July 26th, 1908 – The FBI is founded, then is promptly investigated by itself.

On July 26, 1908, a group of newly hired federal investigators were assigned to the Office of the Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch of the Department of Justice, thus setting the groundwork for the future FBI. One year later, after an extensive and expensive investigation that revealed many American’s were secretly making fun of their name behind their back, the Office of the Chief Examiner changed its name to the Bureau of Investigation, and then finally to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935.

The FBI gained much visibility in the public eye under its outspoken Director J. Edgar Hoover, who led the charge against organized crime during the prohibition era. Those who know anything about Hoover, also know the biggest rumor about him and I’m here to tell you its true. He was, in fact, a firm believer in the existence of Bigfoot and other mythical creatures. Without approval from his superiors, Hoover went so far as to create a secret separate branch of the FBI to investigate these creatures called the Bureau Of Grossly Understudied Species, or B.O.G.U.S, for short. To lead BOGUS, Hoover reached out to long time investigator and “untouchable”, Eliot Ness. Some believe that Hoover tapped Ness for this specific assignment simply because he was suspicious that Ness might have unshared information regarding a certain Scottish monster that shared the same name.

Over the next 20 years, BOGUS produced mixed results in their investigations but were unable to produce any conclusive findings to support the existence of the “species” they were “studying”. In 1961, the long secret organization was exposed to the public, when tourists in Yellowstone National Park caught on tape, two BOGUS Agents water-boarding a grizzly bear for information on a rumored Sasquatch in the area. When the news broke, Hoover quickly disbanded BOGUS to avoid further public embarrassment, though it’s known today that he actually kept the agents on as private contractors and tripled their previous salaries.