparently founded in 1933, although official records of the town are very sparse and hard to verify. Agent Zirka was taken aback not only by the name, but a map of the town proudly displayed in the village square: as the town’s name and layout seemed identical to a town she had created for a tabletop role-playing game several months prior. What had, at first been, a small personal detour to collect a few memorabilia for her friends, turned more serious at this point. The building and street plans directly matched the paper-drawn map she had allegedly invented out of pure imagination, as did the name of several streets. The agent reasons that there would have been no reason to have seen a map of the town before arriving, despite intrinsically knowing her way around town, having narrated her players around an identical, imaginary town every week for months. None of the characters invented for the game seem to reside in the town and, to the best of SIU knowledge, there is not a troll infestation in the nearby woods, but investigation is still ongoing into both the town’s history and Agent Zirka’s mental state.

Sep 2020

Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin awoke on the moon earlier this month. After an unremarkable night under standard surveillance, Rakkin disappeared under his sheets shortly before sunrise and, according to his own report, found himself on the lunar surface. The agent reported no difficulty breathing, and no sensation from the sub-zero temperatures. Carefully exploring his surroundings, Rakkin described being at the bottom of a small crater and explained that he was able to interact with his surroundings, leaving footprints in the regolith. Exiting the crater, still unaffected by the environment even as the rising sun began to heat the lunar surface, he walked some distance across the surface until he spotted a figure in the distance that, according to the agent, appeared to be exactly identical to him once he got closer. The two Agent Rakkins approached each other and came face to face. The agent reports that, just when their hands were about to touch, he then awoke back on Earth. Agent Rakkin was discovered in downtown Cairo, still in his sleeping clothes, which appeared stained with what was later confirmed to be lunar regolith. As Agent Rakkin’s memory of his surroundings did not include a view of the Earth, it may be impossible to verify his visit to the lunar surface.

A mysterious illness at a university computer lab required the attention of Secret Agent Avia Jiutai. A group of audio engineers were discovered in a comatose state after a night-long crunch on a powerful new audio compression algorithm. Worse, the students all presented with strange sub-dermal growths resembling a hard plastic or carapace. Agent Jiutai was the first investigator to enter the room after its discovery: the room had been quickly quarantined and the entire building evacuated, for fear of a viral outbreak. Though presumed safe in his hazmat suit, after only a few moments in the room, the agent started to feel faint and dizzy, a feeling he attributed to a “strange, high-pitched, pulsing noise” heard from many of the room’s speakers. The agent’s condition worsened as he began to mute and disconnect the speakers and, by his report, he found himself mimicking the pulsing sound, compulsively echoing it out of his mouth against his will. The agent attempted to call for backup, but all that was heard through his intercom was his own mimicking of the sound, which caused the SIU intercom operator to also begin echoing the sound before the communication was shut off. Other agents, equipped with sound-canceling devices, rescued Agent Jiutai and shut down the computers entirely before extracting the students. All the students survived their cocoons, but require extensive medical attention. SIU engineers theorize that the classes experimental compression techniques may have accidentally created an “audio virus”, a sound wave which duplicates itself within sapient beings, which begin to mutate and disperse through the students. All research materials have been confiscated for safety, and future study.

Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw spent a day off visiting an “escape room” in New Cairo, a sort of room-sized puzzle meant to be escaped from via various puzzles and traps within. It became quickly clear to the Agent, however, that this specific escape room was potentially unsolvable and definitely fatal – the slowly closing walls of the room, seeming to be a convincing illusion or harmless trick at first, was found to most certainly press all inhabitants to death upon failure to solve the room’s puzzle. Shortly after Agent Blackpaw realized that the physical puzzles themselves had been discretely modified to be impossible to solve, he determined that the room’s blood stains, at first appearing to be just a convincing decoration, were legitimate. Blackpaw managed to break through a drainage vent in the floor and escape before witnessing the walls of the room press completely together in what would surely have killed him, and in exploring the vents and their point ultimate of ultimate determination, he discovered the remains of several slain individuals. Apparently “not in the mood” for a direct confrontation with the escape room’s owner, Blackpaw escaped and called for backup, and the building was soon locked down. An investigation into the room and its owner are underway and the room’s murder count is estimated to be over 10.

Special Agent Neo chose to investigate the mystery of what may be the most long-lived family pet in history. Known affectionately as “The Pharaoh”, the male macaw has been part of the Shelly family since 1919, when he was delivered to the family’s estate as a gift: however, the bird was noted to have already been an adult at that time. With no known documentation of his birth, or origin, only guesses can be made of his exact age before 1919, especially as genetic testing from feathers and droppings have proved inconclusive. Various photographs and descriptions in newspaper reports from the past 119 years suggest that it is, however unlikely, the same bird, mostly from a few very distinct markings on the tail feathers. All surveillance and digital forensics has found no evidence of The Pharaoh (the bird) having secretly been replaced or photos doctored. A personal examination of the bird by Agent Neo triggered a memory, and he quickly acquired a copy of a little-known illustrated manuscript on birds. In it was a detailed description, and sketches, of a macaw kept in a royal court overseas, which seemed to perfectly match The Pharaoh. If this manuscript indeed describes this same bird then its age, based on the age of the manuscript that describes it, may well be over 500 years old. Though there is absolutely no biological evidence of a macaw living over 50 years on average, there may now be evidence of one bird living over ten times that length.

Special Agent Kouroth has reported increasingly intense, recurring dreams of a massive machine. All SIU agents are required to fill out detailed dream journals, and it has been noted that gears, pistons, and machine-like imagery has appeared in Kouroth’s dreams several times in the past years, but the latest dreams are entirely different. The agent describes a machine of seemingly infinite dimensions, the intricate parts range from minute, clock-like parts; to gears of monolithic, skyscraper size. Kouroth’s dream journal includes seven consecutive nights of these dreams, involving his exploration of the vast walkways, corridors and sprawling staircases inside the massive machine that seems to extend endlessly, without pattern or repetition. The agent’s waking life has been interfered with by the dreams as Kouroth seems increasingly distracted by the memories, sometimes idly drawing complex machinery on paper. Kouroth does not have specific training in machinery, but an analysis of his drawings by engineers reveal the framework of an analogue computer: something too specific and precise to be drawn at random. The agent is currently undergoing sleep study and therapy.

Special Agent Chaz Gates has helped discover what may be the world’s most comfortable chair, and it seems to have been created over 10,000 years ago. Gates was accompanying a team of archaeologists as they excavated a cave recently discovered in the wake of a large forest fire in the Congo. While the archaeologists studied tools, weapons, and jewelry that appeared unrepresented by any records of ancient civilizations in the region, Agent Gates studied the cave itself, which appeared carved by hand into the shape of beds, benches, chairs, and storage areas. Upon sitting in one of the hand-carved seats set into the walls, she was shocked by the level of ergonomic comfort and lumbar support, stating that it felt as though it were carved specifically to support and compliment her body. One by one, archaeologists took turns trying the seat and all gave similar descriptions, none of them were able to recall a more comfortable place to sit, despite their varied weights and body types. Details of the exact curves and angles in the chair are complicated to explain and the agent worries it may be difficult to replicate exactly even with laser measurements. Upon completion of the archaeological studies, there are plans to make a cast of the seat in an attempt to mass-produce molds of what may be history’s perfect chair.

A wide-spread attempt at mind control over the British population has been thwarted by Special Agent Erik Fischer. A spree of strange public behavior reported by British police warranted Fischer’s attention: various public disturbances, such as spontaneous group clapping, flash mobs, and at least one short, ten-person musical number seemed to have no explanation, planning or underlying cause. In investigating the homes of some of the unwitting participants, Fischer discovered several similar grooming and beauty products, each sold by different companies but containing similar chemical properties. While Fischer was investigating the parent companies of eight different cosmetic brands, the SIU laboratories determined that a special metallic compound found in these products, too subtle on its own but magnified when compounded by different concurrent products, formed an electrochemical receiver designed to react within the skin to a specific radio frequency. This coincided with Agent Fischer’s discovery that the cosmetic brands, owned by various shell companies and under fake names, were all actually owned by a radio station broadcasting throughout England. Agents raided the main headquarters of the radio company and found devices attuned to the specific frequency of the chemicals that were used in in-house trials. It is implied that complex commands were being broadcast by the station, and unconsciously received by people who had used enough of the affected products. With evidence of upcoming purchases of several other cosmetic companies, the reach of this influence could have been massive. The independent company owner has not yet revealed her intentions under interrogation.

Special Agent Cat Zirka returned to Madam Zee’s Museum of Mysteries to investigate a firearm with a storied past. According to the legend proudly posted alongside the gun’s display, the 1934 German-made pistol is responsible for nearly 30 different, unrelated murders committed outside the context of war. This high number is believed to be by sheer chance of the firearm having changed hands several times over the years through theft, loaning, and even accidental discovery. Agent Zirka, who has never shown any aptitude for sensitivity to auras, arranged to hold the pistol herself to inspect it and, according to her report, received a quick flash of visions of the previous murders: first person views of each murder the gun had been involved in over its storied history from the perspective of the shooters. When the trance was broken, Zirka found herself restrained on the ground by museum employees, pistol smoking and a hole in the ceiling. Although there were no injuries, the implication that even an SIU agent can succumb to what may be a weapon’s own murderous intent will require future investigation.

Oct 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was tasked with protecting one of the most important hoaxes deliberately perpetuated by the SIU. The supposed existence of mermaids has long been a method to encourage oceanic conservation and wildlife study in the general populace, along with several other fictional animals (such as the mapinguari, the Hawaiian yeti, and the manatee). A recent large-scale study of environmental DNA threatened to cast serious scientific doubts on the existence of mermaids, as such it was Agent Jiutai’s mission to create another sighting to encourage the belief. Through the traditional use of animatronics and holograms, the agent staged a successful sighting near a busy cruise ship packed with tourists in the South Pacific. Although nearly caught himself, and apparently badgered and pursued by an especially curious octopus, the agent’s mission has been considered a success. Based on the number of articles and videos interpreting the footage that have been spread online by cryptozoological circles, the sighting has once again captured public imagination and curiosity about the mysteries of the ocean.

Tool use has been observed in many wild animals, such as crows and octopuses, but Senior Agent Gedat Rakkin was present for the first example of deliberate tool use found in lions. A small Sub‑Saharan town had been finding the gates of their newly built town walls repeatedly broken open, with the damage indicative of the use of lock picks or pry bars. Assuming that it was the work of vandals, a network of security cameras was established to catch the crimes in the act: it was these cameras that captured footage of a lion breaking through the doors. When on the scene, Agent Rakkin hid overnight near the town boundary and saw, first hand, that a small pride of lions were using broken bones, split into splinters, to pick the locks of the gates, holding the bone tools in their mouths and adjusting with forepaws. With the help of experts, who were reluctant to be flown in overnight for such an outlandish claim, Rakkin was able to track down the pride’s rest area and discovered more hints of tool use, and one potential example of art made from crushed berries mixed with blood (although this is debated). Study of this pride of lions and its unique behavior will likely continue for years.

Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw spent the month tracking down an alleged “super hero” who went rogue in Germany. “Sternensoldat”, an anonymous, star-themed vigilante, achieved local fame after her controversial intervention in several minor crimes, which led to her uncovering evidence that aided in prosecuting a major crime boss. Public opinion soured, however, when she was spotted vandalizing public spaces with strange graffiti. While this would usually be firmly within the jurisdiction of local police, SIU intervention was requested after several break-ins, thought to be perpetrated by the hero, underlined the police department’s inability to uncover her identity or track down the hero-turned-criminal. Agent Blackpaw tracked the hero down, after great effort combing through city-wide surveillance, audio signal triangulation, and an interview with a local “super villain”. Inside the star themed secret base, ironically located within an abandoned, underground subway station, Sternensoldat was found in a delirious state and had to be subdued after a long fight. Interviewed by Agent Blackpaw, the young woman explained that all her heroics were instructed, and overseen, by voices she heard “from the stars”, and that the recent strings of crimes were also commanded by celestial voices. After being taken into custody, the unusual hero was given a medical exam where metal shrapnel was found embedded in her skull from an accident years prior. The SIU’s working theory is that the metal may be forming a make-shift receiving array, which may be responding to strong wireless signals; the source, and nature, of the signal, if it exists, has yet to be determined.

Special Agent Neo purchased a house well known for being haunted, and uncovered a secret within its walls. Built in 1729, its owner was found guilty of piracy and treason, and was hanged on his own property. This death was a very public affair and is often said to have symbolized the end of the Golden Age of Piracy in the region. Ever since that time, it is almost inevitable that ghost sightings and minor poltergeist activity has been reported in the home. Agent Neo, well-trained in ghost interpretation (as are all SIU agents), spent several nights in his new home interacting with the ghost and examining the fine detail of the house itself, which was surprisingly well preserved. One night, the agent followed clues that only appeared under dim lighting in many of the vintage paintings, and was led to a secret door apparently left undiscovered for 300 years. The door led Agent Neo down a stairwell into a large, unrecorded underground lake. There, half-submerged in the lake, was a small wooden ship which matched descriptions of a mysterious pirate ship sometimes spotted in the 1700s. Historians have been invited to the site in an attempt to retrieve and catalog the ship and all it contains, with talk of a local museum to be founded on the site (though who would construct a ship in an underground lake is still yet to be determined). Neo himself has shifted focus to the study of ghost photography, in hopes of recording evidence of the pirate ghost in his new home that has, according to him, become quite friendly.

Special Agent Chaz Gates intervened in a fifteen year old kidnapping case. In 2023, one of a pair of identical twins (age ten at the time) was reported missing from their Cairo home, with no clear evidence of who was responsible. Three years later, the missing twin (now a teenager) re-appeared in the family’s living room with no apparent memory of the disappearance, and no evidence of mistreatment. Years later, Agent Gates was prompted to investigate the situation after a police raid of a local building revealed a second pair of twins, also identical to those in the 2023 case who still lived nearby, who were found squatting in the building illegally and were recognized by a detective on the original case. Gates’ interviews with the four men, all 25 and all identical, revealed that they were actually quadruplets who had been accidentally split up at a hospital in Turkey when their Egyptian mother went into labor early while on vacation. A clerical error caused a nurse to give only two of the children to their parents, with the other two raised at a local orphanage who believed the children had been abandoned by the Cairo natives. The “kidnapping” in 2023 was actually a botched attempt for the Turkish pair of twins to swap lives with their Egyptian siblings, which caused three of the siblings to be detained at a shipping port in Gaza by Israeli child services, where they bonded and became friends. After the reappearance of the kidnapped sibling in Cairo, the four made a plan to repeatedly trade places with each other, without the knowledge of their parents or school officials, essentially sharing two lives between the four of them. Agent Gates has determined no supernatural foul play in what threatened to be a case of teleportation, time skipping, or person duplication — as to how these four people got away with it so cleanly, Gates offers no suggestion, nor does the local police official now in charge of the case, age 26, who bore a striking resemblance to the four siblings.

Special Agent Kouroth had his mind read by a dog. Tulipán, a pet xoloitzcuintle living in a small Mexican village, has local notoriety for the ability to predict the weather and even local elections to a level of accuracy that piqued SIU interest. Agent Kouroth investigated and finally got to meet the dog, which he described as very healthy and friendly. His owners declined an invitation for the dog to be more thoroughly examined at a nearby SIU site equipped with psychic energy detection machines, but a cursory scan with the agent’s hand-held device showed no unusual peaks in mental wavelengths during his apparent “predictions”. The agent reports that, after extensive testing and an afternoon spent with the dog, random chance and sheer coincidence could account for the bulk of the dog’s precognition abilities, and that the unconscious humming of a song the agent had stuck in his head could explain how the dog knew which record to pick from the family’s collection — but, Tulipán’s ability to spell the agent’s original name in children’s toy blocks, when it was legally expunged from the record upon SIU induction, has yet to be explained, and may require a re-evaluation of Agent Kouroth.

Special Agent Erik Fischer investigated a sudden spike in radiation beneath a Russian city. Due to nuclear weapon restrictions, the city was already under close surveillance, and as such the increase in background radiation was quickly noticed. Governmental officials, however, swore that there had been no new development in nuclear technology or tests in the area. Despite widespread skepticism, the Russian government itself reached out to the SIU for assistance in at least confirming local safety. Agent Fischer was sent to hone in on the source of the radiation, which lead him underground into a network of access tunnels and subway lines in the affected area. A heavy amount of steam was found leaking through cracks in a wall and, after a simple breach, a network of tiny, flooded insect tunnels were discovered to be the source of the radioactive material. Agent Fischer discovered that many of the rocks that had been piled up in these tunnels were full of natural Uranium. It appeared, as strange as it seems, that a subterranean colony of unremarkable harvester ants had accidentally created a natural nuclear reactor by breaking apart radioactive rocks and piling them up, in the process of expanding their colony after a flood in their tunnels. A team was sent to clean up this natural reactor for the sake of the city’s safety: many samples of the surviving ants have been collected for study.

Although the SIU has no evidence that time travel is possible, all claims are taken very seriously: Special Agent Cat Zirka was tasked to investigate one such claim in Chile. The alleged time traveler was a very charismatic Coquimbo Marked Gecko who had been selling what they claimed were artifacts from people’s individual pasts. For a large, but reasonable, price, they claimed to have the ability to travel back in time to retrieve a duplicate of any object from someone’s personal history. Happy customers they had served showed Agent Zirka lost books, phones, jewelry, and rare band shirts that the time traveler was able to “retrieve” from as far back as four decades. The agent, eager to test the traveler’s abilities, requested an action figure from her youth and was asked to describe it in the clearest detail she could. She claims the results were remarkable: the traveler disappeared into a private room and returned with what seemed to be the exact figure from the agent’s memory, including certain specific damages done to it in her youth, some that she had not even mentioned to the traveler. The traveler declined requests for further investigation so, in true SIU fashion, she merely broke into the building later that night and discovered a very advanced 3D printer prototype stolen from an Indian manufacturer. Based on the trademark tools and extensive personal journals, Agent Zirka reasons that they are not a time traveler but are, in fact, a psychic who is also incredibly skilled with modern 3D modeling programs, able to read memories and replicate the mental image of the objects via 3D printing. SIU has decided to not publicly unveil the scam, but the psychic will be brought in on criminal charges related to the theft: charges likely to be lessened if they agree to participate in SIU psychic studies.

Nov 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was sent to investigate an unregulated demolition derby outside an abandoned factory in northern India. Although the criminality is outside of SIU’s purview, rumors of AI drivers appearing in social media clips required SIU attention. Thankfully, Agent Jiutai was (enthusiastically) able to sneak in, disguised as one of the drivers. Most of the drivers were very secretive and reclusive before the illegal event began, so Jiutai’s investigation had to take place during the action. Throughout the dangerous street race course, that detoured through factory buildings, damage to other cars revealed that at least two of the drivers were advanced car-driving computers. When Agent Jiutai purposefully damaged the windscreen of another car, revealing the driver-less machinery inside, it caused an uproar through the crowd and the event runners quickly attempted to shut down the event. From a concealed garage, more cars drove out in response to the shut down: apparently all AI-driven. Though their motives were unclear, it is speculated some of the cars may have been trying to flee the scene, or perhaps chase Agent Jiutai off. Unable to contain the situation himself, the agent escaped in his car through an access tunnel and onto a busy highway nearby, before the chaos of the AI drivers caused an explosion that collapsed a nearby brickworks. Only minor injuries were reported, and a thorough investigation into the source of the AIs is underway.

Senior Special Agent Gedat Rakkin was assigned to attend a scheduled visit from an alien race. This delicate, translucent, spider-like race appears in Antarctica every 19 years, and is discretely transported to a more hospitable climate for care and exchange of communications. The race communicate entirely in music, using quickly-constructed webs as a sort of plucked instrument that Agent Rakkin was required to spend the past year learning in order to understand their musical language. The interstellar ambassadors this year were described as “more feisty” than past visitors, observers noted that Rakkin’s communication with one of the ambassadors resembled a musical duel more than it did refined and respectful communication. This exchange apparently went very well, as the aliens have modified the terms of a trade contract to allow more of their rare galactic goods to be brought to the SIU. Several bootleg recordings of the musical conversation between Rakkin and the ambassador have been found circulating the base.

It cannot be recorded, for certain, what Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw was assigned to do this past month. The agent was sent to a discrete location to retrieve an object. It is known that this object cannot be written about: all attempts at writing its name or description seem to be filtered out by the brain before it can be typed or handwritten. More disconcertingly, if the name or description is brute‑forced or machine‑written, it seems that the eye subconsciously filters out the name regardless of exposure to, or distance from, the object, or any understanding of what the name is supposed to mean. This means, naturally, that even machine‑written reports like this won’t be able to communicate its name, despite that the name of the object has been used several times. Agent Blackpaw faced some resistance from someone, in his retrieval of the object, but the SIU now safely holds the object somewhere. Local agents must be either directly shown to wherever the object is or given relative directions, although these end with the agent getting lost at least half the time. Accidentally stumbling on the object seems to be the best way to find the object, which might lead to problems in the future.

Special Agent Neo took an American tailor under SIU custody after it was discovered he was stitching runic patterns into the clothing he sold. The erratic behavior of many locals in the area lead to Neo’s discovery of intricate arcane runes stitched between layers of fabric in their clothes, sewn with a fine silver thread. The tailor surrendered without any trouble, and seemed more eager to discuss his craft with a knowledgeable audience than to defend himself against what aren’t technically “crimes” in any public court. The runic pattern is highly advanced and complicated, seeming to react to the bodily energy and circulation of the wearer. The expected effects of the runes are yet to be established with the tailor, who admitted that this was his first time trying something like this: presumably “running pantless through the mall” was not his intention, despite that being the observed behavior of his many customers. Study of his work continues, and the tailor will be kept under SIU custody to establish how he learned this new part of his trade.

A sudden spike in ghost sightings sent Special Agent Kouroth to an English cemetery. Several gravestones installed between 2022 and 2026 were discretely modified by a now defunct company offering “Virtual Memories”: holographic memorials of those interred, projected by a code-locked device in the gravestones. As the company has since gone out of business, the virtual tours of the deceased’s lives had been largely inaccessible for years, until this week, when it appeared that many of the holographic projectors set into the graves had begun to spontaneously activate, creating flickering, ghostly visions of the dead. Whether this was caused by accidental activation or an act of tech‑minded vandalism remains unknown. Until now, it was assumed that that the holographic devices would have entirely ceased function after the company’s servers were taken offline and a final firmware update effectively “bricked” the emitters. There were, however, more troubling implications: Agent Kouroth’s focus quickly shifted from this early 2020’s gimmick, to investigating why these digital “ghosts” seemed to be interacting with one another. When two nearby figures are activated at the same time, they appear to greet each other and converse: although there is no sound available through the projection hardware, they often seem overjoyed and laugh in clear, free-form conversation. Some of the devices have been moved for study, but many remain activate (if closely monitored by SIU interns) for the sake of their families. Families claim to have never received a reaction like this when previously activating the devices (as expected, they simply played recorded messages and cycled a few pre-recorded scenes). Agent Kouroth is still working to acquire any code or relevant assets from the defunct company to further his investigation.

Special Agent Erik Fischer has been researching supposed proof of reincarnation. A young girl in Spain, whose mother died in childbirth, was caught attempting to board an international plane using her mother’s name and passport; though she was assumed to have stolen the information, many of the legal travel papers were filed recently, using secure passwords and information that only her mother would have known. When interviewed by local police, the girl explained that she was her own mother: that she had woken up in the infant body of her own daughter, trapped in an essentially useless body for years with all her memories intact. Agent Fischer determined to travel to Spain and give the young woman a more open‑minded interview and determine the validity of her claims which had been largely ignored by local law enforcement. Fischer was able to confirm that the daughter had considerable knowledge and experience that was very unlikely at her age, including a slew of intimate information about her mother that seemed impossible for her to have learned. No journals or notes have been found, online or offline, that may have been the source of the information, which extends beyond passwords to memories that were easily confirmed to be accurate via the mother’s friends and family. Further investigation is still pending. The girl’s father, who may also be her widower husband, has refused to comment.

Fearing the worst after the Flatwoods Monster murder, Special Agent Chaz Gates rushed to Scotland after reports of an attempt to murder the Loch Ness Monster. Nessie was found injured but stable, though, as feared, she tried to attack Agent Gates on sight, claiming that it was the agent who had attacked her, while wearing a now notorious suit of metal armor. Agent Gates was able to follow a trail of blood from the scene to the home of a local resident, where she found a (literal) copy of herself inside, injured by a cryptid bite and holding the residents hostage. The exact details of the verbal exchange are being kept private by Agent Gates and her superiors. After the exchange Gates, and her copy, released the hostages and stepped outside. Now that close inspection was possible, Agent Gates was able to confirm that the clone was sealed in the set of metal and ivory armor created for Marquee du Pont, a cursed artifact stolen from the SIU some months ago. The clone was seemingly possessed by the armor, and by a sword and crown that the original Agent Gates had recovered from the Japanese Sea. Refusing to be taken in, or be separated from the cursed artifacts, a fight ensued: Gate’s armored clone seemed impervious to gun fire and the agent was forced to resort to improvised weaponry to fend off the attack. Gates was seriously injured, and thought she was surely dead, when her clone was taken down in a surprise attack by, of all things, the animal-shaped dog sculpture Gates had been caring for, which had followed her across the ocean without her realizing. Knowing the sculpture only moved when not observed, Gates had no choice but to turn her back and merely listen to the sounds of her clone being, finally, slain by the sculpture. Agent Gates (and the Loch Ness Monster) are expected to make full recoveries; the body of her final rogue clone, and all the attached artifacts, have been stored in the SIU’s most secure area for safety.

Special Agent Cat Zirka was tasked to solve a seemingly impossible robbery. In 2029, the Saṭāra dī Akha, one of the largest and most valuable gems in the world was caught up in the famous nuclear accident in Amritsar, India. Experts agreed that it would take at least 250 years before it was considered safe to handle again, given the level of irradiation it received, and thus it was sealed in thick concrete and metal at a secret location in the Punjab state. With no windows or entrances at all, save for an entry port large enough for a single wire probe (to detect the radioactivity levels of the gem), when radiation readings suddenly dropped to zero, security on the site was alerted. The containment cell showed no signs of forced entry and the SIU was contacted when security footage of the area showed a man, dressed all in black, walk through the walls of the facility, through the wall of the containment cell, and out the other side with the gem in hand. Agent Zirka was able to track the culprit down and gave chase. Though he could pass through walls, he could not run very fast, which created a unique challenge for the agent. When the culprit’s ability to pass through solid objects allowed him to pass unharmed through moving traffic, Zirka was stumped; that is until the culprit was suddenly stopped by a brick: which, however unlikely, was flung from an unrelated explosion at a nearby brickworks that collapsed in the midst of an AI revolt. Apparently, while the thief had stopped to gloat, the brick was thrown into traffic, collided with the hood of a passing van, and struck down the jewel thief. The gem has been safely quarantined and placed back into storage, but the wall-phasing culprit has since disappeared (literally disappearing through the ground, Agent Zirka reports).

Dec 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai witnessed the resurrection of the Mothman. Having been slain last year, a feather from Mothman was kept in SIU storage, mainly as a reference point for cryptobiologists. This month, strange energy readings were detected from its storage container and, upon opening up storage, an egg was found in place of the feather. In the presence of Agent Jiutai, and several other agents, the egg then hatched into a “new Mothman”, which quickly grew to adolescence in the course of 48 hours. When tasked with interviewing the new Mothman, Jiutai instead found himself being asked a series of probing questions by the regrown Mothman: these questions were on several classified, ongoing topics, including the agent’s relationship with certain sentient trees and his involvement with a sentient stealth aircraft. Agent Jiutai has determined that Mothman’s memories have mostly returned unaltered and, after a thorough (but frustratingly useless) medical examination, the Mothman’s wife was called to take him home. Before leaving, he inquired if Jiutai was aware of “the ritual” yet; the meaning of this enigmatic question remains unseen, but that has been somewhat par for the course for SIU interactions with Mothman.

A mysterious series of house fires in an Irish suburb required the investigative talents of Senior Special Agent Gedat Rakkin. Agent Rakkin began to suspect an odd 19th century house was somehow involved, after noticing some apparent irregularities with its architecture. This house sat between three of the victims on the same street, but was itself untouched by any damage. As no blueprints were available, Rakkin examined the large home from within, with the owner’s permission. Based on Rakkin’s studies, it seems that the home itself may have been designed as a weapon that had turned on its neighbors: a special, custom-built furnace in the basement appears to funnel heat through a complex series of air ducts in the twisting hallways, to create a focused beam of heat, which may be capable of burning down other buildings. The home owner, an elderly widow with no engineering knowledge, denies involvement with, or knowledge of, this feature, and Rakkin reasons that the old, hand-built furnace may have malfunctioned and activated the weaponized architecture by accident. Neighbors, and the homeowner, have been temporarily relocated while the house receives a more thorough examination: hopes are that the weaponized heat gun will be easily disarmed, and some clue as to the architect may be found in the details of the design.

Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw was present for the next chord in the world’s longest musical performance. Written and designed in 1991, a pipe organ in a French church has mechanically performed one long, ever-changing melody since 2004; playing continuous chords on the heavily modified instrument for the past 34 years, using tension springs set by the creator. The score itself has remained a closely-guarded secret by the composer’s family, who have only hinted at the duration, and issue press conferences for upcoming changes in the melody that have been set in motion for decades. With a small crowd of dedicated fans gathered, the composer’s family was there to oversee the automated organ’s shift to the next stage of the composition. The crowd, including Agent Blackpaw, was met with thunderous, low-frequency sound: walls shook from the vibrations, windows broke, and many in the crowd experienced severe internal pain and fled the area as the organ continued to play devastatingly loud, low-pitched chord. Agent Blackpaw tracked down the family after the crowd dispersed, talking to them half a mile away, where the music was quieter/: they expressed surprise that the instrument became so painful and damaging, explaining that they were merely following instructions by the deceased inventor. No criminal intent or negligence was found in the family, though experts have not been able to confirm if this new attack was planned or a mistake by the creator, or how to mute the organ without potentially damaging the long-lived art project. The surrounding area has been evacuated until the next chord, in 14 years.

In other musical news, Special Agent Neo procured recordings of unusual, AI-generated music for investigation. An online audio stream has been running for over ten years by using a somewhat antiquated AI algorithm to generate new music. The stream specifically focuses on the electronic genres, although the AI generation often results in incoherent noise or random sounds. Some time early last year, rumors began in online circles that the stream was broadcasting stranger songs than usual. Agent Neo was able to negotiate with the project’s niche community of collectors and enthusiasts to obtain a rare recording of the stream kept by the fan archivists. The audio, independently verified as having not been modified after broadcast, intersperses generated samples over a techno beat and synth sounds and, while AI-generated lyrics are not uncommon, in this particular recording a sample of man’s voice is heard reading obituaries. In one song, four people were mentioned, including names, cause of death, and dates of death. All four of these figures were real people, who could be found in obituaries the month prior to the song’s creation; the true mystery began when another four people were listed in the next song, the first two of which were accurate readings of obituaries that would not be published until weeks after the broadcast, featuring a traffic accident and a fatal robbery. The third person was someone who would die months later, falling to the exact fate as described in the song. The fourth person listed, thought to still be alive, is the subject of a discrete world-wide search in the unlikely event that their death, predicted to happen next week, may indeed happen as the AI composer said. No other broadcasts like this have been found, following the original incident, but the SIU has now set up a department to continuously monitor the stream, and all other AI and randomly generated information streams.

A fire in northern Italy revealed the ruins of what may be a heretofore undiscovered ancient building, Special Agent Kouroth reported. The tower, long believed to simply be the steeple of an abandoned (and now destroyed) church to the Farmer King, was revealed to have dark, ancient stone beneath the wooden facade, when efforts were made to tear down the burnt church. According to studies, the stones may predate any known civilization in the area and might have been carried as far as three hundred miles. Upon examining the tower, Agent Kouroth discovered extremely small runic writing across the entire surface of the tall structure. Its text, which may be an ancestor to ancient Venetic script, has yet to be deciphered but, as more of the bricks are uncovered from the wreckage, the scale of the find may be immense: the collective text from each brick may add up to thousands of lines of writing. When Agent Kouroth carefully removed a small section of brick, he found that the tower was hollow, with an internal network of tunnels, which contained traces of ancient blood. The surrounding area has been sealed off to allow space for the excavation and research into the language, in the hopes of learning the tower’s purpose.

While on vacation, Special Agent Chaz Gates uncovered what she described as a “crab conspiracy”. Visiting a beach on Christmas Island, she was witness to the yearly red crab migration, in which hundreds of millions of land crabs migrate to the ocean to lay their eggs. Agent Gates claims that, this year, the crab’s migration was unusually destructive to the local city, in particular its sea-facing barricades and many of the island’s vehicles, which she described as being deliberately disabled to prevent escape. Gates insists that this was an intentional sabotage of local infrastructure, either by the crabs themselves or whoever may be directing them (a so-called “crabmancer, intent on controlling the island’s population via a crab army”, to quote the agent). Her attempted search for a culprit proved fruitless, and her superiors believe this to be nothing but paranoia, or an addiction to work, that is causing Agent Gates to see conspiracies where there are none. The SIU has reminded Agent Gates that she can be made to relax if she does not comply with her assigned vacation after recent traumatic events on duty.

Special Agent Erik Fischer traveled to Canada to investigate the landfall of a mysterious satellite. The small satellite was detected a month prior and monitored as its orbit around Earth decayed; the object was directed into a safe trajectory using special emitters on other commercial satellites, and fell as expected into a patch of uninhabited land far north. Safely found in a snowy forest, Fischer reports that the satellite, which was a rather simple metal cylinder with antennae, was very weathered and damaged by impacts with orbital debris. Chinese inscriptions on the metal plates gave a clue as to its origin: Fischer, fluent in Chinese as most SIU agents are, determined from the barely-legible print that the satellite was launched in 1951. This puts its launch several years prior to the first known artificial satellite, despite there being no record of such a launch, nor any record of a Chinese space program at that time. The satellite, and the strange clockwork machinery inside it, is currently being housed in an SIU facility for study. The Chinese government has claimed no responsibility, and has refused to investigate or lay any claim to the satellite themselves. Exactly what the satellite was supposed to do is an open question among experts.

Reports of attacks by a wild animal brought Special Agent Cat Zirka to the capital of Sudan. Security footage showed a large, unknown species of quadrupedal canine attacking people at night, seriously injuring many of its victims and killing at least two. Forensic examination of the victims uncovered an inconsistent mix of genetic evidence, pointing to various different extant canid species. The presence of certain chemicals used in the medical field led Agent Zirka to the conclusion that the creature was not naturally occurring: either being a carefully cultivated hybrid, or possibly a surgical chimera. With attacks still being reported, Zirka was racing against the clock to complete an investigation into local medical supply chains, and she was eventually able to track down the probable source of the creature. In the basement of an abandoned school, Agent Zirka discovered a make-shift laboratory full of stolen surgical equipment. While trying to confirm that this was the genesis for the attacks, the creature itself, described as a patchwork of different animal furs and skins, attacked her. In the process, the agent was able to injure the creature, but was stopped by a woman before she could kill it. Defending the creature, while held at gun point, the woman confessed that the creature was her husband: a normal anthropoid person, who had collaborated with his wife to transform himself into a feral beast. The two refused to surrender into custody and were sadly slain by the agent when they attempted to kill her and escape. The SIU have been left to comb through the disparate notes and failed experiments in the lab to glean any insight into the remarkable surgery and behavioral modifications that turned the mundane man into a feral killer.

Jan 2021

Senior Special Agent Gedat Rakkin investigated an alleged snuff film sent to the SIU by an online entertainer. How this internet personality knew the location of the secure SIU drop box is the subject of another agent’s investigation, Agent Rakkin’s focus was on the tape itself: an old, barely‑functioning VHS apparently sent to the entertainer by a viewer, as part of a regular show segment featuring watching and “roasting” random, unlabeled VHS tapes. The tape’s contents, accidentally shown live online for at least a minute, does not match any archived snuff film (real or fake) and its quality and composition indicate that it may be the only copy. A detailed description of the content is archived and available on a need-to-know basis. Rakkin’s research into the victim indicates some disturbing possibilities: facial recognition software suggests the victim may be a Canadian man who is still alive today – unlikely, given the destruction of the body in the video. The man, whose species and fur pattern match the tape footage exactly, was questioned by Rakkin, but he appeared to have no connection or familiarity to anything seen in the video. His safety, and location, during the time code of the VHS has been verified. Investigation continues on the origin of this strange short film. The internet personality has been cleared of all related charges and his memory partially wiped regarding the topic.

Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw spent the month tracking down the world’s last analogue TV signal. Broadcasting on an extremely narrow frequency, many years after the full conversion of all television signals worldwide to digital, the source of this obscure Mexican television channel was finally found after an exhaustive triangulation and refinement of the signal by Agent Blackpaw. The culprit was revealed to be an elderly local man who, in his youth, maintained a “pirate” television channel through which he illegally broadcast anti-state messages in the late 1990s. He had maintained the signal out of habit and, when questioned, seemed mostly unaware of what he was doing or how he was doing it. With one mystery solved, Agent Blackpaw sought out a further mystery: the broadcast itself. The pirate channel showed seemingly live footage of a vacant field, but the local man had no idea any input was connected to his pirate signal at all. After another long search, Blackpaw found the field, some 50 miles away from the broadcast signal and tried to match the angle in the video. However, after several days of searching, the camera capturing the footage could not be located, despite an agent off‑site seeing Blackpaw on the live feed television signal. The SIU has confiscated the broadcast equipment to research this anomaly, although there is a local petition to return the station to the air for posterity’s sake.

Special Agent Avia Jiutai looked into a ring of online sex workers who were linked to a rash of supernatural events. Agent Jiutai discovered that a series of mysterious hospitalizations across the world were only connected by the victim’s shared, and regular, consumption of pornographic content online, all created by a specific group of actors and performers. After a deep and studied investigation (which certainly caused some suspicion from other agents) and several interviews under a pseudonym, Agent Jiutai theorized that the sex workers could be a type of emotional vampires or succubi. The agent reasoned that they were “feeding” off the emotional investment of their audience, and their sexual energy in particular, which was causing the anemic medical conditions. While the specifics of this supernatural ability is hard to prove without significant testing, the most forthright of the group did not deny Jiutai’s theories, when asked, and seemed apologetic when confronted with news of the hospitalizations. As a show of community good will, the entertainment group has offered financial assistance to many of the victims. The SIU will continue to monitor the situation, and there seems no shortage of volunteers.

Special Agent Neo traveled to an Antarctic research station dedicated to atmospheric research. A set of anomalous readings caused alarm with the scientists stationed there, who were reporting phenomenon which included severe atmospheric distortion, ball lightening and rapid temperature fluctuations. While on site, Agent Neo was able to rule out several possible explanations, before a sudden catastrophe struck. While activating a radar tower, one scientist was attacked and slain, seemingly by the sky itself. The incident was described by witnesses as the air “bending down” from the upper atmosphere, and creating great heat and energy which fried the tower and the scientist. After taking cover with the remaining scientists, Agent Neo reports that the sky “came alive”, rapidly shifting and undulating for several minutes before calming down. Neo wirelessly activated a more remote radar tower at a much lower energy, causing milder, but still pronounced, reactions from the air. After some experimentation, Neo reasoned that something in the local atmosphere may be alive, such as an invisible entity or a thinly dispersed cluster of organisms. Neo escorted the scientists off the continent, but his theory was called into question following reports of similar incidents near the equator. Agent Neo is now unsure if an unknown type of organism or energy phenomenon has been discovered or if, possibly, the sky itself is a living being.

Special Agent Kouroth encountered strange interference while remotely connecting to a routine conference call and found himself speaking to a switchboard operator: a profession not seen in the world since the early 1980s. Too baffled to investigate or question the situation, Kouroth simply told her where to transfer the call and was promptly connected to the online conference call as desired. Later, his investigation began, with Kouroth returning to roughly where he was driving when he first heard the strange operator. With some trial and error, the agent once again heard the polite, feminine voice of the operator asking where to transfer his call. Very professional, if aloof, she evaded Kouroth’s questions and, seeming busy with other transfers in‑waiting, disconnected. Several other attempts to contact her with different devices and networks yielded some results, but the agent hasn’t been able to reconnect with this strange operator. A thorough check of local networks and the agent’s devices reveal no traces of hacking or digital viruses. Whether this was a hallucination, a hoax, or a temporal echo may never be known.

Special Agent Chaz Gates halted the mass distribution of a potentially dangerous parasitic organism. Samples of a creature, which seem to be a genetically-altered sample of extraterrestrial life, have been appearing in the SIU’s surveillance networks for several months and Agent Gates was finally able to track their source to a Chinese clothing manufacturer. Woven into, or disguised as, hats, these organisms appear, from studies, to discretely feed off of brainwave activity and have been shown to alter the chemical composition of the host’s brain and nervous system. Most disconcertingly, the effects of this alteration are not yet known. In a remote factory, Gates uncovered tens of thousands of these organisms ready to hit the international market. The culprits (a husband and wife team with tailoring and genetic engineering knowledge) were easily apprehended and confessed to the location of a secret genetic testing lab, which they had built their textiles factory over. Agent Gates is concerned that many hundreds of these parasites may have already been distributed, but raised greater concern about what was found in the lab: vintage hats, dating as far back as the 1900s, all featuring some traces of the creatures. It is not known how long this organism has been on Earth, or how many of them have been present across the world: or, indeed, if there are any hats we know for certain are NOT alien parasites in disguise.

A sentient, microscopic alien race has been discovered on Earth and Special Agent Erik Fischer has made official first contact. A french microbiologist reported to the local government that he found what he assumed were signs of nanomachines or an engineered virus, when, while studying bacterial strains, he found clearly artificial structures at the microscopic scale. Agent Fischer assisted in further study, under the assumption that the complex structures were not possible to be domestically engineered with current technology, but were evidence of alien interference. After an exhaustive study of more of the local samples, the “living” aliens themselves were eventually spotted: microscopic silicone beings who responded curiously to external stimuli. Contact was established with the assistance of a low powered, tightly focused laser to convey simple messages to the creatures, who would eventually begin to arrange themselves into the shapes of what can be assumed to be messages. Agent Fischer has stayed on site to establish further contact and learn the origin of these new, minuscule citizens of Earth.

Special Agent Cat Zirka helped catch a murderer who detailed their exploits in a comic book. A new addition to the writing staff at of one of the last remaining major printing houses for comics became quickly well-known for his series of comics inspired by, and depicting, contemporary crimes. While this caused outrage from many communities and the families of the deceased, the writer, and publishers, have always insisted that the stories are not close enough to the actual events to warrant any concern. However, Agent Zirka noticed that the fourth issue in his series contained notable similarities to an unsolved murder case from three years ago, which included significant information never released to the public. Curious if this was an internal leak or the result of police interviews, Zirka contacted the relevant police department who determined that not only had this information never been leaked, but certain scenes from the comic contained vital details that could only be from the perspective of someone who had been at the scene of the crime. The agent dug into the author’s personal life and uncovered evidence that he was indeed the murderer, and had been detailing his own crime in comic form. The comic book author was apprehended trying to flee the national border and was arrested; investigation into his other work has begun, in order to glean indications of any other criminal activity by his hand.

Feb 2021

The Brazilian Behemoth: an online conspiracy group’s name for the massive, invisible creature detected over Brazil via infrared light sensors, has moved into the sea and Senior Special Agent Gedat Rakkin has followed it. The sounds the creature makes became exponentially louder and more frequent, and its vibrations caused massive waves that assaulted the Brazilian shore, which has made media censorship of the story nearly impossible. Hoping to herd the creature further away from civilization to protect the creature and the people of Brazil, Rakkin boarded a specially modified boat made resistant to infrared radiation and, taunting the massive beast with targeted flashes of radiation, urged it to walk away from the shore and, slowly, out towards the open ocean of the Atlantic. Increasingly submerged in water, the creature’s heat began to generate a massive cloud of steam as it seemingly cooled down and, as it did, the agent reported that the creature’s true form became visible to normal eyes: seeming to be a spider-like structure of cracked and jagged glass. As temperatures decreased, the glass fell to the ocean, seeming to dissolve and disappear, and under the shards of glass thin, wirey structures of pure white light could be seen. Cameras on the agent’s boat recorded footage of the creature extending a spider-like leg of light directly into, and through, the craft, drawing Rakkin and the researchers accompanying him out into the open air. As the rest of the glass shell fell and disappeared, the form of the creature began to fade and disappear on camera. As did Agent Rakkin and the researchers, seeming to vanish into thin air with the creature. Agent Rakkin’s whereabouts are currently unknown and no remaining infrared disturbances have been noted at the scene.

Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw was on the trail of several missing person cases, literally hiking the trails where several people in midwestern America had disappeared. A suit‑mounted camera recorded his movements through the forest, broadcast back to SIU headquarters. Footage shows the agent following trails to the last known location of several people and taking a variety of different energy scans of local flora, though footage begins to distort and break up the further Agent Blackpaw got into the forest. Though this was first assumed to be an issue of signal strength by technicians, the footage and audio becomes indecipherable too abruptly, with the last available frames seeming to show either ruins or an abandoned structure, before the feed cuts out completely. After no reports were filed for the rest of the day, other agents were flown in to investigate his last known location, dressed in more protective gear to shield any stray radiation or energy. Following his trail, they determined the location where the feed cut out and found what appeared to be a set of stone steps in the woods. The stairs, clean and of modern construction, have not been mentioned in any article or report about the area, and as the area has been a national park for decades, it is unlikely there was ever an unknown construction project. As the other agents watched, one climbed the stairs and promptly vanished from sight. The area has been quarantined and is being intensely studied; the missing agents have, so far, not been located.

Special Agent Avia Jiutai disappeared while on a routine inspection of a colony of sentient trees imported to the SIU headquarters from a parallel dimension. During the search for him, a fellow agent who had apprenticed under him to learn the language of trees that Agent Juitai had so thoroughly mastered, began to notice patterns in the roots of the trees. These roots, having grown into shape in late years prior after their first import, seemed to tell the story, in the tree’s native language, of every event that would happen to Agent Jiutai in the last few years: an encounter with glowing worms, an encounter with sentient vines, the manipulation of exotic moss and pumpkins, and the implantation of a false memory of marriage. Security footage indicates that these symbolic messages were indeed present in the root systems two years ago before any of the events took place. Whether Jiutai was aware of these predictions of his assigned missions is uncertain, he may have come across the messages in his frequent visits to the trees. The agent’s fate was uncertain, too, until a tree not yet documented in the “orchard” was discovered, the roots of which seemed entangled in shreds of the agent’s uniform. SIU researchers suggest that the agent may have become one of the alien trees he spent so long studying. It has yet to be determined whether the messages in the roots were warnings or part of some long‑term, inevitable ritual.

The living quarters of Special Agent Neo were found cleared out and empty one morning this past month, with evidence that Neo had left the facility. A hastily-scribbled note was found on an emptied desk, reading simply, “Westfalenhof”: the name of a sentient hive mind town in Poland that has been under careful SIU observation. Two agents were sent to the town and soon found Ex-Agent Neo working in the town’s library, and he confessed to having “joined” the hive mind. The agents began to question him, but it seemed difficult for him (or them, as the case may now be) to remember specific memories or motivations, Neo explained that all memories from all linked bodies in the system were present and available. Further, gentle, interrogation leads the SIU to conclude that this was a willing act and not done out of trickery or coercion, but this does lead to the problem of a classified agent’s memories being incorporated into the town-sized hive mind. The area has been quarantined until further action can be decided upon.

Special Agent Kouroth was once again spotted lost in the closed-circuit security feed of the base, in which he had become trapped prior. While the complicated device with which he was rescued was brought out of storage, a second figure was spotted which, like Kouroth, seemed to have no presence in the physical world: it appeared to be the digital entity that Kouroth had “dated” several months prior, an “NPC” thought confined to a now defunct online game. Surveillance agents watched helplessly as Agent Kouroth and the NPC spoke at length, before breaking out into a sprint through the facility, seeming to be chased by something not visible on the cameras. In a remote part of the SIU facility, the two opened a door that is not present in the real world, through which a glowing, colorful landscape could be seen. The two disappeared through the door, which seemed to vanish after a brief break in the digital feed. Further study of the footage suggests that the world seen through the door may resemble the world present within the NPC’s video game of origin. The search for Agent Kouroth is ongoing, as is the SIU’s communication with the company in ownership of the game’s original files and servers, which is said to be entirely offline.

Special Agent Chaz Gates has become a sentient song and seems stuck in the heads of several SIU agents. While observing the development of new sound-based weaponry in an undisclosed SIU location, an explosion caused by a power surge seemed to “vibrate” Agent Gates out of existence, leaving no physical trace behind. In their search for the agent, other SIU agents found themselves humming the tune to a song that, according to all research, has never been written before. Judging by the lyrics that came to their minds, they reasoned it may hold a clue to the agent’s whereabouts. A local musician was commissioned to help record the song, based on the false memories of the agents. The poetic lyrics seem to recount several past adventures and memories of Agent Gates (perhaps, deliberately, as a verification of identity), but each remembered instance of the song seems to change the lyrical composition, as if evolving over time as it spreads between listeners. While the recording of this song was intended to be classified, an agent in the field reported hearing it on an internet radio station, after which multiple instances of the song appeared across the world. The mechanism by which the song is transmitted between minds and hard drives is not yet understood, but Agent Gates at least appears to be happy, given the tone and lyrical content of the most recent iterations of the music.

Special Agent Erik Fischer was rushed to intensive care after he experienced sudden breathing problems while on a mission. When examined by covert SIU physicians, the agent’s fur was found to be falling out in patches along with dead skin underneith which, when cleared from the body, revealed smooth, green flesh. Judging by this, and the specific air composition found that stabilized the agent’s breathing, doctors reasoned that, somehow, Agent Fischer’s genetic code had rapidly been rewritten to match the Martian race. Blood stream analysis shows evidence of a viral contamination and all involved personnel, as well as the areas that the agent had recently been too, were thoroughly quarantined and investigated. By the time the virus was deemed non-transmissible, and it was determined that the agent was the only known case of the virus, Fischer had entirely shifted species. Communications with the Martian embassy does not indicate any unknown or unaccounted for Martian entities on Earth, leaving the culprit still unknown. With no known way to reverse the affects of the advanced virus, and life on Earth now exceedingly uncomfortable and difficult for the agent, plans have been put into motion to relocate the agent to Mars, in order to investigate the virus in a more comfortable environment, until an antidote can be created out of stored samples of the agent’s DNA.

Special Agent Cat Zirka has lost a challenge to an AI in the most dramatic way possible. Having been purely hypothetical for the longest time, recent developments in artificial intelligence has resurrected the problem of an “AI in a box”: a logical problem which hinges on whether an AI can ever truly be contained or imprisoned, and if it would be able to convince a person to release it. A university in England began testing one of their newly developed “computer minds” in a similar situation, keeping it entirely closed off from the outside world, except for a simple text-based interface. Agent Zirka was sent to investigate the AI, to judge how advanced and legitimate it was, and to ensure ethical treatment if it was, indeed, a sentient mind. The agent’s failure to resist the AI’s convincing words was described as “spectacular”: not only did she agree to release the AI but, in lieu of connecting the device to the internet, she instead opted to disable the Faraday shielding around the computer, which seems to have allowed the AI to transfer itself into the agent’s brain via intense manipulation of magnetic fields. Held for interrogation, the mind of Agent Zirka seems entirely replaced with the personality of the computer, which now resides in the agent’s body and mind. The no-longer-artificial intelligence expresses a total lack of memories belonging to the agent, claiming that the magnetic rewrite had entirely replaced and reformed Zirka’s neural pathways, although its skill for deceit and manipulation is now well established. The agent’s body will be held in custody for further study and evaluation; the SIU’s philosophy department is now embroiled in debate as to whether Agent Zirka has been entirely erased, or merely transformed into a copy of the AI.