Taken by the United States Armed Forces to an Air Force base in New Mexico, Hellboy is raised by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm in as normal a home environment as possible (and as a Catholic), and the United States Army where the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) a private organization dedicated to combating occult threats, begins. Due to the success of his first mission in 1952, Hellboy is granted "honorary human" status by the United Nations and becomes a member of the BPRD as the "world's greatest paranormal investigator". As such, Hellboy interacts regularly with humans, primarily law enforcement officials, the military, and various "scholars of the weird", most of whom are not presented as overtly reacting to his strange appearance.