You've seen them.

Mysterious, pre-adolescent 'children', usually in blue suits with red ties and sneakers. They wear curious badges as if representing some sort of government agency and claim to represent a mysterious organization that calls itself 'The Odd Squad.'

They claim to help ordinary people with extraordinary problems, bizarre and outlandish situations beyond human understanding. You may have seen their ads on Public Television or basic cable urging people to seek out their aid, though it's never explained how one would go about doing so. Moreover, the people who have purported to have received their assistance can never clearly remember how they went about contacting them. The mysterious 'children' simply appear on their doorstep or, more disturbingly, in their homes, where they produce bizarre and inexplicable devices, use them to negate paranormal events, then vanish, often ducking behind an article of furniture and disappearing in a flash of light.

Though no records exist of them before 2014, they purport to have existed for centuries, battling the strange and the supernatural, they say, on our behalf.

Who are they? Where do they come from? Why are they seemingly all preternaturally gifted children? And what are their ultimate plans for humanity?

The Odd Squad have similarities to the infamous Men In Black first described by Al Bender and chronicled in Gray Barker's classic book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. Seeming agents of the Silence Group determined to suppress any information about UFOs, the MIB, as they came to be known, would pose as government officials and use intimidation and threats to frighten people who'd seen UFOs, warning them to keep quiet and confiscating any physical evidence they might have stumbled upon. Could Odd Squad be a new tactic by the Silence Group, a 'kinder, gentler' face for the MIB? Did they decide rather than frightening witnesses of uncanny events, they'd simply pretend to 'remove' them for us on our behalf like a supernatural pest control service? Could they even be using mind control to implant false memories so we would believe we'd requested their services in the first place?

One is also reminded of the Dark-Eyed Children reported in recent years, mysterious, unnervingly adult-acting 'children' who have been encountered by many people. The 'children' often appear outside people's homes, requesting entry to 'use the phone' or somesuch excuse. When the witnesses observe closely, they realize there are jet-black pools of darkness where the 'children's' eyes should be. Interestingly enough, most 'Odd Squad' children have been reported to have dark-colored eyes. Can this be a coincidence?

What exactly is going on?

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While all Odd Squad agents resemble and claim to be children, there have been several different 'types' described by witnesses.

The most commonly seen are the 'Agents.' They are the public face of Odd Squad, the ones who interact most frequently with humans and who perform most of the banishing of what they term 'odd activity.' They tend to travel in pairs, though there are rare sightings of solo agents: For example, a girl who manifests disembodied voices and poltergeist activity. The pairs are usually a Yin-Yang balance of opposites: Male and female, tall and short, fat and thin, and so on. Male-female pairings are most common, though there have been sightings of a thin, sickly boy with a deathly pallor and a dark, bloated, feral child who communicates through grunts and howls. People who've interacted with these Agents report they tend to present a friendly, helpful demeanor, perhaps hoping to fool us into trusting them. Similarly, not only do people rarely remember how they entered or exited their dwellings, a curious reversal of the 'Doorway Amnesia' reported by abductees, but it's unclear how or where the strange, futuristic devices the Agents often wield might come from. The Agents just seem to produce them out of nowhere. Are people's memories being tampered with? Why? What's being hidden, exactly?

Less commonly encountered are the 'Long-Coats.' These entities also resemble children, though they sometimes seem older than the 'Agents.' In contrast to the male-female nature of the 'Agents,' the 'Long-Coats' usually have a vaguely androgynous appearance and favor either old-fashioned attire such as bowties and suspenders or simple two-piece garments resembling surgical scrubs under the long, white labcoats that give them their name. Frequently, they have a strange, surreal manner of communicating and seem vaguely out of sync with reality, making strange noises and repeating statements over and over again. Some claim the 'Long-Coats' are robots or androids of some kind; film-footage of over two dozen identical 'Long-Coats' leaving a movie theater posted on Youtube would seem to confirm this, as would the emotionless demeanor observed by some witnesses. It may also explain the odd nature of their eyes: Some witnesses purport to note a manic look, while others claim an unusually shaped iris or pupil. The 'Long-Coats' are apparently the technicians of the Odd Squad; they are often seen running machinery or performing scans and examinations of various kinds, though their ultimate nature remains unknown.

Rarely encountered in public places, the 'Drones' rarely seem to leave the Odd Squad's underground headquarters. They serve as workers and servants to the Long-Coats and Agents and wear simple jumpsuits in contrast to the others' more elaborate attire. Many are red-heads and when glimpsed are usually busy with some sort of activity, though there have been sightings involving ice cream trucks and pizza restaurants. These beings seem more like ordinary children on the average than the others, and might even be human changelings taken from their parents to be raised by the Odd Squad for their own diabolical purposes. It is perhaps worth mentioning red-haired children were often considered blessed or cursed with a connection to the spirit world by primitive cultures.

The hub of all Odd Squad activity is the 'Queen.' Smaller than most of the others, the Queen nonetheless dominates the Odd Squad completely and serves as their ruler and central intelligence. Some far-flung reports claim 'Kings' in the ruling position in some areas, though it's rare to see more than one ruler in one place at any one time. They might be inherently hostile to one another and battle for domination, though recently there have been claims of an agency ruled by a 'King' and 'Queen' in tandem. The most disturbing aspect of the 'Queens' is their faux-childlike appearance; though rarely appearing more than ten or eleven years old, records suggest the same 'Queen' has often existed for years, decades, possibly even centuries. Belying their small size, they are reported to be extremely powerful and many report being terrified in their presence. Indeed, the other 'Odd Squad' beings are also often said to quake in fear at a 'Queen's' rage.

There have been a handful of reports of other 'types' of Odd Squad entities, such as 'White Admirals,' 'Dour Maids,' and 'Cowboys.' However, these four are the primary examples described in most sightings.

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Perhaps the Bible of 'Odd Squad' conspiracy theories is the underground classic T Remembers: The Hidden Secrets of An Odd Squad Agent Exposed by the pseudonymous 'Commander T.' The mysterious 'T' professes to have once been an agent of the 'Squad' and to have experienced a childhood hideously prolonged through unknown chemical cocktails referred to by the 'Agents' as 'juice-boxes.' He goes on to describe being used as an assassin, drug courier and sex slave to the Hollywood elite, as well as being forced to take part in terrifying Satanic rituals and the use of hidden alien technology as part of a plot by surviving Nazis and extraterrestrials to secretly control the world. Some sources claim the former villain Odd Todd has come forward as the book's true author, repudiating the account as total fiction and part of a 'revenge campaign' he was carrying on at the time. There is some circumstantial evidence to support this: Critics have noted T's accounts of his experience as a sex slave consist almost entirely of elaborate fantasies about Beyoncé and Anne Hathaway, while it has been confirmed the 'Satanic chants' printed in the book are actually the lyrics to The Beatles' 'Being For The Benefit of Mister Kite' translated into Latin. However, there is still room for doubt. A Youtube video, filmed at great personal risk, shows several of the 'Odd Squad' agents in strange golden robes and warrior costumes engaging in some sort of mysterious ritual combat in a sequestered sylvan glade. Curiously, 'Odd Todd' is present as an active participant in these sports, despite the fact he was publically believed to be a villain at the time. Perhaps he was indeed the author and the book is in fact an exercise in disinformation, skillfully mixing fact and falsehood to lead researchers astray.

The existence of 'Olive,' a fellow Agent T purportedly tries and fails to rescue, has been established beyond all reasonable doubt. She is, in fact, one of the most familiar and best-known of the 'Odd Squad Agents,' even appearing in a commercial for a local pizza delivery service. Letters and phone calls requesting she confirm or deny the charges in T Remembers have gone unanswered and attempts at personal confrontation have only resulted in restraining orders and this author being forced to register as a 'sexual predator' in the city of Toronto, Canada. Moreover, T's claims 'Olive' was being groomed as a future 'Queen' have been vindicated. There are eyewitness sightings of the girl believed to be 'Olive' in the traditional 'Queen' garb, accompanied at all times by a smirking 'King' with the vaguely Asian features often described in MIB sightings. This boy, referred to by the suspiciously Germanic name 'Otto,' has been associated with 'Olive' for quite some time and is almost certainly her handler. We can only tremble at the possible implications and offer our prayers she escape the fiendish hypnotic mind control that almost certainly entraps her.

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One must also remember 'Weird Tom,' whose agency 'Weird Team' was briefly able to suppress 'The Odd Squad' through beating them at their own game, finding and eliminating supernatural events before the Squad could get to them. Shortly after he succeeded in legally taking control of the 'Squad's' headquarters, he hinted at discovering evidence of a diabolical scheme. Before he could reveal the full truth, however, 'The Odd Squad' launched a successful counter-attack. A conveniently timed disaster overwhelmed 'Weird Team's' forces and allowed 'The Odd Squad' to restore their benevolent image in the eyes of the world. Indeed, it's difficult not to suspect the suspicious timing of the 'Dave Invasion.' Is it possible it was all a hoax on 'The Squad's' behalf? Certainly 'Weird Tom' and his 'Team' were easily co-opted; 'Tom' even appeared in a public event shortly after 'The Odd Squad' regained its dominance over the hearts and minds of the people dressed in an undersized suit and was said to have been made an 'honorary agent.' He and his people disappeared shortly thereafter without a trace. Thus is the fate of those who dare stand against 'The Odd Squad.'

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What does the future hold? It is perhaps a disturbing sign several new 'Agents' have surfaced. The two most prominent seem poised to inherit the mantle of 'Otto' and 'Olive.' In this case, however, we cannot help suspecting the roles have been reversed, with the curiously Pagan-named, Titian-curled 'Agent Olympia' serving as the handler for the Aryan superman 'Otis.' The occult aspects of 'Agent Otis' are obvious; he's been observed to flee from ducks, noted symbols of free will and positive change. Could this be a sign he can be rescued from diabolical domination? We can only hope.

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