1953-04-22 — Correlation with family relations — Dr. H. ████████ / BAR-OPM-10292

Across 61 households canvassed in four countries since 1949, appearance counts track the quality of family relations, as assessed by field researchers, more closely than any other variable tested. Household income, dwelling size, and number of residents show no comparable relationship. Recommend a standing register with a fixed counting method: since 1951, informant reports have been unable to distinguish appearances from units bought at retail.

1961-09-01 — Establishment of the LARARIUM register — Dr. L. ████████ / BAR-OPM-08841

Program PG-0117-600-01 "LARARIUM" authorized, with an initial register of 120 households across nine countries. Ultraviolet marking replaces informant-based counts in full. Funding for field cover was approved at two-thirds of the requested figure; count intervals are set at fourteen days rather than the seven originally proposed, and the register is sized accordingly.

1966-02-14 — Film monitoring — Dr. L. ████████ / BAR-OPM-08841

Three registered households were filmed continuously for thirty days each. No appearances were recorded in any of them, and all three resumed prior frequency within one count interval after filming ended. A fourth household was filmed with a concealed camera, without the knowledge of any household member. Result identical. Film monitoring is discontinued, and the affected periods are excluded from register data.

1974-06-03 — Lead time — Dr. L. ████████ / BAR-OPM-08841

Retrospective analysis of thirteen years of register data establishes that frequency changes precede cohesion changes, with a median lead of six weeks. LARARIUM counts therefore describe the condition of registered families before those families are in a position to describe it themselves. Field researchers are reminded that the standing practice of non-intervention applies without exception.

1979-11-20 — Terminal appearances — Dr. L. ████████ / BAR-OPM-08841

Forty-seven terminal appearances have been logged since 1961. Thirty-one were found outside the primary receptacle. Of those, twenty-nine were found among the personal effects of a single family member. In twenty-two of the twenty-nine, that member was the subject of the event that followed. The other seven have not been explained.

1988-03-09 — Proposed temporal classification — OPM Quantum Studies Sector

The Sector proposed adding hazard category T to the case's classification on the basis of the lead. Classification review declined the proposal on the grounds that the lead cannot be distinguished from detection of a present state not yet expressed in behavior. Both readings remain open. The Sector notes that, on the second reading, a family that does not yet know it is failing is already failing, and that this reading is no more comfortable than the first.

2004-02-11 — OBP use of register data — Dr. S. ████████ / BAR-OPM-19207

Since 1975, the Office of Bureau Personnel has had forty-one households belonging to the family units of serving Bureau personnel added to the LARARIUM register without the knowledge of the personnel concerned. OBP uses the counts to reassign personnel away from sensitive duty ahead of a projected decline. An objection was submitted on 2004-01-29 on the grounds that this constitutes action upon register data. The reply is reproduced in full:

TO: Dr. S. ████████, OPM, Lead Investigator, CASE-0117
FROM: Office of Bureau Personnel, Supervisor ████████
RE: Your memorandum of 2004-01-29

The non-intervention requirement governs Bureau conduct toward registered civilian households. Reassignment of Bureau personnel is not conduct toward a household. It is conduct toward Bureau personnel, which is the mandate of this Office.

Personnel are not informed of the basis for reassignment, or of anything that would permit them to act on it. The requirement is therefore observed in full.

No form exists for this procedure and none will be created.

Addendum, 2004-02-20. Referred to the OPM Division Director. No response is recorded.

2019-07-30 — Household R-0014 — Dr. Miriam Achterberg / BAR-OPM-31164

R-0014 has been counted continuously since 1961, longer than any other household on the register. Appearances have moved dwellings twice, in 1977 and 2011, each time following the death of the eldest member of the family unit. In 1977, the family took the original glass dish to the new dwelling. In 2011, they kept the candies in a biscuit tin instead, and appearances followed the tin. The count has held between nineteen and twenty-four units per fortnight for fifty-eight years, the narrowest range on the register.

1950-03-04 – Incident CASE-0117-1: The Córdoba Inquiry

Héctor Albornoz, a columnist for a daily newspaper in Córdoba, Argentina, published a column on 1950-03-04 asking readers to identify the maker of the strawberry candies kept in every grandmother's house in the province. The column drew two letters, each attributing the purchase to a relative of its writer. Albornoz continued the inquiry privately over the following eleven weeks. He wrote to confectioners in Córdoba, Rosario, and Buenos Aires, to the provincial commerce registry, and to the national customs authority, and received the same answer from each: no such product was manufactured, registered, or imported. ACD learned of the inquiry on 1950-05-19 through ████████, by which point Albornoz had drafted a second column describing the candies as a product without a factory.

The second column was not published. On 1950-05-27, Albornoz received a Class III amnestic covering the inquiry and its correspondence, and DAI recovered the correspondence itself. He resumed work at the newspaper the following month and did not return to the subject.

The DAI assessment recorded the amnestic and the recovery of the correspondence as breaches of REG-800-12 §3. It found that self-normalization had held: the first column produced no public interest, and Albornoz was the only civilian known to have pursued the question. It also found that a second inquirer with greater resources would reach the same dead end, and that the dead end was itself the exposure. The DAI Division Director declined to rely on self-normalization a second time. Cover Story CC-0117-01 was authorized on 1950-09-12, and the first commercial cover entity began operating in Arroyito, Córdoba Province, ten months later.

Inquiries made during the 1961 register intake established that no member of Albornoz's family unit had kept the candies in the house during the period of his inquiry, or for some years before it.

1983-05-16 – Incident CASE-0117-2: Introduced Units

Register household R-0213 had been in steady decline for five months, falling from eighteen appearances per fortnight to seven. OPM Researcher ████████ proposed using the household to test whether introduced units would alter either cohesion or count. The responsible OPM Sector Lead approved the test on condition that R-0213 be excluded from register analysis for its duration.

Twenty-four units were taken from register household R-0088, which held a stable count in the high twenties, and marked with a second ink that fluoresces at a distinguishable wavelength. They were placed in R-0213's primary receptacle in three lots of eight at consecutive counts, beginning on 1983-05-16. Family members ate the introduced units at the same rate as native ones, and the cohesion assessment continued on its prior trajectory. Over the six weeks following the first placement, the household's own appearances fell twenty-three short of the figure projected from the prior trend, a shortfall within counting error of twenty-four.

We put in twenty-four. It took back twenty-three. Whatever is keeping the count, it does not count ours.

Field note, Researcher ████████, 1983-06-28

Introduction of units into registered households was prohibited on 1983-07-11, since any further test would remove a household from usable data for the test's duration. The same offset has since been confirmed for units that enter registered households through retail purchase, resolving a standing question about the effect of commercial stock on register counts. R-0213 continued to decline at its prior slope and recorded a terminal appearance on 1983-10-02.

1996-11-08 – Incident CASE-0117-3: The Telephone Call

OPM Researcher D. ████████ / BAR-OPM-22650 had counted register household R-0151 since 1985. The primary receptacle was at the home of a widowed father, aged seventy-nine. Beginning in August 1996, the household's count fell from fourteen per fortnight to three over four consecutive counts. The quarterly cohesion assessment recorded that the father's eldest daughter had not visited in more than a year.

On 1996-11-08, the Researcher placed an anonymous telephone call to the daughter, told her that her father was unwell, and advised her to visit. She visited on 1996-11-10. At the count of 1996-11-14, the primary receptacle held no unmarked units. A single unmarked unit was recovered from the pocket of the father's cardigan, which was hanging in the front hall. This was logged as a terminal appearance. The father died on 1996-11-27, of causes recorded as natural.

The Researcher reported the call on 1996-12-02.

I didn't tell her anything she couldn't have known. I said he wasn't well. He was seventy-nine. She went. I want that written down somewhere, that she went. I know it didn't move the count. I counted it.

Statement, Researcher D. ████████, 1996-12-02

The call was classified as a Level II security violation of standing practice. The Researcher was removed from LARARIUM fieldwork and reassigned to ████████. The non-intervention requirement was formalized in this case's Containment Protocol on 1997-01-15, with breach set at the same level. Whether the visit altered anything the register does not measure cannot be determined.