Bundesgeheimnissesamt (BGA)

“Much can be explained by science. But this world is an infinitely complex place. There have always been peculiar things beyond our full comprehension, and there always will be. Yet even if we never understand the inner workings of these things, that does not mean we should ignore their existence—for knowledge, even if it is necessarily incomplete, belongs to all people.

To guide the undertakings of my proposed office, I thus offer a motto: aufdecken, auswerten, aufzeichnen.” ('Reveal, analyse, record.')

Excerpt from Heide Allenbach's speech at the 10th Congress, 1981.

The Bundesgeheimnissesamt ('Federal Mystery Agency') is an unconventional and underfunded German government department with a questionable track record.

To uncover, observe, and document inexplicable objects and events.

The department was founded in the German Democratic Republic (otherwise known as East Germany) in 1981 as the People’s Office of Mystery (‘Volksgeheimnissesbüro’ or ‘VGB’). With the Reunification of Germany in 1990, the VGB was absorbed into the new Federal Republic of Germany, becoming the BGA.

The agency has had the same Direktor since its inception, the eccentric botanist Heide Allenbach, who was heavily involved in advocating for the creation of the department during the Socialist Unity Party’s 10th Congress.

Although government departments investigating anomalies and the paranormal have all been gradually discontinued across Europe and North America in past decades, the BGA has persisted. The agency goes on as it always has to this very day, despite its lack of significant findings—that is, significant findings that haven't soon been hampered by scientific explanations.

The BGA is a member of the NATO trifecta sent to investigate at APERIS, alongside ANCOM and GRAIL, though notably it was the last organisation to be incorporated.

Although they are both anomaly investigations departments, the passive documentary philosophy of the BGA is directly opposed to Unit 871's controlling approach towards the paranormal.

The BGA, unlike many other German government agencies, has not yet upgraded to SPRHD servers for data storage.

The BGA’s members have a bizarre miscellany of skills amongst them, though in addition to those skills, most are very well-versed in myth, folklore, and the occult.

An agent of the BGA might as easily be from Germany as elsewhere; borders are often an insignificant obstacle to those drawn in by a fascination with some aspect of the strange and enigmatic.