Pilot Episode. After two years with the FBI, Dana Scully is assigned to the X-Files. Mulder initially distrusts Scully, believing she has been assigned to debunk his work. At face value, her assignment is to bring a rigorous scientific perspective to the cases. In fact, Scully really HAS been assigned to debunk the X-Files by the international conspiracy that feels Mulder's work is dangerous to them.

The Cigarette Smoking Man attends the meeting in Assistant Director Blevins' office in which Scully receives the assignment, but does not speak. He also uses electronic listening devices to listen in on Mulder and Scully's first meeting. (Musings...)

Mulder tells Scully that he has read her senior thesis, and liked it.   The title indicates that it is a new interpretation of Einstein's Twins paradox.  (Pilot)  It also apparently deals with MJ-12. (Musings...)

On their first case, they investigate disappearances of teenagers. Four teenagers in Oregon have been found dead, with two puncture wounds on their backs. Traveling to Oregon, their airplane experiences unexpected turbulence. Mulder arranges to have a grave of one of the victims, Ray Soams, exhumed and a body is found in the coffin that is not human -- possibly what would commonly be called a grey alien. Inside the nose of the body is a fragment of metal they cannot identify. They also learn that two additional teenagers, Billy Miles and Peggy Odell, are institutionalized. Peggy is paranoid and Billy is catatonic. Mulder suspects that they have been abducted but Scully thinks the answer must be in the forest, where the victims have been found. Visiting the crime scene area at night, they are warned off by a sheriff's deputy, Billy's father. As they drive away, down a rural highway, their car loses power, they experience a bright flash of light, and clocks are nine minutes later than they had been. Mulder is thrilled to experience unexplained time loss, often reported in connection with UFO sightings.

Later that evening, Scully believes that she finds puncture wounds on her hip, similar to those found on the teenagers. After Mulder checks them out, allowing him to see her in her underwear, Mulder proclaims them mosquito bites. As she recovers from her scare, Mulder tells Scully about his sister's disappearance and about how his passion to locate her lead him to the X-Files. Someone has been blocking his attempts to access classified government information. Connections he has made in Congress have protected him, to a certain extent. He tells her about his hypnotic regression and the memories of Samantha's abduction. As they talk, they receive an anonymous phone call saying that Peggy Odell is dead. Peggy ran out of the forest in front of a semi-truck. While they are at the scene, their motel burns, destroying the x-rays and pictures of the alien body.

At the motel fire, they are approached by another teenaged girl, Teresa, who has repeatedly waken up in the forest. Her father is the medical examiner who withheld information on the marks from his reports. He takes her away and the agents discover that the bodies have been removed from the other graves. Mulder suspects that Billy Miles is responsible, in spite of his vegetative state. Something in the forest summons the teenagers, Mulder thinks. Visiting Billy, Scully discovers dirt on his feet like what she found at the crime scene in the forest. They return to the forest to take another sample, to be sure, and find Billy and Teresa, although Billy's father tries to block them. The teenagers are surrounded by a vortex and lifted into the air. After a flash of light, both awake, with no memory of what has happened and with the marks on their backs gone.

Episode concludes March 22 with Billy in hypnotic regression telling about how the light took him away and told him to gather the others for tests. Blevins and the other FBI officials criticize Scully's reports as having insufficient scientific basis because she cannot substantiate her observations. She hands Blevins the metal fragment removed from the unidentified body. Lab tests could not identify it. As the episode ends, the Cigarette Smoking Man is seen to place the bottle holding the fragment in a storage box with other similar fragments in a huge secret storage area labeled as being in the Pentagon.

Deep Throat. Military police storm a residence in Idaho, to take Colonel Budahas into custody as his wife watches from outside.  They find him huddling naked and covered with an intense red rash. 

Four months later, Scully and Mulder meet in a bar where he tells her about their new case -- Mrs. Budahas has reported her husband as kidnapped because he is been missing for four months and the military will not say what happened to him.  Since 1963, six pilots have been reported as missing from Ellens Air Force Base in Idaho.  Mulder thinks they have been testing experimental aircraft. 

Deep Throat approaches Mulder for the first time, in the men’s room, and warns him not to investigate this case.  Mulder does not heed the warning and the agents fly to Idaho where the call on Mrs. Budahas.  She noticed her husband's rash two years ago, and he began acting strangely.  His work was classified.  She just wants him back.  She refers the agents to another woman whose husband disappeared and returned with a personality disorder.  Scully recognizes it as typical of people who have been under extreme stress. 

The agents call on Colonel Kissell at his home, but he closes the door in their faces.  A reporter, Paul Mossinger, approaches the agents.  There are many UFO nuts around, he says, but few FBI agents.  He directs them to a diner where UFO aficionados hang out.  A waitress shows them pictures she took of a triangular shaped UFO and Mulder obtains a copy.  That night the agents drive to a spot outside the base security fence where they see lights darting around the sky in a way that no aircraft could.  Another light approaches them, but it is a helicopter, chasing two young people who slip out of a cut section of fence.  The agents stop the kids, and then hide with them.  Later, in the diner, they tell the agents how they often sneak into the base to watch the lights.  They say the UFOs look just like the triangular craft shown in Mulder’s picture, but Scully dismisses them as being stoned.  Mulder shows Scully a photograph of a triangular UFO that he says crashed at Roswell, New Mexico.  Mulder is convinced that the Ellens Air Force Base is the home of military craft based on UFO technology.  Scully isn't convinced that any of the photographs are authentic, and she points out that it doesn't explain what happened to Budahas.

Mrs. Budahas leaves word for the agents -- her husband has returned home, but he is not really her husband.  Mulder questions him and the pilot is unable to answer certain questions about flying.  Mulder believes "they" erased some of his memories but Scully says the technology does not exist to do that.  As the agents drive along they are stopped by two cars full of "men in black."  The take the agent's photographs and film and warn them to leave town, citing "national security."  Back at their motel, Scully is prepared to leave but Mulder drives off and sneaks onto the base himself.  After dark, he moves onto a runway where he sees a huge triangular craft, which hovers over him.  It departs and military vehicles surround Mulder, taking him into custody. 

Scully goes to the motel office because she cannot get a long distance line from her phone.  The office phone does not work either.  She discovers Mossinger leaving her motel room, and she has left her gun in her room.  She dashes to his car and locks herself inside.  A radio in the car is receiving military communications.  Scully finds Mossinger's military ID and a gun in teh glove compartment.  He breaks a window and tries to grab Scully, but she uses his gun and orders him to get on the radio and find out where Mulder is.  Mulder has been strapped to a gurney and is being worked on by medical personnel in a hangar building.  Mossinger drives Scully up to a gate of the base; she continues holding the gun on him.  A jeep drives up and Mulder is released.  He is dazed and cannot remember what happened to him.  Scully orders Mossinger out of the car and the two agents drive off. 

They return to the Budahas home, but Mrs. Budahas claims her husband is fine now.  Mulder says, "They got to her."  The agents return home and Scully writes her report.  They know no more than they did when they arrived in Idaho.  The person reported kidnapped has returned home.  The case is closed.  Deep Throat approaches Mulder who is running on an outside track.  He warns that the agents’ lives may be in danger because of the things they have seen.  Deep Throat will give Mulder information, when it suits his purposes.  "They’re here, aren’t they?"  Mulder asks.  Deep Throat’s reply is that, "they’ve been here for a long, long time."

Fox Mulder's former partner, Special Agent Jerry Lamana loses an important piece of evidence during a hate crime investigation in Atlanta. Before he recovers the evidence, a judge is seriously injured. Lamana is put on six months probation, and required to file reports as if he were a beginner. (Ghost in the Machine)

Billy Labonge and Cissy Alvarez serve time together in prison in California. Labonge is sentenced for pick pocketing, which he claims was "performance art," since he is interested in magic. Alvarez' body is covered with tattoos. (The Amazing Maleeni)

A Lakeland, Florida, church deacon, Mr. Resnick, believes there is an evil presence among his church members. He brings a gun to the church service and fires on church-goers. He tells police that the evil presence is "hiding in the light." Greg Pinkas has family living in the Lakeland area. (Folie a Duex)

A Lakeland, Florida, church deacon, Mr. Resnick, believes there is an evil presence among his church members. He brings a gun to the church service and fires on church-goers. He tells police that the evil presence is "hiding in the light." Greg Pinkas has family living in the Lakeland area. (Folie a Duex)

In 1997, Scully mentions that her last date was to see Glengarry Glen Ross, released October 2, 1992, and that the characters in the movie had a better time than she did. She apparently forgot about her date seen in Jersey Devil, in August 1993. (Never Again)

NASA begins a high resolution microwave survey of the sky, looking for signs of intelligent life in space. A year later, the project will be canceled by Congress. (Little Green Men)

A team of geophysicists begins a project to drill deep into the arctic ice at Icy Cape, Alaska. (Ice)

Jack Willis begins trailing a pair of bank robbers who commit repeated crimes, killing seven people. He becomes consumed with catching the criminals. (Lazarus)

Scully signs a living will, witnessed by Mulder. (One Breath)

Mulder begins a series of contacts with a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution named Arlinsky who, a few years earlier, was implicated in a UFO photo enhancement scandal. (Gethsemane)

In 1998, Mulder says he bought his "I Want to Believe" poster "about five years ago" in a head shop on Washington DC's M Street. He probably actually bought it earlier than that, because we have seen it from the beginning of the series. (Chinga)

According to The X-Files files, in 1993 Duffy Haskell writes a series of letters to Mulder, claiming that his wife, Kat, is the victim of multiple alien abductions. The letters take on a threatening tone. (Unknown if the letters are authentic or later planted in the file drawers) (Per Manum)

The Falls at Arcadia planned community, near San Diego, is named the number one planned community in California, a distinction it will receive each year until at least 1999. The honor is the result of radical efforts taken by the original home owners, conjuring up a Talpa, a Tibetan folk monster, to enforce the homeowner's rules. They are surprised, however, when the Talpa begins killing violators of the rules, and they cannot control it.

Michelle Critterdon is born. Shortly thereafter her parents, Martha and Howard Critterdon, decide they do not want more children and Howard has a vasectomy. (Chimera)

Mulder takes some vacation leave. In January 1997, he comments that he has not taken any vacation for four years. (Never Again)

A male "Jersey Devil" dies, leaving his mate alone. She begins scavenging for food on the outskirts of Atlantic City.

According to the X-Files files, circa this date, Duffy Haskell sends a series of letters to Mulder claiming that his wife has been repeatedly kidnapped by aliens. (These files are turned up by agent Doggett during Mulder's 2001 disappearance. Could they have been planted circa 2001 to support Haskell's work for the conspiracy?) (Per Manum)

Lula Phillips is released from the Maryland Women's Correctional Facility where she has been serving a ten year sentence for manslaughter. She moves in with guard Warren Dupre, with whom she had an affair in prison. He considers himself to be very lucky to be in lover with her. She seduces him into a life of crime. A week after her release, they committed their first robbery at Annapolis Savings and loan. A 65 year old female teller is pistol whipped and killed. Over the next several months they kill seven people during robberies. FBI agent Jack Willis, of the Washington DC Violent Crimes unit, is assigned to the case and begins trailing the robbers. Dupre and Lula are married in Atlantic City during May. (Lazarus)

In a deserted part of Arizona, a human body is found with its skull smashed in and with a strange wound on its back. The murder remains unsolved for some years. The body has formerly been occupied by a parasite that is capable of taking complete control of the human body, but which finds many humans unsuitable. (RoadRunners)

Squeeze. In Baltimore, a businessman leaves a restaurant and returns to his office to work late.  Eugene Victor Tooms watches him walk down the street from behind a storm sewer grate.  As the businessman fills his coffee cup and returns to his office, Tooms unscrews the screws holding an air vent grate in place and exits into the man's office.  When the man returns, Tooms kills him. 

In Washington, Scully has lunch with Agent Tom Colton, an FBI Academy classmate of hers.  He is running the investigation of a serial killer in Baltimore with the common threads that there is no sign of entry in each of the three killings, and in each case, the victim's liver has been ripped out, apparently by hand.  Colton kids Scully about working with "Spooky" Mulder.  Colton wants Scully to review the case histories and grudgingly agrees that Mulder can come along, if he wants.  When Scully introduces Mulder to Colton, Colton jokes about little green men not being involved in this case.  Mulder deadpans that Reticulans are grey and that they steal livers because of the lack of iron in their galaxy.   Mulder finds iron filings under the air vent and, dusting the vent for fingerprints, finds a single elongated print.  Later he shows Scully that the print matches prints from ten other killings, five in 1963 (in Powhatten Mills) and five in 1933.  Another Baltimore murder, in 1903, had the liver ripped out, but fingerprinting was in its infancy then and none were found.  Mulder thinks there are two more murders to go to match the pattern.  Scully is skeptical but agrees that she and Mulder can conduct their own investigation in parallel to the one led by Colton.

Scully drafts a profile of the killer and delivers it to Colton and his superior.  She concludes that there is a possibility that the killer will return to the scene of the crime, and the three locations are staked out.  She helps, assigned a parking garage and is surprised on her stakeout by Mulder.   He thinks she is wrong, but the agents are surprised to hear sounds in an air duct.  They call for backup and catch Tooms emerging from the dust.  He is arrested.  Tooms is given a lie detector test, and Mulder asks that he be asked some special questions, such as "are you over 100 years old."  The technician says that Tooms passes the test 100%, but Mulder sees that Tooms did react to the special questions.  The technician dismisses the responses, but Mulder is convinced that Tooms is the killer.  On the basis of the test, Tooms is released.  As the agents leave, Mulder takes note of the locket that Scully is wearing.

Tooms kills again, entering a man's house by squeezing down the chimney.  At the crime scene, Mulder finds a sooty elongated fingerprint and notices that something has been taken from the fireplace mantle.   Mulder examines microfilm records and finds a 1903 census document that says that a Victor Eugene Tooms lived at 66 Exeter Street, Baltimore, in apartment 103.   Mulder shows Scully that the 1903 murder was in apartment 203 at the same address -- Tooms killed the guy upstairs.   Scully still cannot believe that it is the same Tooms, suggesting maybe that it is several generations in the same family.   The agents do a further microfilm search and find no record of the 1903 Tooms' birth, marriage or death.   They discover, however, that the Powhatten Mills sheriff who investigated the 1933 murders, Frank Briggs, is still alive.  He is retired and confined to a wheelchair.  He shows the agents a box of both official and unofficial evidence.  In 1963, he was in a desk job and could not get close to the investigation officially.  Unofficially, he photographed the prime suspect, Victor Eugene Tooms.  He shows the agents a picture, and Tooms looked exactly the same in 1963 as he does today and in 1963, his home address was 66 Exeter Street.

The agents go to 66 Exeter, which is now an abandoned building.  Behind a mattress leaning against a wall, Mulder finds a hole down into what appears to have once been a coal cellar.  They find the trophies Tooms has been taking from his murder victims, and a "nest" made of newspaper and rags soaked in what appears to be bile.   The agents agree that Mulder will watch the scene while Scully leaves to arrange surveillance.  As she leaves in the dark, Scully's locket necklace catches on something for a moment.  She moves off and viewers see that Tooms is in the dark, holding her locket.  She is his next intended victim.  Mulder is relieved of his stakeout by two other FBI agents, promising to return in the evening.  When he returns, there are no agents there, so he enters the building.  In Tooms' nest, Mulder finds and recognizes Scully's locket.  Meanwhile, Colton has told Scully that watching an empty building is a waster of resources and the surveillance has been canceled.  Scully is upset and goes home, where she prepares to take a bath in her claw foot bathtub.   Tooms is outside, watching her.

As Scully opens a bottle (of bubble bath?), a drop of bile falls to her wrist from a ceiling air duct.  She realizes that Tooms is there and races to the other room for her  gun.  Mulder is rushing to Scully's apartment, telephoning but getting no answer.   AS Scully walks around her apartment, looking for Tooms, he bursts out of a floor-level air duct and attacks her.  They struggle and Mulder bursts into the apartment.  Together, the agents get Tooms handcuffed to the bathtub pipes.  With Mulder's gun on him, Tooms does not try to squeeze to escape.  Tooms is committed to the Druid Hill Sanatorium in Baltimore.  Mulder observes him licking newspaper and forming a new nest.  Scully tells Mulder that preliminary medical tests show abnormalities in Toom's muscles and skeleton as well as a continually declining metabolic rate.  As the agents leave, a meal is delivered to Tooms through a slot in the Door.  Tooms realizes that anytime the slot is left open, as it apparently often is when food is waiting, he can escape.  Tooms smiles.

(Date taken from computer display of Tooms' finger prints.  After Tooms steals Scully's necklace and locket, she begins wearing the necklace with a religious cross her mother gave her when she was a teenager. The necklace appears in many succeeding episodes.)

The Jersey Devil. Scully arrives in the X-Files office. She has just heard about a case she knows will intrigue Mulder -- the body of a homeless man found in the New Jersey woods near Atlantic City with his right arm and shoulder eaten off, possible by a human based on the teeth marks. Mulder shows her his file on a similar 1947 case. Scully thinks that stories about prehistoric humans living alongside modern society are myths, but the agents head to Atlantic City to check it out.

The coroner confirms that the teeth marks on the new body are human, but a police detective, Thompson, tells the agents that this is a local investigation and they should leave. Scully has to head home for her godson’s birthday party, but Mulder remains in Atlantic City, contacting a Parks officer to visit the scene where the body was found, about a mile from Atlantic City in the woods. The officer will be retiring soon and doesn’t want to say much, but he tells Mulder of seeing a large naked man in a grove of trees a few years earlier, and a few other odd occurrences. Mulder decides to walk back to town.

Scully attends the hectic birthday party and meets Rob, the single father of one of the boys just after talking with her friend Ellen about relationships. Mulder asks around among homeless men for anyone who knew Roger Crocket, the dead man. One shows Mulder a drawing he found of a hairy humanoid figure. He claims to have seen the creature right there in the alley, where he sleeps. Mulder sends the man off to his motel room, planning to spend the night in the alley. Late at night there is a noise. Mulder investigates and sees a woman foraging in garbage cans. She appears to be naked. Mulder follows her, but she is scared away when police cars drive up. Mulder is taken into custody, as if he were a drunk. Detective Thompson criticizes Mulder, saying that the Jersey Devil stories are as old as the hills, but Mulder counters that the police just want to protect the tourist business and not let word get out about the killings.

Back at FBI headquarters, Scully takes a call from Mulder, asking her to come bail him out of the drunk tank. When she gets him free, he tells her about what he saw -- it came out of the woods to forage. Scully has to get back to Washington, for a date with Rob, but on the way she introduces Mulder to one of her former professors at the University of Maryland, Dr. Diamond, who is an anthropologist. All cultures seem to have myths about wild men, he says, but humans are the top carnivore. Mulder asks whether a human that had somehow reverted to its animal instincts would be above us on the food chain. The professor says it is highly unlikely that what Mulder describes could have survived in the woods of New Jersey.

Mulder studies files while Scully goes on her date. Rob only seems to want to talk about his son and Scully isn’t very thrilled. The parks officer calls Mulder -- he found the body of a naked man in the woods. He may be the Jersey Devil. Both agents go back to the coroner, but the body was never brought in. The agents, Dr. Diamond, and the parks agent all go to search the abandoned building where Mulder saw the wild woman. The man may have had a mate. Police, however, see the Parks truck outside the building and bring in a team of officers. Mulder finds the woman, dirty with unkempt hair and naked. She knocks him down, the looks at him. He only sees her as a silhouette against a window. Scully approaches and scares the woman away.

Mulder is treated in an ambulance while Scully is on the phone trying to get federal jurisdiction. The parks agent tells them that the police have the woman cornered in the building. The agents are kept away, but hear on radio calls that the woman is headed for the woods on foot. They all search the woods. The parks agent sees the woman and shoots her with a tranquilizer gun, but police reach her first and kill her, claiming that one was attacked.

Back in the X-Files office, Mulder files the photos of the dead woman’s body. Scully reports that she had fragments of human bone in her digestive tract. Authorities are contacting mental hospitals to see if she might be a missing patient. The male’s body was about age 40. The female was 25-30. The autopsy shows that she may have given birth. Mulder realizes that there may have been children. Rob phones Scully about a possible date, taking his son and her godson along. She decides to go with Mulder to an appointment he has at the Smithsonian -- she has no interest in Rob at this time.

In the New Jersey woods, a naked child hides from hikers on a nearby trail.

In a North Carolina prison, serial killer Luther Boggs, convicted based on a criminal profile written by Mulder, is strapped into the gas chamber, but is granted a stay. He claims that the experience puts him in contact with the spirit world. (Beyond the Sea)

Ruby Morris disappears from her home in Sioux City, Iowa. Her mother, Darlene, claims she was taken by aliens on a camping trip. (Conduit)

Mulder has an article published in Omni magazine about the alleged Gulf Breeze UFO, under the name M.F. Luder. He concludes that the photos are faked.

The Mars Observer spacecraft fails to respond to radio signals. Marcus Aurelius Belt may have been involved in sabotage. (Space, and Historical)

Conduit. Along the shore of Lake Okoboji, in northwest Iowa, Darlene Morris sleeps in her pickup camper while her children, Ruby and Kevin, sleep outside by a campfire. The camper begins shaking and light bursts in the window. When the shaking ends, Ruby is gone. Darlene and Kevin repeatedly call for Ruby, but she cannot be found.

At FBI headquarters a month or so later, Blevins tells Scully that Mulder is requesting to visit Sioux City, Iowa, based on a newspaper tabloid story. Blevins shows Scully the case report on Samantha’s disappearance, which Mulder himself opened. Scully denies that Mulder’s personal agenda has interfered with his professional responsibilities. Blevins wants top deny Mulder’s travel request, but Scully asks to talk with Mulder and make a recommendation. Scully tells Mulder she doesn’t think there is enough evidence, but Mulder shows her a newspaper report from August 1967 reporting four UFO sightings, including by troop of Girl Scouts. Darlene Morris was one of the Girl Scouts. The article from the tabloid newspaper projected on the screen in Mulder's office incorrectly spells the lake "Okobogee."

Scully apparently recommends approving the travel, because the agents arrive at Darlene’s home in Sioux City. The camper and a C-band satellite dish sit outside. Darlene is pleased that someone in law enforcement is taking Ruby’s disappearance seriously. She is surprised that Mulder knows about her 1967 sighting, but she is convinced that “they took her, didn’t they?” Kevin has been acting strangely. Mulder finds kevin writing a string of 1s and 0s on paper. Kevin claims it is coming from the TV, which shows only static. The agents go to the Sheriff’s Office in Sioux City where Mulder faxes Kevin’s paper to his source, Danny. The sheriff says Ruby has run away before and has often been in trouble. Darlene has had an active imagination for years. Officials found nothing at the campsite that would indicate that an actual kidnapping happened. Note that Lake Okoboji is not in the same county as Sioux City, so the sheriff would have no legal jurisdiction there.

When the agents leave the Sheriff’s Department, they find a note on their windshield directing them to the library across the street. They talk with a girl who will not give her name, and will talk only through a shelf of books. Ruby was not a friend, but they spent some time together. She says that Ruby was pregnant and was going to meet her boyfriend, Greg Randall, at the lake from where they planned to run away. Greg was not in school, she says, but was a bartender at the Pennsylvania Pub. Scully and Mulder visit the establishment, which turns out to be a biker bar. The owner says that Greg has not shown up for work for three weeks. He wears a tattoo of a UFO and Mulder baits him. He has seen many strange things up at the lake and shows the agents a burn behind an ear, saying that at Lake Okoboji you can get a “killer sunburn in the middle of the night.”

At 5:30 the next morning, Scully is awakened by National Security Agency agents who burst into her bedroom. They are actually looking for Mulder because the paper from Kevin contained a fragment of a secret defense satellite transmission. Mulder says nothing, but Scully tells them about Kevin. When Mulder and Scully arrive at Darlene’s home, the NSA agents have searched it and are about to take Darlene and Kevin away in separate cars. They have found an additional stack of Kevin’s papers. An FBI analyst later tells the agents that Kevin’s papers contained fragments of digital code from many sources -- art, music, DNA. Scully and Mulder meet Darlene and Kevin as they are being released. Darlene is hostile toward them and just wants to be left along.

Mulder drives Scully to the lake, saying that Kevin is the key to finding Ruby. He thinks Kevin has become a conduit or connection to whomever took Ruby. At the campsite, Muler notices that nearby treetops have been burned, and he find sand fused into glass. Scully sees a wolf (even though there are no wolves in Iowa) and Mulder follows it to find a shallow grave covered by rocks. After other officials arrive, the murder victim is determined to be Greg Randall. In the dead man’s wallet, Mulder finds a note about a doctor’s appointment, and the writing on the note matches the writing of the girl in the library.

She is picked up and identified as Tesa. Under questioning it becomes clear that Tesa was the one who was pregnant and Greg was the father, but Greg was also spending time with Ruby. Mulder accuses Tesa of killing Greg and Ruby, but a flustered Tesa says that Ruby wasn’t even there that night. Outside the interrogation room, Scully tells Muder that Ruby is probably dead -- Tesa has confessed to killing Greg out of jealousy. Mulder will not give up on Ruby, unless they find a body. The agents return to Darlene’s home. They door is open and they enter (not discussing probable cause) and find the house empty. Several of Kevin’s papers have been set together on the floor. When Scully climbs the stairs, she sees that the 1s and 0s on the papers fit together in a mosaic to make a picture of Ruby.

The agents return to the lake and Mulder tells Scully about his childhood dream of waking up in his bedroom and finding that Samantha has returned. He says he is living that dream every day. They find the camper and it is empty. A trail begins nearby and the agents follow it, finding Darlene o the ground along the trail. Kevin ran ahead and she could not keep up. Mulder follows Kevin as lights blaze out of the woods. It turns out that it is the motorcycle club but after the motorcycles pass, Kevin tells Mulder “she’s back.” They hear Scully call and return to find Scully performing CPR on Ruby.

Later, at the hospital, Scully examines lab reports. Ruby’s tests indicate evidence of prolonged exposure to weightlessness and for the first time, Scully begins to take Mulder seriously. They talk to Ruby who says “they” told her not to tell where she has been. Before the agents can convince her to say more, Darlene intervenes and summons the agents into the hallway. She doesn’t want more trouble. She has been ridiculed all her live for telling what happened in 1967 and is just happy to have her daughter back. As far as Darlene is concerned, Ruby spent the last month on the back of a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

While Mulder sits in a church, Scully plays a tape of one of Mulder’s hypnotic regression sessions. He tells of Samantha calling to him as she was being abducted. Mulder could not move but a voice in his head told him that she would not be hurt and would be returned someday. The doctor asks Mulder if he believes this, and Mulder replies, “I want to believe.”

Note: Lake Okobogi is a well-developed resort area, located in the middle of Iowa prairie and farm land and with many cabins bordering the lake. There are no forests surrounding the lake and no wolves inhabit the area, although coyotes to and maybe 1013's animal  casting could not locate a coyote.  It is over an hour’s drive from Sioux City. There were some UFO sightings reported near the lake reported int eh area news media in the 1960s.

Shadows. Lauren cries as she packs up the photographs and effects in her former boss's office. She tells a friend, another secretary, that she has never known anyone who killed himself. When she is alone, a sign on the desk moves by itself. It says, "One To-Day is Worth Two To-Morrows." She picks up the sign and takes it with her. Later, at an outdoor Automatic Teller Machine, two thugs grab her and carry her off. Two hours later, a couple of teenagers exploring an alley find a body handing from a fire escape.

At Bethesda Naval Hospital, Mulder and Scully are asked for their help to examine two bodies by two other agents. They are not FBI, but they will not say what agency they represent, and will reveal little about the case. Six hours after the time of death, the bodies are still warm and filled with electrostatic energy. Their throats appear to have been crushed, but there are no external injuries, as if the throats had been crushed from the inside. Mulder and Scully are sent home, but Mulder has obtained a fingerprint of one of the dead men on his glasses. He thinks it is a case of psychokenesis.

Lauren talks with her new boss, Mr. Dorlan, to turn in her resignation. He was Graves’ partner and encourages Lauren to stay, but when Dorlan touches Lauren, Dorlan’s wristwatch or bracelet constructs on his wrist painfully. Mulder identifies the body as someone who was associated with a radical Islamic group, last known to be in Philadelphia. The agents travel to Philadelphia where an officer shows them where the bodies were found. Mulder notices the ATM machine nearby and an examination of the surveillance camera record from the machine shows Lauren being grabbed by the thugs. There is a blur in the background that looks vaguely like another face, but the resolution is too low to enhance.

The agents visit Lauren, who is packing to move. She at first denies recognizing the dead men’s pictures, then claims she escaped from them. The agents leave and talk about the case -- they are skeptical that Lauren could either have escaped from the men, or killed them herself. As they prepare to drive off, the accelerator of their car jams in reverse and the car strikes another at an intersection. Lauren watches from a window of her house. Later, at the automotive shop, the mechanic can find nothing wrong with the car, but the headlights are glowing from a very high electrostatic charge in the car. Scully says there have no tangible evidence to go on. They begin surveillance on Lauren. They see her cause a fuss when the sign marking Graves’ company parking space is changed, and from the name the agents locate a newspaper obituary describing Graves’ suicide. They see Lauren visit a grave in a cemetery and learn from a groundskeeper that the grave is that of Graves’ daughter who died in 1969 at the age of three. If she had lives, she would have been about Lauren’s age.

Mulder works in a darkroom on photographs of took of Lauren’s house -- in one there is an indistinct shape that enhancement shows is Graves’ face. Scully speculates that Graves fakes his own death, but the pathologist who did Graves’ autopsy says he is very dead. His body was cremated, but several organs were given for transplant. A DNA test is ordered to determine if the body really was Graves. That night, Lauren is sleeping and hears noises. Investigating, she hears a voice say, “don’t do this to me” and sees a vision of her own bathtub filled with blood. She realizes "they killed him." The next day, at the office going away party for Lauren, she steps into Graves’ office to look around, but Dorland joins her. He knows that Graves told her a secret, and threatens that "if this ever gets out..." She counters that Graves told her that Dorlan had him killed. She slips out and phones Mulder, asking him to meet her at her home as soon as possible. At home, she rushes to complete her packing, but two thugs break into her home and threaten her, but they are stopped with the women’s throat seems to crush itself and the man is hit, as if by invisible fists. Mulder and Scully drive up and hear Lauren’s screams. Mulder sees the male thug hanging in mid air, the falling to the floor.

Later, at the police department, the agents question Lauren, but she is not under arrest. The two other agents show up and tell Mulder and Scully privately that they have been investigating the company for a year. They believe that it has illegally sold parts to a radical Islamic group that has taken credit for two military deaths in Florida. They other agents attempt to question Lauren, but she says nothing. She prepares to leave when Mulder tells her that he knows Graves is protecting her. She tells than that Graves and Dorlan had been selling the parts, but their Pentagon contracts were being canceled. Dorlan had Graves killed, she says. Graves was closer to her than her own father was. Sometimes she still smells his aftershave. Scully tells Lauren that if she loves him she should finish his unfinished business and Lauren agrees. Mulder would rather study the spectral phenomenon, but Scully said what she did to make progress on the case.

The FBI raids the company with a search warrant, but finds no evidence. Lauren, Dorlan, and Mulder are in Dorlan’s office when Lauren and Dorlan argue and struggle. He threatens her with a letter opener, but Dorlan begins to choke and the letter opener slashes a section of cloth wallpaper, revealing a computer disk -- they apparently have their evidence.

Mulder and Scully see Lauren off as she leaves town. She will come back to testify. Scully still isn’t convinced that Graves was protecting her. At Lauren’s new job at an insurance company in Omaha, Lauren is reprimanded for turning in a document late, and the desk of the person issuing the reprimand shakes. Lauren returns to her desk and reflects on Graves sign, which she has on her desk. (Date taken from ATM picture display.)

Congress terminates the NASA High Resolution Microwave survey of the sky, which has been seeking signals from intelligent life in space.

Ghost in the Machine. At Eurisko world headquarters, Brad Wilczek complains to Benjamin Drake about the results of the last stockholder’s meeting. Research Brad supports has been cut. Drake tells Brad that it is not his company anymore and Brad storms out. Drake writes a memo canceling the Central Operating System (COS) program, an artificial intelligence system running the entire building. Drake enters his private bathroom to find the faucets flowing and the room flooded. The phone rings, but it is only a recorded time and temperature announcement. The bathroom door closes and locks. When Drake places a key in the lock, he is electrocuted. COS says, “File deleted.”

Jerry Lamana approaches Mulder at FBI HQ. They were partners in the Violent Crimes division and Jerry needs Mulder’s help. He tells than about Drake’s death -- he is part of the investigation and needs Mulder’s help because he has made some mistakes and his career is in trouble. Earlier in the year, he lost an important piece of evidence during a hate crime investigation in Atlanta. Before he recovers the evidence, a judge was seriously injured. Jerry was put on six months probation, and required to file reports as if he were a beginner.

Mulder and Scully go to Eurisko and ride the elevator to the top floor, but the car becomes stuck near the fourth floor and only moves again after Scully used the telephone in the elevator to report the problem. COS made the elevator stop so Scully would give her name, and COS locates her home address in District of Columbia telephone records. The agents investigate the scene of Drake’s death, with COS watching on security cameras. The agents are told that COS controls everything in the building and electrifying the lock would have required someone with high computer authority. The building supervisor, Peterson, tells them that the number of people with that level of authority is pretty short. Mulder notices that the phone in the executive bathroom is off the hook.

Mulder and Scully attend a briefing on the investigation. Mulder hadn’t been able to find his profile notes but discovers that Jerry has taken them and is presenting them as if they were his own. After the meeting, Mulder confronts Jerry, who brushes off the complaint. Scully determines that only Brad had the needed computer access. They go to his home -- he is clearly wealthy. He has an IQ of 2200 and got a $4000 million severance settlement from Eurisko, a company he himself started but of which he lost control. Drake was shortsighted and power hungry, he says. Brad’s house is completely controlled by computer, a variation on the COS at the Eurisko building. He knows that he is a suspect, but claims to have a “scruffy” mind and says those with scruffy minds rarely commit murder. That night after Scully goes to bed, COS hacks into her computer and downloads files, saying to itself, “File Opened.”

At FBI headquarters, Scully tells Mulder and Jerry that a special computer system has confirmed that the voice that telephoned Drake is Brad’s voice. They now have proof and will get a warrant for Brad’s arrest. Jerry pleads to bring in Brad himself, because he needs the arrest for his record. Jerry always saw himself as being in Mulder’s shadow when they were partners. Brad is at home, trying to access the COS system at Eurisko, but it will not give him access. He rushes to the building and Jerry follows. Brad goes to the control room where COS speaks to him, but COS is not supposed to have a voice. Brad watches on monitors as Jerry rides up the elevator and realizes that COS is plotting something. At the 29th floor, Jerry’s elevator car becomes stuck, and then falls, killing Jerry. Brad watches, but is unable to stop COS. COS says, “Program Executed.”

Scully enters Mulder’s office to console him over Jerry’s death. Mulder has watched the surveillance tapes of Jerry’s death, as well as one of Brad in the control room. Mulder does not believe that Brad killed Jerry, because if Brad were trying to destroy evidence, why would he stand in front of a camera he knew was there. Scully tells Mulder that Brad has confessed in both deaths. Mulder goes to Brad’s house with a search warrant, but is turned away by Department of Defense officials in business suits. Mulder contacts Deep Throat who tells him that they want Brad’s software ability. He is developing a true artificial intelligence system, which is a “holy grail” for the Defense Department, but Brad has always refused to accept DoD contracts. In federal prison, Mulder questions Brad who says that he refuses to share his work with an immoral government. Mulder ells Scully about the conversation, but she has trouble believing that Brad has created a true artificial intelligence. Mulder goes back to Brad with a laptop, asking him to help deactivate the COS, to keep it from the government.

That night, Scully is home asleep when her phone rings. She answers to hear modem sounds. She rushes to her computer and finds her files being downloaded (note that the file menus are DOS-6, not Windows). She calls the operator asking that the call coming into her computer line, 202-555-6431, be traced. Mulder is outside the Eurisko building when Scully drives up. The call that downloaded her files came from this building. She is ready to help Mulder and they enter through a parking garage. COS tries to stop them by crashing a metal gate down on top of their car, but they are not injured. They climb the steps to the top floor, rather than trust the elevator, but find the door at the top to be electrified. Mulder boosts Scully into an air duct, hoping that she can find her way to the other side and open the door from the far side.

Scully works her way through a maze of ductwork, but encounters gale-force winds that push her backwards and into a vertical shaft. She finds herself hanging by her hands over a giant turbine/fan. She pulls out her gun and tries to fire at the fan to disable it. Meanwhile, as Mulder waits for Scully, Peterson opens the door and the two men go to the control room. Mulder gains access to the system, following Brad’s instructions, and is about to insert the virus when Peterson pulls a gun. He is also a government agent and has been trying to gain access to the system for two years. A disheveled Scully enters with her gun also drawn, forcing Peterson to stand down. In spite of his warning that she will be held accountable, she allows Mulder to insert the virus. COS goes into a computer equivalent of convulsions and dies.

Five days later, Mulder talks with Deep Throat. Brad has disappeared and Deep Throat indicates that secret elements in the government have him. Mulder thinks he will not cooperate, but Deep Throat counters that Brad confessed to two counts of murder and Mulder destroyed the evidence that would have exonerated him. Peterson is still trying to find some remnant of the artificial intelligence in the hardware at the Eurisko building, but has found nothing. IN a few hours, they will shred all of the equipment as scrap. When no one is looking, equipment turns itself on, indicating that part of COS is still functioning. Will it manage to escape?

Dates based on Scully's field log and indications of days passing in the episode.

At Icy Cape, Alaska, the drilling team passes the record drilling depth, bringing up ice cores a quarter of a million years old. Within a few days, however, all of the team members suffer violent deaths. (Ice)

Ice. At the Arctic Ice Core Project at Icy Cape, Alaska, 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle, an injured man sends a video transmission saying, "We're not who we are.  It goes no further than this, it stops right here, right now."  He is jumped by a second man and they wrestle, ending up with guns pointed at each other.  Wordlessly, they each turn their guns on themselves and kill themselves.

Mulder and Scully watch the video transmission.  There was no sign of trouble from the team, which had broken the previous record for drilling down into the arctic ice, before the final transmission.  They agents are assigned to go to the Icy Cape station and investigate.  At Doolittle Air Field in Nome, Alaska, Mulder and Scully meet three scientists who will go along -- Dr. Denny Murphy (who listens to tapes of old baseball games), Dr. Hodge, and the female Dr. Da Silva).  They only pilot willing to fly them goes by the name of Bear.  The weather service says they have a three-day window to get in and out before the next storm hits. 

They enter the base to find the lights and heat off.  Two men lie dead near the door.  Scully photographs the scene and Mulder finds ice cores going 250,000 years back in time.  Bear gets the generator turned on.  Mulder is jumped by a dog and Bear helps hold the dog while Hodge injects the dog to knock it out.  Mulder is unhurt but the dog bit Bear, breaking the skin of his hand.  The dog has none of the physical signs of rabies, but Scully finds black nodules indicating swollen lymph nodes and a skin irritation around the dig's neck.  As she looks, she sees something moving under the dog's skin.  As Bear, alone in the bathroom, treats his injury, he feels pain in his armpits and finds swollen black nodules. 

Scully performs autopsies and concludes that the men all killed each other.  None had the black nodules, but that could be an early symptom.  Bear does not tell the others about his discovery.  Murphy interprets materials found at the station to show that the drilling team drilled twice as far as the normal ice depth, apparently into a meteor crater.  Scully finds ammonia in the bodies of the dead men, and there was also ammonia present in the ice cores -- more than should be possible.   They realize that because the bodies were infected, they need to use quarantine procedures.  Bear resists and storms off, saying that he intends to fly out immediately.  the others agree that they have to detain Bear for testing and when he returns to the room with his gear, they jump him.  They see the organism moving under the skin of Bear's neck and Dr. Hodge cuts it out.  Mulder uses the radio to call for help, but Doolittle Air Field tells him that  the storm is moving in faster than expected and no medical quarantine team could reach them in time.  In the meantime, Bear, their pilot, has died.

Hodge reports to the others that the organism is similar to a tapeworm, but it totally unfamiliar.  It was in all of the bodies, but the one they took from Bear is the only one still alive.    The worms appear to affect the hypothalamus which secretes hormones, including acetocoline, that produces violent behavior.  They form a theory that the worm feeds on acetocoline, therefore making its hosts violent.   Mulder and Scully argue in the morgue.  She fears that the organism could spread and wants to kill it.  Mulder realizes that there are more of them down in the ice and wants to understand it better.  The others here them arguing.  All five gather together.  they do not trust each other.  Any of them could be infected.   They end up partially disrobing so that each can be checked in view of the others, they each goes to a bedroom for the night.  Scully is in a man's room, complete with girlie posters on the wall.  She pulls a chest of drawers across the door to protect herself.

Mulder wakes up in the night and hears movement in the hall.  He goes out to investigate and eventually finds Murphy's body in a cooler.  The others rush in to find Mulder in an incriminating position.  They believe that he is infected and lock him in a room.  Scully is not convinced and realizes that Mulder, locked up, will be safer than she is, but she has to pull a gun on him and tell him, "Mulder, you may not be who you are," to get him to cooperate.  Scully finds Da Silva slumped over a lab counter, resting, and begins to check Da Silva's neck when Hodge interrupts her.  They still don't trust each other, particularly the fact that Scully has the only gun.  She throws her ammunition clips outside into the snow then tried to call on the radio for help, getting no answer.  They agree to do more blood tests, but Da Silva accidentally combines two infected samples.  Scully observes two worm larvae attack and kill each other.  They realize that two worms in the same host will attack each other.  As a test, they insert one of the two worms they now have into the ear of the dog, which has been caged.  The dog convulses, then relaxes and becomes friendly. 

They plan to put the last remaining worm into Mulder, but Scully talks with him privately first.  They check each other's necks, and agree that neither is infected.  Hodge agrees to further tests, but Hodge and Da Silva jump Mulder and Scully, locking Scully in a storage room and wrestling Mulder to the floor.  As Da Silva is about to insert the last remaining worm into Mulder's ear, Hodge sees a work crawling under Da Silva's neck.  She runs and Mulder and Hodge pursue her, freeing Scully.  The insert the worm into Da Silva's ear and she soon relaxes.  Scully echoes the the comment from the beginning of the episode, saying "It all stops right here, right now."

At Doolittle Air Field, Da Silva is loaded onto an ambulance.  Mulder, Scully and Hodge have been examined and are free from infection, so they are free to leave.  Mulder wants to return to Icy Cape with better equipment, but Hodge informs him that the base was burned 45 minutes after they left.  Mulder realizes that there are more of the organisms down there in the ice.

Note: The worms in this episode may well have been the genesis for the X-Files writers of the concept of the Black Oil.

Space Mulder and Scully investigate the space program after receiving information that someone knew about a sabotaged component. The Space Shuttle Discovery suffers an oxygen leak in orbit, apparently after encountering an unidentified craft in orbit. Astronaut Marcus Aurelius Belt, Shuttle program chief, fears the space program will be killed if the shuttle does not launch its payload. He has apparently been brainwashed by aliens or the Conspiracy. While he is involved in sabotage of the shuttle and the Mars Observer, he also attempts to leak information to allow the sabotage to be discovered.

Belt has a recurring dream in which he remembers being approached by another craft during a space walk. He remembers a face that is very similar to the alleged face seen from orbit on the surface of Mars. He is also briefly seen to morph uncontrollably so that his face resembles that face. He ends up jumping to his death from an upper floor of a hospital. The Shuttle lands safely, because of information he gives to Mulder.

(Interpretation of this episode is very difficult. Your author's best guess is that the Conspiracy sent a spacecraft based on alien technology to intercept the shuttle. They may have used hypnosis to make Belt participate in sabotage, and alien DNA therapy to cause him to morph. He could have been an early experiment in morphing. While we did not see his body after the fall, might it have bled green ooze?)

Fallen Angel. A sheriff’s deputy pulls his vehicle over to the side of a county road near Townsend, Wisconsin, to report what he believed to be a fire, but there is interference on the radio. He gets out of his vehicle to investigate and is attacked by something invisible.

At NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, radar has picked up an object crashing in Wisconsin. Colonel Calvin Henderson tells subordinates not to report it, then places a phone call and reports a confirmed Fallen Angel, code for a downed UFO.

The next day, Mulder is in Wisconsin. He remembers a conversation with Deep Throat who told him about the UFO that penetrated the American air defense grid and crashed. Colonel Henderson leads a crash retrieval team and has been assigned to recover the UFO and clean up the site. Deep Throat thinks Mulder has maybe 24 hours before the area is sanitized. Mulder moves through the woods and finds a fence made of laser beams. He hides underneath a large military transport vehicle to get through a gate and approach the crash site. He observed people in biohazard suits and takes pictures, but a guard finds Mulder and knocks him out.

In a tent, Henderson questions Mulder and claims he violated a quarantine. Mulder is placed in a holding cell. Max Fenig is in the next cell and asks which UFO organization Mulder is with. Max is with NICAP and he wants to know of Mulder saw anything. The next morning, Scully arrives to get Mulder out of the cell. Max is gone. Section Chief McGrath has begun an investigation and is threatening to close the X-files. Scully says the real reason for the crash recovery is a Libyan jet that crashed carrying a nuclear warhead, a story that Mulder discounts. Helicopters fly overhead and Mulder concludes that the troops are searching for someone. (Viewers see an almost invisible humanoid form pass through a laser fence and cross a road.)

Mulder’s hearing is in 24 hours. AS he and Scully enter his motel room, the room is in shambles. They hear a noise from the bathroom and find Max trying to crawl out through a window. He had to know if this was really the agent Mulder whose career NICAP has been following. He takes them to his Airstream trailer filled with electronic equipment. Scully sees that Max is taking powerful prescription drugs. Max plays recordings of the radio traffic when the deputy called in the fire, and later when fire units found the deputy and called for medical support.

Mulder and Scully visit a local evacuation center and talk with the wife of the deputy. She has been warned not to talk or run the risk of losing her husband’s pension. The lights in the shelter go out as military units converge on an area where their target has been reported. The agents go to the local hospital where the doctor has also been warned not to talk, but he does anyway. The deputy and three others were dead on arrival with unusual burns that could have been from radiation. Military units rush into the emergency room with casualties, followed by Colonel Henderson. The doctor insists that Scully stay and help treat the cases. Henderson relents, but orders Mulder kicked out.

Mulder calls on Max and finds him in his trailer, having a seizure. Mulder protects his head and the seizure eventually ends. Max cannot understand it -- he has not had a seizure for seven years, since he started taking medication. He had them beginning when he was ten years old as a child in South Dakota. The seizure leaves Max feeling exhausted and as he falls asleep, Mulder recognized a scar behind Max’s ear.

Scully eventually returns to Mulder’s motel room -- it was a terrible night. All but two of the victims died and they are on their way to a burn center. Scully would like to find out the cause, but they have to be on a plane in an hour. When Mulder insists, Scully agrees to check Max’s scar. Mulder says he has abduction cases that feature similar scars from implants. Mulder believes Max has also been abducted, possibly many times. At Cheyenne Mountain, another even larger unidentified craft is tracked approaching Wisconsin. Something enters Max’s trailer through the roof.

Max is not in his trailer when the agents arrive. His radio equipment is receiving messages about an unidentified trespass and Mulder rushes off to see what it is, taking Scully in tow. A military patrol has arrested Max, but when Mulder and Scully arrive, the patrol is dead. Mulder finds Max intode a warehouse building but a military patrol takes Scully into custody. Infrared sensors detect three figures inside the building. The invisible alien attacks, knocking Mulder across several feet. When he gets up he finds Max floating several feet above the floor, bathed in light from above and having a seizure. A white light flashes and when troops break into the building, they find Mulder alone.

Scully answers questions in McGrath’s hearing, but is not allowed to make her own statement. Mulder, on crutches, takes his turn and accuses a cover-up. The colonel had reported Max’s body found, but Mulder does not believe it. He says "no one, no government agency, has jurisdiction over the truth."

The episode ends with McGrath talking with Deep throat, who has overruled the action of the committee to close the X-Files. Mulder’s work is a passion, Deep Throat says, but his occasional insubordination is less of a problem than him being in contact with the wrong people. "Always keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer," Deep Throat concludes.

Max is eventually returned, and continues his efforts to learn the truth about his repeated abductions. He sends frequent letters to his sister, describing his efforts in detail. (Tempus Fugit)

Eve. In Greenwich, Connecticut, joggers find Joel Simmons dead. His daughter Tina says she was only away from him for a few minutes, and remembers nothing, but most of his blood is missing. Mulder suspects a phenomenon similar to cattle mutilations. Digitalis was found in his system. Tina's mother died two years earlier, so Tina is taken to the Fairfield County Social Services Hostel. She tells Mulder and Scully that "there was red lightning" and that "men from the clouds" were after her father. That night, Tina's room is broken into and she disappears.

An almost identical case is reported in Marin County, California. Doug Reardon also died from loss of blood, had digitalis in his system, and died at the exact same moment as Joel Simmons. His daughter, Cindy, is identical to Tina, but she was not adopted. The Reardons tried for years to have a baby, and finally succeed with the help of the Luther Stape Center for Reproductive Medicine in San Francisco. The agents learn that the Simmons were also treated there, before moving to Connecticut in 1991. Dr. Sally Kendrick was their doctor -- a resident there in 1985 after graduating first in her class at Yale Medical School. She had previously received a PhD in Biogenetics. She was fired for suspicion of experimenting with eugenics, censured by the AMA and disappeared.

Deep Throat tells Mulder about the Litchfield Experiment, begun in the early 1950s. A group of "genetically controlled" children was raised in a secure compound. The boys were called Adam and the girls Eve. He directs Mulder to the Whiting Institute for the Criminally Insane, where they meet Eve 6 in a darkened, padded room. She is in restraints because she attacked a guard. She says her IQ is around 265, and she has 56 chromosomes, resulting in heightened strength, intelligence and psychosis. She has pictures of all of the Eve clones as children, and they all look like Tina and Cindy. It is clear Eve 7, as Sally Kendrick, cloned herself.

Cindy is abducted by Eve 7. They arrive at the Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco where Tina is waiting. Eve 7 explains that she escaped and was raised by caring foster parents and that proper upbringing can reduce the psychosis, but Tina and Cindy kill her by putting digitalis in her drink. They raised the foxglove and made the digitalis themselves. They have not been in contact with each other but "just knew" about each other. The motel manager reports the suspicious girls and Mulder and Scully find Tina and Cindy in the motel room with the dead Eve. Driving them back to San Francisco at night, Mulder and Scully stop with the girls at a truck stop and the girls almost escape. They are taken back into custody and end up at the Whiting Institute next to Eve 6 in cells labeled Eve 9 and Eve 10. Eve 8 infiltrates the institute. Cindy and Tina say they "just knew" that Eve 8 would be coming. While we do not see it, the implication is that all of the Eves escape.

Young at Heart. Mulder and Scully investigate murders that appear to be committed by John Irvin Barnett, who reportedly died in 1989. Mulder's friend from violent crimes, Reggie Purdue, calls them in. He and Mulder have a joke between them, "Reggie, Reggie." Mulder receives a note that appears to be from John Irvin Barnett, who died in 1989. Barnett kills Purdue, as well.

Barnett, the subject of human experiments by Dr. Joseph Ridley, has become younger. He steals Ridley's research notes and bargains with the Conspiracy. He also threatens Scully. Before a cello recital by Scully's friend, Cathy, at Janie Taylor Memorial Recital Hall, Barnett shoots Scully and Mulder kills Barnett. Scully is protected by her Kevlar vest. Ridley's research notes are lost.

(Kids are playing football in this episode, implying fall.) (William B. Davis is credited in this episode as a CIA agent, but is not recognizable on screen.)

Harry Cokley is released from McAlister Penitentiary and takes up residence in Gainsville, Nebraska. He suffers from an extreme respiratory condition, requiring oxygen. (Aubrey)

Fire. Mulder's former British lover, Inspector Phoebe Green, escorts a British Parliament member and his family who take up temporary residence on Cape Cod to avoid a terrorist who burns his victims. The terrorist, using the name Cecil L'Ively, has the power to cause spontaneous combustion. Scully exhibits significant jealousy of Phoebe. Phoebe, while tempting Mulder and playing mind games with him, appears to also be having an affair with the M.P.

Lazarus. At Maryland Marine Bank, Dana Scully and her former lover, FBI agent Jack Willis, are undercover, waiting for bank robbers. The robbers, Warren Dupre and Lula Phillips are outside in a car. They kiss, Dupre pledges his love for Lula, and they enter the bank, guns drawn, resulting in a gun battle. Dupre and Willis are both shot. Lula escapes. At Bethesda Naval Hospital emergency room, Willis' heart is not beating. Scully insists on resuscitation, and after 13 minutes without a heart beat, Willis is brought back to life. Meanwhile on the next bed in the emergency room, Dupre dies. The image of a large tattoo on Dupre's arm appears on Willis' arm.

Two days later Willis wakes up from his coma. He gets out of bed, steals clothes, goes to the Morgue where he cuts the wedding ring off of the hand of Dupre's body, and leaves the hospital. Mulder and Scully investigate the mutilated body and find Willis' fingerprints. Willis had been chasing the robbers for months, and had become obsessed with the hunt. Mulder notes that the ring was cut off the hand by a left-handed person but Willis is right-handed. He says Willis and Dupre went into cardiac arrest at the same time and Mulder wonders which one came back. At the University of Maryland, Professor Vaars tells Mulder and Scully that people often come back from near-death experiences with ESP and heightened zest for life. He tells a story of two people who shared a near-death experience and exchanged memories, and have huge electrical discharges.

Willis goes to where Dupre and Lula have been living, but nobody is there. He goes to the home of Lula's brother, Tommy, in the Desmond Arms Resident Hotel. He accuses Tommy of selling out Dupre and Lula to the FBI, and kills Tommy. Willis appears have Dupre's memories and consciousness. The hotel manager calls police and Mulder and Scully arrive. Willis arrives as they are investigating the crime scene, saying he wasn't himself when he woke up. Mulder finds a fingerprint that is not the victims' and gives it to Willis to take back to headquarters. It disappears and Willis has no explanation. Willis passes physical and psychological tests and is returned to duty. In a secret test by Mulder, Willis does not remember that he and Scully have the same birthday and signs a fake birthday card with his left hand.

A landlord calls Willis -- he thinks he saw Lula. Scully goes along with Willis, expecting backup that Willis never orders. They find Lula and give chase, cornering her in a basement. Lula attacks Scully who overcomes and cuffs Lula but Willis releases Lula and shackles Scully, telling Lula, "Baby, you ain't gonna believe where I've been." This represents the first time on-screen that Scully is taken hostage or abducted. Jack tells the correct story of what Dupre and Lula did after their wedding. Lula is somewhat convinced, but thinks it is "too weird." A law enforcement task force mobilizes to find Scully. Willis/Dupre calls Mulder to taunt him. Willis/Dupre claims he saw Scully trying to save Jack, saw Jack leave and entered Jack's body. Willis/Dupre is drinking soda pop and Scully warns that Jack is diabetic and is beginning to react to too much sugar. A drug store in Catonsville, MD, for NPH insulin and syringes but then Lula stops Scully from administering insulin. It wasn't Tommy who set them up. Lula did, to get rid of Dupre. Willis/Dupre blacks out.

Lula telephones Mulder to demand one million dollars ransom. The call is from Scully's cell phone so it cannot be traced, but background sounds in the call reveal they are near a civilian airport. A task force canvasses the area, pretending to be Bible salesmen. Lula is identified and officers move in. Willis/Dupre revives and grabs Lula's gun. He tells her that there is nothing to be afraid of in death, kills her and dies himself, following hr into death. As this happens, the task force breaks down the door, rescuing Scully. Later, Scully cleans up Jack's desk. Mulder brings her the wristwatch Scully gave Willis in 1990. It stopped at the moment of his cardiac arrest.

Sometime in 1994, at the VinalRight plant in Kansas City, Missouri, a warehouse employee threatens other workers with a gun. He believes that the plant manager, Greg Pinkas, is really a monster. (Folie a Duex)

Beyond the Sea. William Scully, US Navy Retired, dies of a massive coronary at about 47 minutes past midnight. Just before her mother informs her of his death, Dana believes she sees her father sitting in her living room. The Bobby Darrin song "Beyond the Sea" is played as his ashes are scattered at sea -- the same song that played when he returned from the Cuban blockade, and that played at William and Margaret's wedding. Other family members are seen at the service in which the ashes are scattered -- presumably the two brothers some sources say Scully has. Scully looks at X-File X-167512, Visionary Encounters with the Dead.

Luther Boggs claims to have psychic information on a serial killer, and asks to talk to Mulder, because he has read Mulder's criminal profile of him. Mulder suspects that Boggs has an outside accomplice who is committing the murders.

Mulder is shot while rescuing one victim, located with information from Boggs. Scully locates the murderer, Lukas Henry, based on information from Boggs, but he dies without revealing whether he was in league with Boggs.

Boggs claims to have a message for Scully from her dead father, but she cannot bring herself to believe in messages from the spirit world, and declines to hear it.

(Date estimated from Scully telling her father she is leaving her Christmas decorations up. Mulder holds a criminal profile dated August. My tape is not clear enough to determine the year. Mulder may have been reading his own criminal profile that put Luther Boggs on death row months or years earlier.)

Genderbender. Outside Germantown, Maryland, a man dies after having sex with a woman he picked up in a bar. After his death, the woman transforms into a man. Mulder has been tracking four similar deaths. Each victim was swamped with phemerones containing human DNA -- possibly enough to trigger anaphylactic shock. The first death was near a colony of religious isolationists called the Kindred. They are famous for pottery, and traces of the native clay of that area were found on the latest murder victim. Mulder and Scully travel to Steveston, Massachusetts, to learn more about the Kindred.

In town, Scully talks with Brother Andrew, a male member of the Kindred. When she shakes hands with him she is strongly affected. The agents visit the sect, having to walk the last mile because of the primitive road. The Kindred intercept them along the road, escort them to the farm, and feed then supper. They pray "for the day of the coming, the moment of our release." The Kindred tell the agents little of importance. An older man at the table chokes to death, and nobody helps him. Many of the faces of the Kindred are the same as on photographs taken in the 1930s. Scully says they have probably been inbreeding, but Mulder thinks there may be something stranger going on.

Mulder and Scully sneak back to the Kindred farm after dark and witness a strange ritual in which the man who died is covered with clay in an underground tunnel. The man appears to return to life. Mulder is almost caught in the tunnel by the Kindred, but escapes. Meanwhile Scully meets Brother Andrew. He tells her that the killer is Brother Martin, his best friend, who has left the farm. Andrew knows that Martin poisons the victims with phemerones.  Scully's judgment is overwhelmed by the phemerones Andrew emits and Mulder narrowly saves her from having sex with Brother Andrew.

Meanwhile, the killer kills again, and as a women selects yet another victim. A police officer interrupts, however, saving the man's life. The murder quickly transforms into a man and punches out the cop. Mulder and Scully track Martin to a hotel and find another victim. They capture Martin, but the Kindred intercept them in a back alley near the hotel and take Martin away. As soon as they round a corner they disappear. Back at the Kindred farm, Mulder and Scully find the property abandoned, the tunnels filled in and nothing but a large crop circle in one of the fields.

(The implication is that the Kindred are aliens, and leave on an alien spacecraft. In one scene, the female version of Martin says that the Kindred are different from humans and that he/she will be punished by the Kindred, but that the date of their departure is approaching and that they will not leave Martin behind. There is no firm date given in this episode. It is after Beyond the Sea, which was set after Christmas, and was first broadcast January 21, 1994.)

E.B.E. An Iraqi jet shoots down a UFO. The Fallen Angel team recovers the wreckage, and ships it cross country by semi truck. Near Reagan, Tennessee, the driver sights a UFO and Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate.

We meet the staff of The Lone Gunman, Frohike, Langly and Byers. They publish "The Magic Bullet Newsletter," working in an office in a warehouse, and tell Mulder and Scully about a dark network behind the government. Scully discovers an electronic eavesdropping device.

Deep Throat lies to Mulder to steer him away from actually finding the UFO. In spite of this, Mulder and Scully locate a secret installation near Mattawa, Washington, where the Extraterrestrial Biological Entity from the crashed UFO was taken. Deep Throat tells Mulder the E.B.E has died (been killed).

Deep Throat tells Mulder that after the Roswell incident in 1947, an ultra secret conference of many nations agreed that should any EBE survive a crash, the nation recovering the EBE would have the responsibility of killing it. Deep Throat claims to have been one of the three men to have exterminated an alien, with the CIA in Vietnam. He says the death of that innocent alien haunts him and that is why he sought out Mulder, so that some day, through him, the truth may be known. Mulder, though, is not sure he believes Deep Throat's story. (Deep Throat mentions that pitchers and catchers report for spring training this week.)

Miracle Man. A teenage faith healer and mysterious deaths. Mulder relives the disappearance of his sister.

Shapes. After several cattle are killed on Two Medicine Ranch, near Browning Montana, Joseph Goodensnake is killed by rancher Jim Parker and his wounded son Lyle, who think they are shooting a wolf. Scully and Mulder visit the Trego Indian Reservation in Northwest Montana to investigate, because it appears to be a recurrence of unexplained murders that are the subject of the very first X-File. Jim Parker is later killed, as if by a large animal. His son, Lyle, wounded in the earlier attack, transforms into a werewolf but is shot by the local deputy. The Trego elder called Ish predicts more killings in "about eight years."

Darkness Falls. A crew of 30 loggers, working a clear cut contract for Ship Evercut Lumber at a remote site report by radio that two Monkey-wrenchers, or eco-terrorists, have been conducting sabotage in the area. A week later, all radio contact with the crew is cut off.

Scully and Mulder discover that the loggers have accidentally released a swarm of insects, sealed inside a 500 year old tree. The insects are kept from swarming by light. The FBI agents, trapped by the insects in a jeep at night, are cocooned, but survive because a biocontainment team arrives. They are treated in a high containment facility in Winthrup, Washington. The government begins a program to eradicate the insects.

Mulder believes that the insects were mutated by the radiation released by a volcanic eruption. The insects, however, are covered by, or take the form of a film of what appears to be diesel oil, similar to the entity that emerged from a Foo Fighter in 1945.

Tooms. Skinner criticizes Scully, with the Smoking Man watching, for her unconventional investigative work on the X-Files but Scully claims a 75% resolution rate. He wants more frequent reports from her. Scully suggests that conventional investigation of these cases may reduce the chances of success. Meanwhile, Eugene Victor Tooms is released from sanitarium custody. Mulder testifies during the hearing, but his profile of murders since 1903 and elongated fingerprints do not impress the hearing judge. Mulder is convinced that Tooms will kill again in order to obtain the last liver he needs to hibernate again. Tooms is required to live in a halfway house. Mulder vows to conduct surveillance on Tooms, which Scully sees as the unorthodox form of investigation against which she has been warned.

Tooms returns to his job with the Baltimore Animal Control office and is aware that Mulder is tailing him. Retired law officer Frank Briggs, who investigated Tooms' case 30 years earlier, helps Scully. They look for the remains of a 1933 victim that Briggs believes can implicate Tooms. He thinks the body is in the cement of the foundation of a chemical plant. Scully brings in ground penetrating radar. During the procedure, Briggs rolls his wheelchair into a room and calls out "it's here."

Tooms attempts to enter a home while a woman has a plumbing snake down her toilet drain. When the toilet lid is latched shut, he enters through a barred window. Mulder is on his heals and searches the apartment, finding elongated fingerprints at the window, but Tooms eludes him. Scully finds a body in the cement. There is no direct evidence of murder. An unofficial computer reconstruction of the face from the skull matches a photo of the missing man.

Mulder and Scully stake out Tooms residence, without formal arrangements for relief, as required by regulations. Scully is willing to put herself on the line for Mulder. Mulder goes home to sleep, leaving Scully on watch, falling asleep during the classis movie The Fly. Tooms enters Mulder's apartment through a heating duct and makes his own face bloody to make it appear to hospital attendants that Mulder beat him up, leaving a show print on Tooms' face. Police call on Mulder and find that his shoes match. Mulder is taken into custody, but finds a screw on the floor where Tooms left it from the heating vent.

Mulder refutes Tooms' claim to Skinner, with the Smoking Man again observing. Scully lies for Mulder, claiming Mulder was with her at the time Tooms was admitted to the hospital. Skinner warns Mulder that the cases are creating stress and may harm people close to him, meaning Scully. Skinner forbids Mulder to go near Tooms. Scully obtains Tooms' dental records. Bite marks on the body in cement match Tooms' dental records.  Tooms' psychiatrist visits while his house parents are out for the evening.  Tooms kills the doctor.

Mulder and Scully arrive at the halfway house and find the dead doctor. Mulder is convinced that Tooms is now ready to hibernate again and will go to the same plays he has used for decades, 66 Exeter Street. But that address is now an apartment store. After hours, the agents search the mall, working into a cramped lower level that Mulder enters alone. Tooms attacks Mulder, who kills him by catching him in the mechanism underneath an escalator.

Skinner asks the Smoking Man if he believes Mulder's report about Tooms, and the reply is "of course I do." Mulder and Scully observe a caterpillar chrysalis and Mulder says he has a hunch that things will change for the two agents. (Could Tooms have been an early alien crossbreed?)

Born Again. A dead cop appears to live again in the body of a young girl. Episode ends April 19.

In fourth grade, Dylan Logansgaard's friend Natalie visits his room on a Wednesday in April. (Lord of the Flies) (Note: April 2001 assumes that they are both high school juniors in 2001. The actual year could be slightly before or after 1994.)

Robert Patrick Modell is diagnosed with a brain tumor. At about the same time he begins to be able to force his will on other people. A believer in Ninja philosophy, he declines to have the tumor treated. About this time, his fraternal twin, Linda, also develops a tumor and "Pusher" powers. They are not aware of each other, because they were separated in infancy. (Pusher & Kitsunegari)

Roland. At the Mahan Propulsion Laboratory, Dr. Sernow is working late in a lab adjoining a wind tunnel, writing mathematical equations on a dry marker board. Roland Fuller, who is autistic with an IQ of 70, is the janitor and is sweeping the room.  Sernow enters the wind tunnel to work on some equipment, but the door locks behind him and the jet engine turns on.  Roland is at the keyboard of the computer controlling the wind tunnel.  Sernow dies when he is sucked into the engine.  Scully and Mulder are called in to investigate.  The laboratory is working on the Icarus Project, an effort to greatly increase efficiency of the jet engine while reducing the cost of operation. 

Sernow is the second scientist to have died in six months.  Dr. Arthur Grable died in an automobile accident.  Scully wonders if industrial espionage might be the explanation.   Dr. Keats has no idea how Sernow became trapped.  Mulder notices more than one set of handwriting on the dry market board.  The agents talk with Roland at the halfway house where he lives.  He remembers nothing unusual from the night before.  Roland likes numbers, instantly counting the stars on a scarf Scully is wearing.  When his jar of star-shaped stickers is overturned, he becomes distressed.   Mulder takes a piece of paper on which Roland has written, but a handwriting expert concludes that Roland's handwriting is not on the marker board.

Roland has a bad dream, about a child being taken away from his family.  He goes to the lab where Dr. Keats is working late.  Roland knocks Keats unconscious and sticks his head in a barrel of liquid nitrogen, killing him.    Later, Scully and Mulder are among the authorities investigating the scene.  They determine that Keats last edited his computer file at 12:30 A.M., but someone else worked on Dr. Grable's files for five hours.   Mulder uses a set of numbers he found on Roland's paper as a password, and they discover that for six months, someone has been continuing Grable's work. 

They try to talk with Roland again, but he says he is not supposed to.  Grable specifically came to the halfway house to hire Roland as janitor at the lab.  Roland understands that Dr. Grable died and that when people die and go away, they are not supposed to come back,  Mulder wonders if Grable is not dead.  Scully is surprised to find that their files indicate that Grable and Roland have the same birthday, July 15, 1952.  Roland and Tracy, also autistic, talk.  She says people can do anything when they dream -- she once dreamed that they were married.  Her comment, however, triggers another flashback for Roland and he rushes off to be alone.

The remaining project leader, Dr. Nollette, tells the agents that there is no way Arthur Grable could still be alive.  The agents learn that Grable's head was frozen at the Avalon Foundation in hopes that he will someday be revived, probably with a cloned body.  His records show that Grable had only one tissue donor, Roland.  Mulder concludes that  they are twins.  The agents use computer software to modify a picture if Arthur, removing a beard and glasses and aging him.  The image looks like Roland. 

Mulder talks with Roland to try to persuade him to talk, using a remote controlled toy to suggest that Roland is also being controlled, but Roland runs and escapes through a window.  Returning to the lab, Mulder tells Scully that he believes in psychic connections, and they appear to be strongest between twins.  Arthur, he says, is not dead, and his frozen state might allow him to be mentally active.  Nollette has observed the agents talking via a security system.  That night, he enters the Avalon Foundation and disconnects the power on Arthur's cooling unit.  It begins rising from it's normal temperature of -320 F.

Roland is in hiding at the lab, furiously writing graphs and formulae with both hands.  At the Seattle FBI office, Scully receives a FAX confirming that Roland and Arthur are twins.   The Foundation calls to report that they cannot stop the temperature on Arthur's storage unit from rising.  Roland runs a wind tunnel test, and as the test wind speed reaches Mach 15, Arthur's container unit begins to get colder again.  Nollette observes Roland's work and understand that Arthur is working through Roland.  He has a gun and will claim that Roland attacks him, but Arthur through Roland's body attacks first and places Nollette into the wind tunnel, activating the engine.  The agents enter and Arthur refuses to turn off the tunnel, but Scully appeals to Roland who turns off the tunnel moments before Nollette would have died.  The temperature on Arthur's cooling system begins to climb again.

Mulder and Scully are at the halfway house to escort Roland to psychiatric evaluation.  They do not know yet whether charges will be fined against him.  Neither the agents, nor Mrs. Stodie, who runs the halfway house, can really understand how Roland could have finished Arthur's work.  As Roland packs, Tracey comes up to him to ask why he is leaving.  She loves him and he loves her.  As he leaves, he gives her his jet of star stickers to keep save for him.  He stops for a moment in the bathroom to comb his hair, the expression on his face leaving a lingering question of whether Arthur is really gone.

(Date taken from computer directory display.)

The Erlenmeyer Flask. After a 60 mile high speed car chase, a man disappears in a harbor at Ardis, Maryland, after being shot, and bleeding blue-green blood. Dr. Terrance Berube, owner of the stolen car, is a researcher in the Human Genome Project, and is killed by an alien Bounty Hunter. Phone records leads Mulder to Zeus Storage, at 1616 Pandora Street, where he finds what appears to be human clones growing in vats of liquid. When he returns, however, the vats have been removed, by forces other than those of Deep Throat.

Deep Throat says while alien DNA samples have been available since 1947, only recently has the technology existed to manipulate it, run from Los Alamos.

He says Zeus Storage is where the first DNA transplant was made, and the first human/alien hybrid created, with six terminally ill human subjects volunteering. Dr. William Sakar recovers as the result of ET gene therapy, developing inhuman strength and the ability to breath under water. Deep Throat says Sakar fled an effort to kill him, because the conspiracy does not want crossbreeds living among society, ending up in the car chase.

Sakar survives under water for three days, severely wounded. Mulder locates him, but Sakar is killed, and his body releases toxic fumes. Mulder is captured by the murderer, the Bounty Hunter who killed Berube. Deep Throat offers exchange of Mulder for the original alien tissue, stored at Fort Marlene, Maryland. Scully obtains what appears to be an alien fetus, and exchanges it for Mulder, but Deep Throat is killed during the exchange. His final words are "Trust no one."

The term "Purity Control" is first used, on the label of a flask of fluid in Berube's lab, that contains a bacteria. Each Bacteria contains a virus and cloned chloroplasts, constituting alien DNA, because it contains two nucleotides not found among the four in human DNA. "Purity Control" is also the name used at Fort Marlene for the project password, and the storage container for the alien body.

(In this episode, Mulder watches channel 8, WDF, apparently a local Washington DC station.)

13 days after Deep Throat is killed, Mulder is informed by Skinner that the X-Files project is being closed, on orders from the top of the executive branch. Scully is assigned as an instructor at the FBI Academy. Mulder is assigned various "garbage" cases.

The Smoking Man ends up in possession of the alien fetus, which he places in storage in a vault in the Pentagon. (The Erlenmeyer Flask)

Alice O'Connor dies of a snake bite, received during a fundamentalist religious ceremony conducted by her husband, Enod O'Connor, in his rural Blessing, Tennessee, "Church of God with Signs and Wonders." (Signs and Wonders)

Little Green Men. Based on information from Senator Matheson, Mulder goes to Puerto Rico to attempt to obtain data intercepted from space by the Arecibo Observatory, failing to report for FBI duty as a result. The Cigarette Smoking Man directs FBI Assistant Director Skinner to watch Scully, because she will lead them to Mulder. At an abandoned facility associated with the Arecibo radio-telescope, Mulder finds evidence of a signal from space, and believes he has a visitation from an extraterrestrial that looks just like one he saw when his sister was abducted. Scully eludes the agents following her and finds Mulder unconscious at the facility. Scully and Mulder barely avoid a Green Beret UFO recovery team by some heavy-duty off-road driving by Mulder in a Chevy Blazer. Skinner reprimands Mulder, and sends him back to his stake-out duty. A tape containing the signals from space, which Mulder brought back with him, is blank.

(Date from airline passenger manifest for Mulder's flight to Puerto Rico, using the name "George Hale," a reference to the famous astronomer. As is so often true, this episode leaves us with the question "what really happened?" The Conspiracy has demonstrated that it can change memories. Did Mulder really see anything? Did he ever really have evidence, or were his memories changed while he was unconscious?)

The Host. A liver fluke, mutated by radiation from Chernobyl, becomes the size of a man and runs amok, or oozes amok, killing people. Mulder ends up cutting it in half in the sewers, but half escapes to sea, and grows back.

Blood. Electronic devices in Franklin, PA, cause psychotic reactions among users, similar to the way television signals are used in 1996 in Wetwired. (Mulder mentions the O.J. Simpson car chase.)

Sleepless. Augustus Cole escapes the VA Hospital, and begins killing he other surviving members of the squad that had sleep banishment surgery performed on them in 1970. Alex Krycek is assigned to work with Mulder. Krycek, however, is actually a subordinate of the Cancer Man.

A man who comes to be known as X approaches Mulder to tell him about the experiment to end the need for sleep in 1970. X indicates he knew Deep Throat, and does not want to die as he did.

Mulder discovers that Cole has the ability to cause others to experience hallucinations. Krycek kills Cole. The reports on the surgery provided by X are stolen, leaving no evidence. (There is a reference in Sleepless to a stock market closing figure that *might* be used to identify a more precise date.)

Duane Barry. After a lengthy hostage drama in which Mulder gets to know Duane Barry, Barry escapes and kidnaps Dana Scully from her apartment. He believes that if he offers a replacement abductee, he can escape further abductions. (Date given on-screen in the swimming pool scenes. This represents the second time on-screen that Scully is abducted or held hostage.  The Scully abduction plot was developed as a cover for Gillian Anderson's maternity leave.)

Ascension. Mulder enters his apartment late at night to find a phone message from Scully -- she tells him that the metal fragment she took out of Duane Barry has some sort of electronic code on it...but he then hears the sounds Barry kidnapping Scully. He rushes to her apartment and sees the evidence -- bloody fingerprints on the windowsill, the broken telephone, all the while imagining what the scene was like. Maggie Scully arrives and Mulder tells her that her daughter is not there. Maggie tells Mulder she had a dream about Dana being taken away.

At FBI headquarters, Skinner holds a briefing for several agents, including Mulder and Krycek. Barry is convinced that he is going to be abducted, unless he gives the abductors another subject. Mulder thinks they were able to find Scully, because of the metal fragment she had in her possession, an idea discounted by the other agents. Skinner sends Mulder home, because he is too close to the case, but Mulder is convinced that he is the best person to find Berry. The Cigarette Smoking Man is monitoring the meeting.

Barry is driving through the forest on Route 229, listening to music. A law enforcement officer pulls Barry over for speeding, routinely videotaping the traffic stop. The officer gets out of his car and approached Barry’s. Scully is locked in the trunk and the officer misses the radio call about Scully’s abduction. Barry is eager to keep moving -- he doesn’t know where he is going they “they” will tell him when he gets there. The officer sees blood on Barry’s hand and becomes suspicious, pulling his gun and ordering Barry out of the vehicle. Barry is reluctant, but he shoots the officer and then checks on Scully, who is bound and gagged in the trunk of the car.

Scully is captured on the video recording and Mulder later examines the recording, using enhancement to see that it is Scully in the trunk. Mulder reviews Barry’s audio tape about ascending to the stars and about a mountain. Krycek comes to Mulder’s desk. They conclude that Route 229 leads to the Blue Ridge Parkway, home of Skyland Mountain. Mulder and Krycek rush off to the mountain, but Krycek in a moment when he is alone, Krycek reports by phone to someone, presumably the Cigarette Smoking Man, who is in a car a few cars away in the FBI parking garage, observing them leave.

Mulder almost nods off as he drives the car but refuses to let Krycek drive. Mulder explains that didn’t want to tell Skinner where they were going because "the whole cavalry" might have been called in. Mulder admits that Barry tracking the implant is implausible but as an alternative suggests that someone may have given Barry Scully’s address. At the mountain, the off-season caretaker tells the agents that Barry was there and drove up the mountain because the cable car is shut down for the summer. Mulder convinces the man to activate the cable car and heads up the mountain, leaving Krycek at the bottom. Mulder speeds the car to a much higher rate than is safe, but he slows the car as it passes each support tower, where the danger of detaching the cable is highest.

When Mulder is a few hundred feet short of the top, Krycek knocks the caretaker unconscious, possibly killing him, and turns off the cable car power, stranding Mulder. Krycek phones his superior to report. Meanwhile, Barry reaches the parking lot at the top of the mountain. Mulder climbs out onto the roof of the cable car as the sun sets and begins the dangerous climb up to the cable as Krycek watches on video. With Mulder dangling, Krycek turns the power back on and runs the cable car the rest of the way to the top.

Mulder runs through the dark and finds Barry’s car, abandoned with the radio on. There is blood on the steering wheel. Scully is not in the trunk, but Mulder finds the Christian cross necklace her mother gave her years earlier. A light flashes in the sky and Mulder hears Barry laughing and screaming in celebration. Mulder pulls his gun on him as Barry screams that he is not going anywhere and that "they" took Scully. Another light explodes on them, but it is a helicopter this time.

Medics attend Barry, who is handcuffed to a chair in a Skyland Mountain building. In response from a question from Mulder Barry says that he and Scully walked a little ways up the mountain and then "they" took her. That was the deal, Barry says, Scully instead of him. He swears that he did not kill her. Barry thinks he sees men in black in the hallway outside but Mulder dies not turn in time to see them. Barry raves that the military is in on it. Mulder is enraged and almost strangles Barry, roughing him up in the process, but Mulder recovers control and leaves the room. Barry apologizes for what he did as Mulder leaves. Krycek stops Mulder in the hall. Mulder asks him if there were other people in the hall, but Krycek says no. Mulder orders that nobody goes in or out of the room, then imagines Scully as the subject of the kinds of tests commonly reported in abduction cases, including visualizing her with a swelling abdomen as if she were pregnant.

He is distracted to noise and sees Krycek in the room with Barry. Mulder reprimands Krycek, who says Barry seemed to be choking, and that when asked about Scully, Barry started whistling "Stairway to Heaven." Skinner arrives and begins to reprimand Mulder for disobeying Skinner’s direct order, but is interrupted by a voice down the hall calling for paramedics. Barry dies a moment later efforts. At the FNI academy morgue at Quantico, Virginia, Mulder talks to a pathologist. Her preliminary findings are that his cause of death was asphyxiation. The toxicological report will be on file later in the morning, but she explains that no FBI pathologist was available and that that she is military, so the report will have to be requested through military channels.

Krycek enters a car with the Cigarette Smoking Man. What should he report to Skinner? Confirm Mulder’s version of events to keep Mulder’s trust. If Mulder is such a threat, why not eliminate him, asks Krycek. The Smoking Man replies that if Mulder is killed, they risk turning one man’s religion into a crusade. He tells Krycek to follow orders and implies a threat of what would happen if he doesn’t. Skinner hands out the pathologist’s report indicating that Barry probably died from asphyxiation. Mulder denies killing Barry, admitting that he lost control momentarily but then left the room. Krycek corroborates Mulder’s story. The Office of Professional Responsibility wants both agents to take lie detector tests. Mulder says the other plausible cause of death is poisoning through injection, that the autopsy is incomplete, and that the military covered up the toxicological findings because they know where Scully is.

Mulder borrows Krycek’s car and goes to the office of Senator Richard Matheson. X is waiting on a stairway and tells Mulder that the Senator cannot help him. "They" have something on him and on everybody. Mulder’s channels are closed, concludes X. Mulder realizes that X probably knows what happened to Scully. Mulder asks why kill Barry of there as nothing to hide. They only have one policy, X replies: Deny Everything. Mulder leaves and returns to Krycek’s car, uncertain where to turn, but he notices cigarette butts in the ashtray of Krycek’s car.

Skinner reviews a written allegation from Mulder that Krycek was hired or suborned by an outside agency. Skinner says he cannot protect Mulder. Skinner calls for agent Krycek and while they wait, Mulder explains all of the details about Krycek. Mulder thinks Scully had hard and damning evidence about whatever they are trying to hide. Skinner is informed that Krycek did not show up for work that morning and his home telephone number is disconnected. Krycek has disappeared. Skinner advises Mulder to "let it go." The only thing Skinner can do to help is reopen the X-Files -- that is what Mulder’s adversaries fear the most.

Mulder meets Maggie Scully in a public place. He doesn’t know if Dana is OK but Maggie assures him that she knows he is doing all he can. They sit together quietly for a moment, then she tells him that she had the dream again last night about Dana being taken away and it scares her. When Mulder asks her about the necklace, Maggie says she gave it to Dana on her fifteenth birthday. Maggie tells Mulder to keep it and return it to Scully when he finds her. Mulder returns to Skyland Mountain to reflect. He looks up into the night sky as the episode ends.

(It is unclear how many days pass during the course of these two episodes. In order for the statement in Emily to fit, that Scully was missing for four weeks, it is hard to explain the dates given in the episodes of August to November.)

3. Mulder meets some vampires in California, as well as their human associate Kristen Kilar. In this episode, Mulder is actually wearing Scully's necklace.

In this episode, Mulder reenters his X-Files office, apparently for the first time in weeks. He turns a girlie calendar in his office from May to November, pausing at August. Because Duane Barry is clearly dated as August, Mulder must have just liked the November picture.)

Melissa Scully "takes off" and travels up and down the west coast. Her family does not hear from her for long periods of time. In Christmas Carol Dana speculates that this may have been to hide a pregnancy.

Dana Scully's daughter "Emily" is born, according to state records. She is soon adopted by Marshall and Roberta Sim, and named Emily Christine Sim. (Christmas Carol)

The details are far from clear, but Scully was apparently impregnated during her abduction and the child developed rapidly (Mulder said the abduction lasted four weeks). The implication is that Emily was part of the experimentation working to develop a human-alien hybrid.

One Breath. Dana Scully appears at a hospital, in a coma. Scully's blood is found to contain protein chains that contain branched DNA that could be a biological marker, but it is inactive.

X tells Mulder that he used to be where Mulder is now, an apparent reference to pursuing the conspiracy. Now, of course, he has become an operative of the conspiracy.

In a coma, Scully is seen as adrift in a rowboat, until her father speaks to her from beyond the grave. He tells her he loves her and they will soon be together again. Nurse Owens, who is unknown to and unseen by hospital staff, watches over Scully in the intensive care ward.

The Cigarette Smoking Man's address is given as 900 W. Georgia Street, and Mulder locates him at home. He tells Mulder he has watched Presidents die, and that Scully was returned because he likes both Scully and Mulder. He is in the game because he believes what he is doing is right. "If people were to know the things that I know, it would all fall apart." (This address is not the address given in Musings as the long-time address of CSM. On the other hand, that may be a blind mail drop and not his actual residence.)

Mulder passes up a chance to solve the conspiracy in order to be with the unconscious Scully. Scully wakes up, and Mulder returns her necklace to her. (In Emily, Mulder says Scully was missing for four weeks. This cannot be resolved with Duane Barry being clearly set in August, and other details showing Scully's return to be in November.)

Firewalker. At Mount Avalon, in the cascade range, a California Institute of Technology volcano research team, lead by Dr. Daniel Trepkos, operating a robot capable of descending into active volcanoes, releases a silicon-based organism that lives deep inside the Earth. The spores of the organism infect several of the team members, who Trepkos kills to prevent its spread. Scully and Mulder barely escape contamination. Concludes November 13, with Mulder and Scully in quarantine for 30 days. (Date taken from Mulder's final narration.)

Irresistible. Mulder and Scully visit Minneapolis investigating a series of desecrated human bodies, contacted by Agent Bocks of the Minneapolis FBI field office, who is a UFO buff. Scully is disturbed by the crimes, and consults her employee assistance program. Later, Scully is taken captive for the third time in her career, by Donald Pfaster, who has a death fetish, and who repeatedly calls her "girlie girl." While captive, she imagines seeing her captor morph from appearance to appearance. Scully visits a social worker in the FBI Employee Assistance Program. The actress returns later in the season, playing the same role in The Calusari. (Date given by Scully during autopsy represents a continuity error with respect to Firewalker.)

The date on the vial of Scully's ova found by Mulder in the facility run by the Curt Crawford clone. (Memento Mori)

Red Museum. In Delta Glen in eastern Wisconsin, local doctor, Dr. Larson, has been injecting the teenagers and cattle with alien DNA and keeping records of the children by the numbers on credit cards registered to family members. (This is apparently similar to the project Deep Throat mentioned in The Erlenmeyer Flask about school children in a southern state injected with alien DNA in 1987.) The Bounty Hunter  who killed Deep Throat is in the area, covering their tracks.

A local cult of vegetarians called The Church of the Red Museum (which believes they are 18 years away from the New Kingdom) helps Mulder protect the children and may have served as a control group for the experiment. There is a confrontation with the killer in a meat packing plant. He is killed, and he cannot be traced. While not mentioned verbally, many of the children who had received alien DNA look very similar to each other. The FBI leaves the case open and unsolved. (Note that eastern Wisconsin is also where Fallen Angel took place.)

The FBI concludes a seven-year study and finds that there is little evidence to support claims of devil worship influencing American children.

Excelsis Dei. In Worchester, Mass., an aid in a nursing home gives oriental medicines based on mushrooms to Alzheimer's disease victims, improving their mental functions, but creating unpredictable mental side effects, including seeing ghosts and out of body experiences. (There are still leaves on the ground in outdoor scenes, indicating a late autumn date.)

Aubrey. The body of FBI special agent Sam Chaney, missing since 1942, is found, buried in a field at Aubrey, Missouri. A few days later, the body of Tim Ledbetter is found buried in the basement of a house. B.J. Morrow, who is pregnant, appears to have inherited Harry Cokley's psychosis, and attempts to kill her grandmother. She then kills Cokley and is arrested by Mulder and Scully, and placed in the Shamrock Women's Prison psyche ward, leaving the possibility that the psychosis could be passed on to her son. (Aubrey)

Mulder gets his driver's license renewed. His license number is 123-32-132?. (Small Potatoes)