SCP-8172

Link to article: SCP-8172.
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Against all odds, the US Central Intelligence Agency has never crossed the Veil. 
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**Item #:** SCP-8172

**Object Class:** Euclid

**Special Containment Procedures:** Since SCP-8172 is imperceptible to the affected in-group, the Foundation will focus on suppressing third-party testimony and vetting document disclosures before they enter the public sphere.

Absent official intervention by the FBI's Unusual Incidents Unit or the DOD's Paranatural Warfare Command,[[footnote]]Commonly known as the Pentagram.[[/footnote]] SCP-8172-A shall remain interred in a lead-lined casket in Section 1 of Washington, D.C.'s Congressional Cemetery, on the west side of Henderson Street. The area has been fitted with concealed sensors to record any incidents. Trespassing CIA agents will be detained for their own safety.

**Description:** SCP-8172 is a persistent reality-altering effect which prevents the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from engaging in occult warfare. Despite years of research, the CIA has never conclusively identified any paranormal phenomena,[[footnote]]Test subjects formerly involved in CIA-funded remote viewing programs were unable to reproduce their results in Foundation experiments.[[/footnote]] retained any anomalous personnel,[[footnote]]Employees of the CIA and its cover organizations do not manifest parahuman abilities, even after retirement. Potential recruits with pre-existing anomalous traits are always deemed unfit for service.[[/footnote]] fielded viable paratechnology, nor established a presence below the Veil. 

Note that SCP-8172 does not preclude the CIA from interacting with anomalies. However, CIA assets who experience actual extranormal events are unable to identify them as such. Instead, these incidents are rationalized as mundane deceptions, hoaxes or misunderstandings.[[footnote]]Similar to the [[[saphir-centre|Filbuson Syndrome]]], a rare condition characterized by pathological refusal to break from consensus reality.[[/footnote]] These combined restrictions have led to a number of unfortunate field encounters:

* The first notable incident took place in 1956. Acting under orders from the KGB Division of Special Circumstances, psychotronic operative Jannik Geist tried to scan CIA agent William King Harvey in Berlin by spiking his drink with a neurochemical tracer. This compound likely lost effectiveness when it entered the target's system; Geist suffered a stroke in the subsequent effort to pick Harvey out of a busy room. 
* Between 1968 and 1970, the CIA made three attempts to destabilize the sovereign [[[scp-1761|Republic of Arnold Fitzwilliams]]]. Operatives targeted SCP-1761-1 for a lethal mugging, tried to suffocate SCP-1761-2C with a gas leak, and placed a bomb in SCP-1761-2E's car. Each assassination plot failed to harm their target, as covert actions do not constitute formal declarations of war.
* In 1989, the Organization for the Reclamation of Islamic Artifacts (ORIA) identified several CIA assets embedded in the Iranian military through elimination testing with memetic prompts. These double agents were incapable of processing the cognitohazard and failed to respond with the expected code phrase. Compromised spies were replaced with ORIA operatives, who fed the CIA false information while rolling up the remainder of their network.

It is self-evident that SCP-8172 impairs the CIA's ability to conduct operations and realistically evaluate occult threats. However, the agency's tendency towards violent excess suggests that their involvement in Veiled affairs would be a net negative. More importantly, any functions that would theoretically be assigned to the CIA are currently managed by the Pentagram, which has not expressed any interest in supporting the agency's transition into paranatural warfare. Anonymous sources suggest that the Department of Defense is satisfied with their current arrangement, in part because having an agency that is institutionally incapable of violating Veil Protocol helps reinforce public perception that the paranormal does not exist.

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The only known exceptions to SCP-8172 have taken place in close proximity to SCP-8172-A: the cadaver of J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), fifth Director of the Bureau of Investigation, first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and founder of the Unusual Incidents Unit. After a long and influential career, Hoover was laid to rest in the Congressional Cemetery, interred in a lead-lined coffin weighing 635 kilograms (1400 pounds) to discourage acts of desecration. For additional political context, see **Addendum 8172-01**.

This aspect of SCP-8172 became known to the Foundation in 1975, when former CIA administrator Richard Helms testified in front of the Church Committee regarding the MKULTRA drug research program. MKULTRA was one of several CIA projects which studied the use of chemical and biological agents in altering human behavior, with a particular focus on promoting physiological states conducive to interrogation. Many test subjects were dosed with drugs without their knowledge, treated under duress, or otherwise coerced into participating. The full extent of this research remains unclear, in part because Helms issued sweeping orders to destroy records.

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**Senator Baker:** Mr. Helms, I would greatly appreciate any further information you could give me about the destruction of documents related to the [MKULTRA] drug program in January of 1973.

**Ambassador Helms:**[[footnote]]At the time, Helms was serving as US Ambassador to Iran.[[/footnote]] I recall that I had this, ah, moment of clarity, quite some time before. When I attended Mr. Hoover's state ceremony in May of 1972, I caught a glimpse of my future. It was all very vivid. I saw myself speaking with Dr. [Sidney] Gottlieb. We were discussing his retirement, and he was concerned that we had made a terrific blunder. The whole drug program was a waste of time. The whole thing. We involved Americans with various testing, and we had -- had fiduciary relationships with those people. Good men tried very hard at something which never had a chance. Mind control. Brainwashing. Absurd. If that stuff got out, it would be, ah, tremendously embarrassing. So, we decided we would just get rid of the files. Then I came back to my senses at the Rotunda.

**Senator Baker:** And... your reaction?

**Ambassador Helms:** Why, I shook it off, Senator. Just a flight of fancy. You know how things are at funerals. Then January rolled around and Sidney walked into my office. Everything played out just the same, so I figured that was that; might as well get it over with.

**Senator Baker:** Mr. Helms... did you ever sample any chemicals from the MKULTRA program?

**Ambassador Helms:** Not so far as I am aware, sir. No.
[[/div]]

These statements were subsequently stricken from public record.

[[include component:image-block name= grave.jpg |alt= A black-and-white image of a cemetery. The Hoover family headstone is in the foreground, in a fenced-off plot, with a bench standing before it. In the background, lines of headstones trace hillsides into the treeline. |caption= SCP-8172-A's grave site. |width=35%]]

Following this revelation, Foundation investigators conducted a survey of the Congressional Cemetery, where aetheric resonance imaging revealed a noticeable distortion around the Hoover family plot. Tests confirmed that within the bounds of the grave site, reality is extremely malleable. As a result, in a few rare circumstances, CIA assets entering SCP-8172-A's area of effect have demonstrated anomalous capabilities:

* During a 1981 tour of the Congressional Cemetery, retired CIA analyst Joseph Bryan III paused in front of Hoover's grave, opened a newspaper, and produced an oversized bouquet of pansies, which he laid atop the headstone. Under questioning, Mr. Bryan disclosed that he was visited by FBI agents in 1955 after publicly insinuating that Hoover was a closeted homosexual. He could not explain the source of the bouquet, simply saying that the gesture "seemed natural" at the time. 
* Active-duty CIA agent Gene Mulberry visited the site three times in August of 1995. On the first occasion, the agent unwittingly transmuted a pack of cigarettes into pipe tobacco; when he retraced his steps the following day, Mulberry found his water bottle was inexplicably full of whiskey. Returning under cover of night in an apparent manic state, Mulberry attempted to breach Hoover's grave with a shovel, at which point he was struck by lightning. Experts theorize this was a result of interaction between SCP-8172-A's distortion field and the Thornton Wards protecting the District of Columbia. 

Following this incident, the SCP Foundation reached out to the Unusual Incidents Unit to discuss expanding containment. Relocating SCP-8172-A was immediately deemed impractical; instead, the site was fenced off with memetic deterrents designed by former UIU agent Daniel Brainard. Since SCP-8172 impairs the effectiveness of cognitohazards on at-risk individuals, these barriers largely serve to prevent pedestrians from perceiving anything untoward.

**Addendum 8172-01:** Over the course of his career, J. Edgar Hoover worked tirelessly to shape American institutions as he saw fit. He personally coordinated police operations on both sides of the Veil, aggressively promoted the FBI's exploits in the press, and pushed policymakers to expand his jurisdiction into global intelligence. Under his direction, the Bureau engaged in campaigns of illegal surveillance, harassment, blackmail and intimidation. The most infamous of these was the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), which targeted domestic extremists, political radicals and civil rights activists for undercover infiltration and sabotage. 

It is a lesser-known fact that Hoover employed similar tactics against his political adversaries. He had a particularly hostile relationship with rival intelligence agencies, which he perceived as encroaching on his territory. Hoover deliberately undermined operations conducted by William Donovan's wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), destroyed casefiles to avoid sharing them with the post-war Central Intelligence Group (CIG), and lobbied extensively against the creation of their successor organization, the Central Intelligence Agency. Hoover's obstructionism set precedents that inform interagency cooperation into the present day.

In the wake of the Mulberry incident of 1995, the UIU reluctantly agreed to share classified files pertaining to SCP-8172. Most relevant is a single-page memorandum, presented below:

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July 26, 1947
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**MEMORANDUM FOR ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR CLYDE TOLSON**
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I don't care what that ignorant pig farmer[[footnote]]Referring to President Harry S. Truman.[[/footnote]] says about "other functions and duties".[[footnote]]The final clause of the CIA's charter, sometimes invoked to justify acts beyond its formal remit.[[/footnote]] My men have been working this beat since 1929. I know what's best, and those pinko eggheads cannot be trusted with magic. They'll have it over my dead body.

H.
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> **Filename:** grave.jpg
> **Name:** "GENERAL VIEW FROM NORTHEAST. NOTE J. EDGAR HOOVER GRAVESITE IN FOREGROUND. - Congressional Cemetery, 1801 E Street, Southeast, Washington, District of Columbia, DC"
> **Author:** James W. Rosenthal
> **License:** Public domain
> **Source Link:** [[[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GENERAL_VIEW_FROM_NORTHEAST._NOTE_J._EDGAR_HOOVER_GRAVESITE_IN_FOREGROUND._-_Congressional_Cemetery,_1801_E_Street,_Southeast,_Washington,_District_of_Columbia,_DC_HALS_DC-1-20.tif|Wikimedia]]]
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SCP-8172

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