History Main / NoSuchAgency

----

'''Epps:''' S7 don't exist.
'''Lennox:''' That's right, and we don't take orders from people who don't exist.

* Deconstructed in ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' when Lennox, Epps, and the other Special Forces troopers refuse to take orders from the Sector 7 agents because their unit does not officially exist. "That's right, and we don't take orders from people who don't exist."

Note that this trope is a government-sanctioned group that the government intentionally keep existence of quiet. If a government intentionally wipes all traces of one's (or a group's) existence or history of ever existing, that is {{Unperson}}.

A step up (or down) from a CovertGroup is a government agency whose very existence is officially regarded as an UrbanLegend and denied by TheGovernment officials. This allows them to maintain PlausibleDeniability, in case the agency's activities (which are often of the black ops variety) become known to general public. If, by chance, any outsiders learn of it, they will say IWasNeverHere.

Subtrope of GovernmentAgencyOfFiction and CovertGroup and often a supertrope to TheMenInBlack. Compare GovernmentConspiracy. May overlap with BenevolentConspiracy and MilkmanConspiracy. Likely to reside in a BlackSite. Parody examples may employ a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial.

* "Section 9" in ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' is not supposed to exist following the events at the end of the first season. Of course, there's a second season and TheMovie.

The TropeNamer is the US [[UsefulNotes/{{NSA}} National Security Agency]], which from 1952 to 1957 officially didn't exist. Even after that they were very reticent about what they did[[note]]for the record, their job is primarily cryptology and analysis of electronic intelligence[[/note]], leading many in the government to snark that the abbreviation NSA really stood for "No Such Agency."

* Background Unit in ''LightNovel/HeavyObject'' is only a nickname as the unit itself does not officially exist nor are any of the members recorded as part of the military. They're sent on the dirty, dangerous missions that Legitimacy Kingdom doesn't want traced back to them and are completely expendable. [[spoiler:The only reason Quenser and Heivia dodge a court-martial after Unicorn lets them take the fall for an explosion in a city is that they were never officially there]].

** ''ComicBook/DoubleDuck'' has The Agency-full name, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Agency So Secret It Doesn't Even Have A Name]]. Its existence is not publicily aknowledged until [[spoiler:the story "Reboot" has the government disband it and replace it with the less expensive Direction, that proceeds to expose the former existence of the Agency in the name of trasparency, never mind they exposed all the Agency's operators to revenge from the criminals they had opposed]].
** ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'' has a spy being about to say the name of an intelligence agency-only for his father, a military intelligence sergeant, to ''pull a gun on him'' as he says that even mentioning the name requires a rather high security clearance he doesn't have anymore, no matter that they had just seen an ID badge of said agency. [[spoiler:As ''Paperinik New Adventures'' and ''Double Duck'' are specifically part of the same continuity, it could have been The Agency]].

** Same goes for their American counterpart the Statesmen in the sequel [[KingsmanTheGoldenCircle The Golden Circle]].

* The covert organisation in all iterations of ''Film/{{Nikita}}'', including [[Series/LaFemmeNikita the two]] [[Series/{{Nikita}} TV series]] and the TransAtlanticEquivalent ''Point of No Return'', is a black-ops program for assassination and counterintelligence that does not officially exist. Which has allowed the program's leader to turn it into a work-for-hire operation that the government can't shut down.

* In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/ThePuppetMasters'', the narrator explains up front that you've never heard of his organisation because they do not exist.
* Literature/{{Quiller}} works for The Bureau, an organisation directly responsible to the Prime Minister of Britain, with "powers that would be called into question in the House of Commons should its existence be revealed".

** In one of the novels, someone visits Bashir representing "the organisation you know as Section 31". When Bashir questions this, the agent explains he's never had occasion to use ''any'' name for his employers.
** When Section 31 shows up in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' the name is implied to refer to Article 14, Section 31 of the (United Earth) Starfleet Charter, which allows bending rules in times of extreme threat -- suggesting that Section 31 is less a name for the organisation and more a mission statement.
** In ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'', Section 31 is more known and is considered to be an official part of Starfleet with its own admirals, ships, and command structure, as well as a much higher tech level than the rest of Starfleet (e.g. holographic disguises for both people and ships, personal attack drones, combadges, advanced tractor beams, fully-functional AI). They wear black badges. However, the events of Season 2 result in the organisation being disavowed and going underground once again, for good this time, all official (and lots of unofficial) records wiped. A century later, no one even remembers that such an agency ever existed.

* In ''Roleplay/DawnOfANewAgeOldportBlues'', the woman pursuing the superpowered heroes, Sarah Travers, has a badge that links her to the Department of Justice- however, she says the ''actual'' organisation that she represents doesn't officially exist in any form, just in case something goes wrong and she needs to disappear.

* ''TabletopGame/ConspiracyX''. The main opponent organisation for the {{Player Character}}s is a secret government agency called the National Defense Directorate AKA the Black Book.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' Black Ops campaign setting is about the player characters working for "The Company". The Company is a highly secret organisation that was founded by a select few individuals after World War II as a "conspiracy of protection" for the purpose of protecting humanity and Earth from all manner of paranormal threats. The number one rule given to all Black Ops agents is to protect the conspiracy at all costs.
* ''TabletopGame/PsionicsTheNextStageInHumanEvolution'' is about several massive conspiracies using people with psionic powers to further their own goals, so several organisations, locations, people, etc. don't officially exist. Finding out about them is likely to get you killed or on the radar of some very nasty people too.

* Blackwatch, the covert-ops branch of the ''{{VideoGame/Overwatch}}'' organisation. While Overwatch functioned as public face and TheParagon, Blackwatch dwelt in the shadows. Doing the dirty work regular Overwatch couldn't be connected to. Their reveal by spiteful ex-leader Gabriel "Reaper" Reyes brought them and Overwatch as a whole down.
* Blackwatch, the government organisation tasked with stopping the virus in ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' officially doesn't exist and has no insigna. Newscasts played during the credits suggests that even by the end of the game, most people assume they're just part of the USMC. They're more of an open secret by ''VideoGame/Prototype2'' though.

* ''Videogame/SoldierOfFortune'' has The Shop, a covert government organisation that conducts black operations around the globe.

* "The Agency" from the ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter'' series was this for the first three games. Starting with 'The Omega Strain' the agency was reorganised into an OpenSecret called the International Presidential Consulting Agency (IPCA). Although their existence is now known to the rest of the world their activities are supposed to be highly classified with only the President of the United States having full authority and oversight of the organisation.
* The title organisation in ''[[VideoGame/TheDivision Tom Clancy's The Division]]'' is this up until the start of the game. A group of highly trained [[DeepCoverAgent deep cover agents]] seeded throughout the U.S. by the government, whose job is to help contain major crises that are beginning to spiral out of control, and have the advantage of being locals, thus good knowledge of geography, and direct or near direct knowledge of what's going on. The pandemic and societal collapse sweeping New York City in the game convinces the government to activate and reveal them for their first operation.
* The title project of ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' is also disavowed throughout the entire game. No matter what equipment they donate to member-nations, no matter how many civilians they rescue when dealing with alien Terror Strikes, the organisation itself is never revealed. The most that the general public knows is the news reports of highly trained soldiers with advanced equipment being sighted occasionally fighting the alien invaders, with all governments involved denying knowledge about them.

* {{ComicBook/Deadpool}} plays with this. The Risk Management Agency ''does'' exist, but it's a branch of the department of ''agriculture''. Not intelligence. Their spy agency operates within their farming-related agency illegally without anybody, including the branch of the government they're a part of knowing what they're actually doing. When Deadpool rats them out, the secretary of agriculture shuts them down.

* ''ComicBook/Deadpool'' plays with this. The Risk Management Agency ''does'' exist, but it's a branch of the department of ''agriculture''. Not intelligence. Their spy agency operates within their farming-related agency illegally without anybody, including the branch of the government they're a part of knowing what they're actually doing. When Deadpool rats them out, the secretary of agriculture shuts them down.

The TropeNamer is the US [[UsefulNotes/{{NSA}} National Security Agency]], which from 1952 to 1957 officially didn't exist. Even after that they were very reticent about what they did[[labelnote:*]]for the record, their job is primarily cryptology and analysis of electronic intelligence[[/labelnote]], leading many in the government to snark that the abbreviation NSA really stood for "No Such Agency."

%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

[[quoteright:350:[[Manga/MagicalGirlSpecOpsAsuka https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mgspoa_collage.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Look, you're living in a world where magic exists. I'm sure the bad guys will find a way to unearth the agency.]]
%%

* The Literature/GreyKnights Adeptus Astartes chapter in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' are a curious example, as their existence is considered an urban legend in the Imperium, and only a select few of the other Space Marine chapters (namely the Literature/{{Space Wol|f}}ves and Literature/BloodRavens) are allowed to learn of their existence. In addition, they are considered the militant arm of the Ordo Malleus, making them soldiers of the Inquisition. However, anyone else who fights alongside them are either killed or mind-wiped after the war is over in order to preserve their secrecy. Only the Space Wolves have managed to escape this, primarily because there were too few Grey Knights left after the first War for armageddon, and afterwords dealing with the situation would have required calling the entire chapter to heel, something that is virtually impossible to do to a first founding chapter. Note that the Grey Knights ''did'' try... and the Space Wolves defeated them.

* As already mentioned in the heading the NSA use to operate under this policy. They have long sense given up on the attempt to secrecy, as now of days there is a large sign on the highway the exit that leads to the NSA in very large letters.
** Though this is partially to discourage anyone without a clearance from accidentally pulling off on the exit, as it leads directly to an security checkpoint where anyone without a clearance will end up being pulled over and undergo some rather through vetting before their allowed to leave. A shocking number of arrests happen when people driving illegally accidentally pull off on the wrong exit into the armed hands of the NSA gaurds, not to mention at least one shooting death when a 'bright' individual who didn't want to be arrested thought he would try to run through the armed checkpoint without pulling over.

* The unit fomerly known as the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_Support_Activity Intelligence Support Activity]]'', they serve as the intelligence gathering division of the USSOCOM and JSOC, providing intelligence for other units such as the SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force. Officially it was "disbanded" in 1989 but it continued existing, every information available is classified and the new name is a series of codenames that frequently changes. Some of the most famous codename include: Centra Spike[[labelnote:Note]]Used during their operations in the hunt for Pablo Escobar[[/labelnote]], [[VideoGame/MetalGear Grey Fox]][[labelnote:Note]]Used in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan[[/labelnote]] and Inteprid Spear[[labelnote:note]]Current or last codename known[[/labelnote]].

** After 9/11 and the reorganisation of the US intelligence community, Delta Green was revived, given a proper government standing and using TheWarOnTerror as a cover of their operations against the mythos. A group of old guard agents were suspicious of this new organisation and created their own RenegadeSplinterFaction mantaining the old conspiracy structure.

* The [=CP9=] of ''Manga/OnePiece''. While the [=CP=]1-8 (CP meaning Cipher Pol, or numbered police) are well-known government intelligence agencies, the ninth one is a complete secret that the ordinary citizens only think of as a rumor. This is because the [=CP9=] has the right to ''kill'' whoever they feel is an obstruction to their mission.

* In ''[[Literature/WizBiz TheWizardryConsulted]]'', when Wiz under a geas bounces his online chats with his friends off of a website that, unknown to him, was one of many fronts for a No Such Agency. Since No Such Agency didn't have a team able to hunt down Wiz (him being an actual wizard on an alternate world where magic works, and No Such Agency not specializing in computer crime anyways), they had to ask the FBI to try and track down where the hacking were coming from. [[FridgeHorror You don't really want to know what would happen if they could have tracked him down themselves.]]

* In ''Literature/TheWizardryConsulted'', when Wiz under a geas bounces his online chats with his friends off of a website that, unknown to him, was one of many fronts for a No Such Agency. Since No Such Agency didn't have a team able to hunt down Wiz (him being an actual wizard on an alternate world where magic works, and No Such Agency not specializing in computer crime anyways), they had to ask the FBI to try and track down where the hacking were coming from. [[FridgeHorror You don't really want to know what would happen if they could have tracked him down themselves.]]

Subtrope of GovernmentAgencyOfFiction and CovertGroup and often a supertrope to TheMenInBlack. Compare GovernmentConspiracy. May overlap with BenevolentConspiracy and MilkmanConspiracy. Likely to reside in a BlackSite.