UA-116-A

Unclassified Anomaly | File# 116 | Status: Active

Merchandise, advertising, and material placements for "SLUSHO!" brand icy drinks appearing throughout continental United States. Brand is not registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Offices, physical point of sale locations do not always appear to exist.

Assigned Agent: HALL

Supervising Agent: GATES
Case Status: Active

On May 15th 2019 Agent Gates entered the OEI Central Office with a slushy ice drink. Blue in coloration, sea salt flavored. The container was red and white striped with several cartoon figures depicted on its surface and the branding "SLUSHO!" across the side, with slogan, "You Can't Drink Just Six." Gates left the cup on his desk and it disappeared an hour later. Assuming it had been thrown away, Gates disregarded the incident. However, on review of security footage it was determined that the cup ceased to exist when not being directly observed.

The storefront that Gates purchased the drink at, purportedly located in Phoenix Heights, a bodega on the corner of Dumont and Ashford, was not present when field agents were dispatched to the location. According to Safe Zone records, the bodega at that address had not been reopened since the conclusion of the civil war.

A further review of historic SLUSHO! records shows no concrete internet presence outside of the United States, in spite of the corporation's apparent Japanese origin. Further confounding research are multiple eye-witnesses both within and outside of the OEI claiming to have sees SLUSHO! advertising or point-of-sale machines at some point within the last ten years. However, no written record of these experiences could be found.

Agent Hall recalled seeing a SLUSHO! advertisement on television, and through coordination with Agent Gates and a contractor technopath we were able to transcribe Hall's recollection of the televised advertisement circa 2009 onto a physical media. The quality is poor due to the aforementioned means of replication, but it is a chronologically legitimate recollection.

Over the past two years the OEI has cited 2 additional SLUSHO! appearances within the Safe Zone, outlined below:

March 20, 2020: A crumpled SLUSHO! cup was spotted by Agent Bright beside a dumpster in Jackson Heights. It was brought in for observation and remains detained under observation. Analysis of the cup has not revealed any anomalous properties. A material sample cut from the cup persisted through chemical analysis but once research team ceased observing the sample it ceased to be present.
April 3, 2021: An out-of-order SLUSHO! dispenser was found at Bodega de la Vega in Phoenix Heights. Neither the clerk working that night nor the store owner has any recollection of precisely when they came to own the machine, but both recalled that it "has probably always been there." The dispenser and its contents were seized and brought to the central office. Chemical analysis of the dispenser and contents again show no anomalous readings, though both flavors (Sea Salt Crash and Berry Bad Day) were universally described as "strange" tasting. The machine is currently still operational under supervised circumstances in the 21st floor Verne lab.

There is currently no agreed-upon explanation for these events or why SLUSHO! specifically manifests in such a manner.