Before the exploration of space--
of the moon and the planets--
man held that the heavens
were the home and province of powerful gods
who controlled not just the vast firmament
but the earthly fate of man himself,
and that the pantheon of powerful, warring deities
was the cause and reason for the human condition--
for the past and the future, and for which great monuments
would be created on Earth as in Heaven.
But in time, man replaced these gods
with new gods and new religions
that provided no more certain or greater answers
than those worshipped by his Greek or Roman
or Egyptian ancestors.
And while we've chosen now our monolithic and benevolent gods
and found our certainties in science,
believers all, we wait for a sign, a revelation.
Our eyes turn skyward,
ready to accept the truly incredible,
to find our destiny written in the stars.
But how do we best look to see?
With new eyes or old?
Mama!
Papa!
Da.
Too bad for you.
It... it's like the flesh is cooked
all the way through.
Your authority isn't recognized here.
Only your lies.
These are U.N. peacekeepers.
This is a mission of mercy.
This is a mission of fear.
Yours and the men you work for.
I don't know what you're talking about.
You go back and you tell them
what you've seen here, what you've found.
My name is Marita Covarrubias.
I am a Special Representative
to the Secretary General of the United Nations.
I know who you are, I know who you work for.
Now, you go back and you tell them...
Tell them what? What happened here?
Tell them it's all going to hell.
Does the boy know?
Did he see?
You tell them to kiss my American ass.
During my last several abductions,
I have experienced no fear whatsoever.
And it was the absence of fear
that allowed me to communicate with them
and them with me.
They've told me that I am an apostle,
here to spread the word
of the dawning of a new age of supernatural enlightenment.
Sensibly, it's not a question of truth versus fiction,
but of truths which are incomprehensible
because we have no physics--
no real language for explaining Patient X's story,
much less the existence of extraterrestrials--
nothing to prepare us
for the ontological shock that is bound to follow...
We quibble and we jaw about the need for proof,
for evidence, as if it would serve some purpose,
as if it would make a difference,
when what we should be seeking
is exactly what this woman is describing:
not if they are here but why,
and what their business is.
In my conversations with her,
she believes this business--
the abductions and the experiments--
are due to their plans for us,
and that we are not simply breeding cows for them,
as some have suggested,
but subjects, much like we think of our relationship with God.
And that there are sites--
what she calls lighthouses--
around which will be great activity...
All this conjecture--
the "ontological shock" that you speak of
for which we are so ill-equipped--
is, in my opinion, not only false but dangerous.
This woman... this woman presents
no good or credible testimony
apart from the feel-good message that she promotes.
You think she's lying?
No. I don't think she's lying.
I think...
that if you prepare people well enough to believe a lie,
they will believe it as if it were true.
And if you tell them a really big lie,
like there are aliens from outer space,
much more than a small one, they will believe it.
And if you suggest to them
that these aliens are doing bad things to them,
the power of the suggestion will be to make
certain people believe that certain psychopathologies
and neuroses that they're suffering from
can now be attributed to that.
Mr. Mulder... Agent Mulder,
she has physical ailments.
Are you discounting
any belief in the existence of extraterrestrials?
No. I just question mindless belief.
But you've cited evidence.
You've made claims yourself.
What I've seen,
I've seen because I wanted to believe.
I... If you look too hard, you can go mad,
but if you continue to look,
you become liberated, and you come awake,
as if from a dream,
realizing that... that the lies are there
simply to protect what they're advertising:
a government which knows that its greatest strength
is not in defense but in attack.
It's strongly held by believers in UFO phenomena
that there is military complicity or involvement
in abductions, but what if
there is no complicity?
What if there is simply just the military
seeking to develop an arsenal of weapons
against which there is no defense--
biological warfare, which justifies,
in their eyes, making an ass out of the nation
with stories of little green men.
A conspiracy wrapped in a plot
inside a government agenda.
Dr. Werber?
It's been some time.
Almost five years.
I came down expecting to hear how your work had progressed.
I'm... surprised, to say the least.
A lot has changed.
You seem to have abandoned something
you believed so completely,
in spite of what I know about you from our work together--
the memories I helped you recover
about the experience with your sister.
Well, I've come to distrust a lot of things.
I've-I've come to distrust those memories.
I'm sorry.
For what?
I've taken a lot of criticism
for my work with alien abductees and in the field itself.
The regression hypnosis work I did with you...
I'm not questioning your methods, Dr. Werber.
I'm questioning myself and how I was tricked--
how I was led to believe through an elaborate staging of events
that my sister had been abducted.
A man with faith can indulge in the luxury of skepticism.
I don't think you understand.
There's just too much evidence that it's all been a lie.
The conspiracy is not to hide
the existence of extraterrestrials,
it's to make people believe in it so completely
that they question nothing.
So, you and I have just been advocates of insanity all along?
Is this the extreme possibility you believe in now?
Well, is Patient X any more credible?
I hope so.
I'm her doctor.
I think you should meet her.
I think you might change your mind.
Cassandra?
Hi.
Fox Mulder.
Hi.
I... I am so glad to finally meet you.
You are a hero of mine.
I am?
I read about you in the news about three years ago.
How you helped that man who escaped from the hospital--
um, Duane Barry.
How he had held those people hostage
at the travel agency because
he was being called by aliens, and...
and you were the only one who believed him.
You may not like me as much as you like that story.
Oh... that story saved my life.
How's that?
I have been a multiple abductee for over 30 years.
I had been afraid to seek help.
Nobody would ever
believe me, really, until I read about you.
That's how I came to meet Dr. Werber.
Cassandra... He told me
that you had been through hypnotic regression yourself.
That's how you discovered that your sister had been abducted.
Cassandra. Yes?
Are you here voluntarily?
Uh...
yes, under doctor's supervision.
Whatever it is that you're afraid of,
I suggest that you check yourself out of here
as soon as you can and start living your life, okay?
Uh, now is not a real good time.
Cassandra is experiencing the sensation
that she's about to be called.
Now is a time of war and stress among the alien nations.
The-the different races-- they're in upheaval.
I will be summoned
to a place, just like Duane Barry.
The man you're talking about died
because of what he believed in.
He died in a room after I'd been interrogating him--
after he received a visit from some men from our government.
Oh, I'm sure the government's involved.
They just... they don't want us to know about it all.
Cassandra...
There was a time
when I would have believed what you're saying,
without a doubt.
There is no doubt, Mr. Mulder.
I know what I've experienced.
I... I have been through the terror and the tests
more times than I can count.
I have had an unborn fetus taken from me.
But they're not here for the reasons that you might think.
They're here to deliver a message.
Except... something has gone wrong.
There are...
there are other forces at work.
They're going to be calling me.
I can feel it.
And you, of all people, need to know about this,
because you're the one that can do something.
I'm not.
I'm going to take good care of you.
Agent Scully, my name is Jeffrey Spender.
Special Agent Spender.
Is there something I can help you with, Agent Spender?
I feel kind of funny approaching you like this.
I just haven't been able to reach Agent Mulder.
About what?
About somebody he's been talking to...
somebody who claims to be an alien abductee,
who I'd really prefer he weren't talking to.
You going to tell me who this is?
This is going to sound weird.
Uh, it's my mother.
Your mother.
It's a very long story.
Uh... she's an exceptional person.
But for reasons that are probably kind of obvious,
I'd rather this didn't get out.
Appearances being what they are.
Is this part of a case?
No.
Then why is he talking to her?
I don't know.
She just called me, and she's...
She's a very disturbed woman.
This is something that caused a lot of pain
about 20 years ago.
I'm just trying to save myself any extra humiliation.
I'd like to build a reputation here,
not be given one.
I think I understand.
Whatever happened in Kazakhstan,
there was no one left to give an accurate account.
How many bodies were there?
41. All burned beyond recognition.
The result of
some kind of intense biochemical reaction
none of the U.N. medics had ever seen.
Not in the Gulf
or on any battlefield.
The corpses were literally carbonized from the heat.
A new weapon being tested?
There's no intelligence on that.
There's no clear data on the victims or their relationship,
but I found at least two of these among the dead.
I think it's fairly certain
that all the victims had them.
That what was taking place was a staging
for a group abduction.
What the hell is that?
In the final phases before it begins,
there will most likely be assemblies.
We're years away from that.
If we're to believe their timetable.
Unless it's already begun.
We're 15 years away.
I don't think this was planned.
I think something or someone set this in motion.
An act of war.
Against us
and our plans.
Krycek was at the burn site
with a unit of Russian soldiers.
Alex Krycek did this?
He was there, probably acting on the same data we got.
Whether he had any direct involvement
in what happened, he knows what caused it.
Knows how?
He captured a boy at the site,
a survivor.
Someone who saw.
What does Krycek want?
I don't know.
Well, how do we find out?
Yes?
Well, look who's answering the bat phone.
Alex Krycek.
Those guys too cheap to offer you a pension plan?
Where are you?
I'm in town, actually.
New York City.
Just tell us what you want.
You've been working on a vaccine against the black oil.
Unsuccessfully, you know.
Yeah, well, I figured you and your buddies
must have been busy while I've been gone.
Our research continues.
I'll take everything you got.
In exchange for?
The boy.
Why is that in our interest?
Because without what he knows,
you ain't going to need any vaccine.
What does he know?
That's my opening offer.
The longer you wait, the skinnier this kid gets.
Shouldn't that be my picture
next to the headline?
Or is that just you having a little fun?
Do I look like I'm having fun, Scully?
You look constipated, actually.
That would make sense.
I've had my head up my rear end for the last five years.
This wouldn't have anything to do with Cassandra Spender?
Cassandra Spender is living proof
that the truth I've so boldly been seeking
for the last five years is the truth of a madman.
How's that?
One more anal-probing, gyro-pyro,
levitating-ecoplasm alien antimatter story,
and I'm going to take out my gun and shoot somebody.
Well... I guess I'm done here.
You seem to have invalidated your own work.
Have a nice life.
How do you know about Cassandra Spender?
Her son accosted me in the hallway.
He's an FBI agent.
Great.
He's of the same opinion as you, by the way--
that she's not well.
You know, y-you try to reveal what's hidden,
you try to incite people with the facts,
but they'd rather believe some insane nonsense,
refusing to believe what our government is capable of.
You've come a long way, Mulder.
Yeah, and still nobody believes me.
What?
Cassandra Spender was abducted at Skyland Mountain.
That's where I was taken-- where Duane Barry took me.
The woman is a nut,
Scully.
It says here that she has an implant
in the base of her neck.
Where the government no doubt removed her brain.
Isn't that what her son stopped you to say, Scully?
Oh, no.
He, uh, he asked if you'd please not talk about this with anyone.
Wish granted.
Hi.
I'm, uh, looking for...
I'm looking for, uh...
You're looking for what?
A mountain, I think.
You and everybody else.
How's that?
Well, you're a little late to the party.
Six dollars.
I hope you find some parking.
Cassandra?
Miss Spender?
Oh. Yes?
Do I know you?
Of course I do.
I don't think so.
No.
No, I'm-I'm sure of it.
Are you a doctor?
Uh, yes, but not a practicing one.
No?
My name is Dana Scully,
and, uh, I'd like to ask you some questions.
Questions about what?
May I?
Um...
I think you should know that I, uh...
I learned about you from your son.
Jeffrey.
Yes.
I'm an FBI agent, and he asked that I protect
against your story getting out.
Oh.
I guess I'm betraying that
by coming here.
But, um... but I don't...
I'm here for more personal reasons, actually.
I took the liberty of reading your medical file.
You're feeling it, too, aren't you?
Here.
You wake up at night knowing you need to be somewhere,
but you don't know where it is.
Like you forgot an appointment
you didn't know you had.
That's not why I'm here.
Oh.
I'm here because I, uh...
because... I wanted to tell you that you should...
that you should not remove
the thing that you have in your neck.
Not without possible consequences.
Um... I became very ill.
I'd never dream of removing it.
I want to go...
wherever it is.
Oh, they have... so much to teach us.
You being a doctor would want to know...
they're great healers.
Maybe that's why you were chosen.
Oh, my God.
Help me!
Help me. Help me!
Please!
Help me!
And there was no indication beforehand
that there was anything going on?
No sort of...
Are there any survivors?
No. Not as of this moment.
From the smell...
They've all been burned, and there are plenty more
who are still being bagged as we speak.
Any preliminary theories?
Well, it appears they all came by car.
Most of the dead are congregated in a wooded area
a short distance off the road.
Self-immolation?
There's no evidence of that right now.
There's no accelerants, no incendiary device.
And what was their relationship to each other?
Were they families?
Well, there's no way to I.D. their bodies right now.
It's going to be a painstaking dental process.
Mulder, why are you tiptoeing around the obvious fact here?
I mean, this is Skyland Mountain.
We're right back here on Skyland Mountain.
And you think it's related to your abduction
from the same place?
Well, you can't deny the connection.
You think this is some kind of abduction scenario.
No... I'm not saying that.
Do you have any evidence of that?
What do you mean by evidence?
That's what I'm asking you.
Well, are you going to give me your theory then?
No.
I'm going to give you an explanation.
This is the same scene
we saw in Kazakhstan.
What the hell is going on? This is our own backyard.
This is no good.
I don't like being kept in the dark on this.
Someone's going to great lengths to sabotage our work.
Who?
One way or another, we'd better find out
before it's determined we're unable to handle this ourselves,
to put a stop to it, before the colonists intervene.
More on our top story this hour:
in the northern part of the state,
last night's mass death in the forest
just inside the national park at Skyland Mountain.
Again, authorities have now released
a fairly complete list of the dead
gathered from vehicle registrations,
hoping relatives or friends will come forward
and help to explain the cause or the reasons
for this bizarre tragedy here in rural Virginia.
At this time,
details of the disaster at Skyland Mountain are sketchy.
Cassandra?
You called us?
This is not supposed to be happening.
I knew these people.
You knew them?
They-they were friends of mine.
Friends from where?
From a long time ago.
It's not supposed to be happening.
Not like this.
You have to do something about it.
What would you like me to do?
You have to stop it.
Stop who?
I don't know.
Agent Mulder,
my name's Jeffrey Spender.
Oh, son of... the prophet.
I asked you to leave her alone.
Your mother called us about the incident in Virginia.
She said that she knew some of the dead.
Of course she did.
They were in the same
ridiculous cult that she used to be.
There you have it.
She was in a cult?
A UFO cult, who believed they were going to be
carried to immortality
in some kind of flying mother wheel.
I'm sorry.
We won't be bothering you
or your mother anymore.
You think you can pull this off, don't you?
They give me what I want, I'm going to rule the world.
We've got them on their knees, Alex.
Yeah?
Let's get out of this hole.
Well...
Where's the boy?
Are you ready for this?
I've been going over
the initial forensics and pathology reports
from the incident at Skyland Mountain,
and while the event itself remains unexplained,
I think it's less than a mystery who's involved--
at least for me, and certainly for you.
Our pathologists here haven't finalized their reports,
but I was able to have three victims selected
at random for X-rays.
That's how I found these--
small pieces of what looks like metal
in the charred cervical tissue,
here... here...
and here.
Implants.
I followed up
with the families of the three victims,
and I found that none had any cult associations,
but two out of the three belong to local Mutual UFO Networks,
and both of them claimed abduction experiences,
and both of them were being treated
by a medical health practitioner over the past few months.
For what?
Take a look.
"Major depressive disorder characterized by periods
"of sustained anxiety and paranoia.
"Patient believes he will be contacted
"or called to an undisclosed place
where he will be abducted by aliens."
The implants triggered those responses.
Those people were led to Skyland Mountain.
By whom?
By the same government that put the implant in you
to function as a homing mechanism.
Mulder, that doesn't make sense.
Why not?
A tracking system
using military app satellite technology
to monitor test subjects,
or to stage what people might otherwise believe
are alien abductions.
But they weren't abducted.
They were led to their deaths. And for what purpose?
I don't know that yet.
Yeah, Mulder...
Maybe you shouldn't
be so quick...
to rule out what Cassandra Spender has to say.
Mulder.
Agent Mulder.
Yes. This is Marita Covarrubias.
Is this a secure line we're on?
Yes.
You were at Skyland Mountain.
Are you aware of a U.N. report
on a similar incident in the former Soviet Union?
No.
I was in Kazakhstan, Agent Mulder.
There is a connection.
I have someone who knows it.
I have him with me now.
Where are you?
At a pay phone on Skodal Road, just off the I-90.
Come here, wait for my call for directions.
Marita?
Mar...
Hello.
Who's this?
This is Special Agent Spender.
Who's this?
This is Fox Mulder.
Why are you calling here?
I'm actually looking for Agent Scully.
I haven't been able to reach her and she said that...
She's not here.
Nor is my mother.
What are you talking about?
She's gone from her room.
Gone where?
Look, she's just gone.
Don't you get it?
She's got nowhere to go.
Look!
There... there it is!