170 Fun Facts About The X-Files

Before creating The X-Files, Chris Carter spent years writing for a magazine devoted to which sport?

Surfing: hooked on the sport since boyhood, Carter joined Surfing Magazine after his journalism degree, and reached television only when studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg hired him as a screenwriter.

In The X-Files pilot, Mulder and Scully's first case takes them to which state?

Oregon: near the fictional town of Bellefleur, classmates are turning up dead with two small marks on their backs, and the agents lose nine minutes when a flash of light stalls their car.

Fox Mulder's younger sister vanished when he was 12; what was her name?

Samantha Mulder, aged eight, vanished from the family house in November 1973; her brother believes aliens took her, and that loss drives his obsession with the paranormal.

Why did The X-Files writers have Dana Scully abducted early in season two?

Her actress was pregnant: Gillian Anderson needed time off, so Scully vanished for an episode and came back in a coma, filmed days after Anderson gave birth.

Which actor played The X-Files' chain-smoking villain, the Cigarette Smoking Man?

William B. Davis was hired as a wordless extra for the pilot, and his silent smoker in the corner grew into the show's chief villain.

Which sitcom's house does a telekinetic man recreate in the X-Files episode 'Sunshine Days'?

The Brady Bunch: the lonely man has even renamed himself Oliver Martin after the show's Cousin Oliver, and conjuring its house and family with his mind is slowly destroying his body.

Where was The X-Files filmed for its first five seasons?

Vancouver, British Columbia hosted the 1993 pilot shoot and kept the series for five years; after moving away, production came back there for the 2008 film and the revival seasons.

What are standalone X-Files episodes unrelated to the main conspiracy commonly called?

Monster-of-the-Week stories began with 'Squeeze', only the third episode aired, which showed the series could cover far more than UFOs.

Dana Scully earned a Bachelor of Science degree in what field from the University of Maryland?

Physics: Scully's senior thesis was 'Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation', and Mulder needles her about rewriting Einstein the moment they meet in the pilot.

Fox Mulder's FBI background before joining the X-Files unit was primarily in what specialized field?

Criminal profiling made Mulder's name: his monograph on serial killers and the occult helped catch a murderer, and colleagues rated him the best analyst in the Violent Crimes Section.

In the X-Files episode 'Closure', what does Mulder learn became of his missing sister?

Benevolent spirits took her: a psychic explains that 'walk-ins' turn doomed children into starlight to spare them suffering, and Mulder finally meets his sister's spirit, at peace.

What name is given to the wave of women drawn into STEM careers by The X-Files' sceptical female lead?

The Scully Effect was put to the test in 2018, when a Geena Davis Institute survey found that most women who knew the character said she had raised their confidence about excelling in male-dominated fields.

Which reality series lent its format and crew to an X-Files episode?

Cops: the episode was shot on videotape with members of the reality show's own crew, trailing a sheriff's deputy while Mulder hunts a creature that feeds on fear and Scully bristles at the cameras.

'The Unnatural', the first X-Files episode David Duchovny wrote and directed, is a period tale about which sport?

Baseball: Duchovny's script imagines an alien so in love with the game that he hides among the black players of the 1947 Roswell Grays as slugger Josh Exley.

Where in FBI headquarters is Fox Mulder's X-Files office tucked away?

The basement: Mulder greets Scully there in the pilot with 'Nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted', and the Smoking Man burns the office out at the close of season five.

According to the X-Files episode 'Travelers', why did the FBI first file its unexplained cases under X?

The U drawer was full: an FBI clerk in the 1950s filed the unsolved cases under U until she ran out of room, then moved them to the emptier X cabinet.

What nickname did Fox Mulder earn due to his beliefs in the paranormal?

'Spooky Mulder' was the Bureau's joke at his expense, and the nickname came with a posting to a little-known department of unsolved cases, the X-Files.

Which number is on the door of Fox Mulder's apartment?

42 is widely taken as a nod to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything.

In The X-Files, what has the Syndicate been developing so that its members can survive the coming invasion?

An alien-human hybrid is the Syndicate's survival plan: its members handed their own relatives to the aliens in exchange for the DNA to build one, while working on a vaccine of their own.

What term do fans and staff use for The X-Files' overarching alien-conspiracy storyline?

The Mytharc grew out of one personal mystery: Mulder's search for his abducted sister, which keeps leading him back to the government's dealings with aliens.

In the X-Files two-parter 'Dreamland', Mulder swaps bodies with a government man who works where?

Area 51: a craft flying overhead swaps Mulder with Morris Fletcher, a Man in Black played by Michael McKean, and Scully grows suspicious when her partner loses all interest in the X-Files.

Which FBI assistant director supervises Mulder and Scully's work on the X-Files for most of the series?

Walter Skinner took charge of the X-Files late in season one; the Vietnam veteran starts out simply policing his two agents and ends up respecting, and backing, Mulder's work.

Which future comedy star plays Zero, the lightning-summoner's friend, in the X-Files episode 'D.P.O.'?

Jack Black's Zero comes to a bad end: Giovanni Ribisi's lightning-summoner, convinced that his friend has informed on him to the FBI, strikes him dead.

Which actor portrayed Mulder's first shadowy informant, Deep Throat?

Jerry Hardin's Deep Throat is shot dead in the season-one finale, gasping 'Trust no one', yet the actor kept coming back in Mulder's visions as late as season seven.

Why did FBI bosses first assign Dana Scully to the X-Files?

To debunk Mulder's work: Section Chief Blevins wanted a scientist's field reports to discredit the X-Files, yet Scully ended up as Mulder's closest ally instead.

What is Dana Scully's middle name?

Katherine echoes the name of creator Chris Carter's mother, Catherine, whose maiden name, Mulder, he gave to Scully's partner.

Robert Patrick, who joined The X-Files as agent John Doggett, was best known for playing which film villain?

The T-1000, the liquid-metal killer of Terminator 2, made Patrick's name; he then beat more than a hundred actors to the part of Doggett when David Duchovny cut back his appearances.

The actor who plays the Cigarette Smoking Man comes from which country?

Canada: the Toronto-born actor had quit smoking years before the role, used herbal cigarettes on set, and became a spokesman for the Canadian Cancer Society.

What colour is the toxic, acid-like blood of The X-Files' shape-shifting aliens?

Green: it burns like acid and carries a retrovirus that can kill any human exposed to it, though extreme cold neutralises the effect.

Who replaced Deep Throat as Mulder's informant in season two?

X first reaches Mulder by phone in 'The Host' and is shot dead in the season-four opener 'Herrenvolk', scrawling 'SRSG' in his own blood to point Mulder towards his next informant.

In the 2002 X-Files finale, the invasion date is the last day of which ancient calendar?

Maya: the Smoking Man says the invasion is set for 22 December 2012, and claims the Mayans were so afraid of it that they stopped their calendar on that very date.

What was the title of the first feature film based on The X-Files, released in 1998?

The X-Files: Fight the Future was slotted between seasons five and six, so the 1998 film carried the show's conspiracy plot forward on the big screen.

What was the title of the second X-Files feature film, released in 2008?

The X-Files: I Want to Believe finds Mulder living in hiding as a fugitive, until the FBI asks for his help in finding one of its own agents, who has been kidnapped.

In the 1998 X-Files film, which insects carry the alien virus from domes hidden in a Texas cornfield?

Bees swarm out of the domes at Mulder and Scully, and one that lodges under Scully's collar later stings her, infecting her just as the two are about to kiss.

Which X-Files villain can squeeze through tiny gaps and wakes from hibernation every thirty years to kill again?

Eugene Tooms must eat five human livers before each thirty-year sleep, which lets Mulder tie his killings to earlier sprees in 1933 and 1963.

Which season-three X-Files episode, with Peter Boyle as a reluctant psychic, won Emmys for both writing and guest actor?

'Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose' gives Boyle's weary psychic one bleak gift, foreseeing how other people will die, and the episode closes on his own death.

Which X-Files episode was the first to air with a viewer discretion warning for its graphic content?

'Home' opens with the inbred Peacock brothers burying a newborn alive, and the network was so uneasy that it kept the episode out of its normal repeats for years.

Who wrote 'Humbug' and 'Jose Chung's From Outer Space', two of The X-Files' early comic episodes?

Darin Morgan first joined the show inside a rubber suit, playing the sewer-dwelling Flukeman in 'The Host', before writing 'Humbug', his first script for the series.

Which comic X-Files episode tells the same case twice, first as Scully remembers it and then as Mulder does?

'Bad Blood' has Luke Wilson's Texas sheriff turn up dashing in Scully's account and buck-toothed in Mulder's, as the pair rehearse their stories after Mulder stakes a teenage pizza boy.

Chris Carter's production company, behind The X-Files and its spin-offs, is called what?

Ten Thirteen Productions is named for Chris Carter's birthday, 13 October, which is also the birthday he gave Fox Mulder.

Along with Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which anthology series inspired The X-Files?

The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery and Kolchak were Chris Carter's boyhood favourites, and he built his new series on that fondness when a network hired him to develop shows in 1992.

On which continent does Mulder find Scully inside a buried alien craft in the 1998 X-Files film?

Antarctica: armed with coordinates and a vaccine from the Well-Manicured Man, Mulder revives Scully, and the two reach the surface just before the vast vessel rises out of the ice.

Which tagline closes The X-Files' opening credits on most episodes, occasionally swapped for 'Trust No One'?

'The Truth Is Out There' first gave way in the season-one finale, which swapped in 'Trust No One', the dying words of Mulder's first informant.

Which horror film inspired 'Ice', the X-Files episode about a parasite turning an Arctic research team against itself?

The Thing, John Carpenter's tale of a shape-shifter loose in a polar base, comes from the novella 'Who Goes There?', which Chris Carter named as a model for the episode's paranoia.

Which horror novelist co-wrote 'Chinga', the X-Files episode about a killer doll?

Stephen King asked to write for the show and sent in several drafts, but Chris Carter reworked the Mulder and Scully scenes so heavily that the two share the credit.

In which X-Files episode did the three members of The Lone Gunmen meet their demise?

'Jump the Shark' has the trio trap themselves behind sealed fire doors with a dying bioterrorist's virus to save everyone else, a sacrifice that earns them graves at Arlington.

Which sister series, starring Lance Henriksen as Frank Black, got its send-off in a season-seven X-Files crossover?

Millennium had been cancelled without an ending, so its hero's story was wrapped up on The X-Files; the same episode gives Mulder and Scully their first romantic kiss as the year 2000 arrives.

Who plays Father Joe in the 2008 X-Files film?

Billy Connolly's Father Joe is a former priest and convicted child abuser whose visions lead the FBI to a severed arm and then to a frozen burial ground.

Which of Dana Scully's relatives is shot dead by assassins sent for Scully herself?

Her sister Melissa lets herself into Dana's apartment at the wrong moment and is shot by a gunman waiting there with Alex Krycek; she dies in hospital in the next episode.

Which real Virginia bunker does Mulder break into before his trial in the 2002 X-Files finale?

Mount Weather is where Mulder reads the date set for the alien invasion; caught and sentenced to death by a military tribunal, he escapes with help from his old colleagues.

Why have The X-Files' rebel aliens sealed their own faces?

To block black oil: the faceless rebels close every opening in their faces so the alien virus cannot get in, then set about burning the colonists' human helpers.

In which two season-six X-Files episodes is the Syndicate wiped out?

Two Fathers and One Son end with faceless alien rebels burning the Syndicate's elders alive in an air base hangar; only the Smoking Man and Diana Fowley get away.

Which university educated Fox Mulder?

Oxford: Mulder read psychology there, and the season-one episode 'Fire' brings back his Oxford flame, by then a Scotland Yard inspector.

Which religion does The X-Files' Dana Scully practise despite her scepticism?

Catholicism: Scully's gold cross is all Mulder finds after she is abducted in season two, and her mother tells him to keep it until he can hand it back himself.

Where does Scully go to teach after leaving the X-Files in the ninth season?

Quantico: Scully teaches at the FBI Academy from the season-nine premiere, while Monica Reyes takes her place beside Doggett on the X-Files.

In which police department did The X-Files' John Doggett work before joining the FBI?

The NYPD: Doggett was a New York detective when his young son Luke was kidnapped and murdered, the case on which he first worked with Monica Reyes.

FBI agent Monica Reyes of The X-Files speaks fluent Spanish because she was raised in which country?

Mexico: Reyes grew up there, which pays off in season nine when an amnesiac Doggett vanishes south of the border and her Spanish helps track him down.

Which actor played Assistant Director Alvin Kersh?

James Pickens Jr. played Kersh from season six as the bureaucrat forever blocking the agents' paranormal cases, yet in the 2002 finale he helps Mulder escape a death sentence.

Which actor played the shifting-loyalty agent Alex Krycek?

Nicholas Lea played Krycek from season two until the character is shot dead in 'Existence'; Lea had already appeared as a different character in season one's 'Gender Bender'.

In X-Files lore, where must the shape-shifting Alien Bounty Hunter be stabbed for the wound to kill him?

The base of the neck is the one fatal spot, which is why the Bounty Hunters carry a stiletto-like weapon to execute rogue aliens in exactly the same way.

Which film inspired Carter to build The X-Files around FBI agents?

The Silence of the Lambs gave Carter his FBI frame, a likelier reason to be on each case than Kolchak's reporter had; he also gave Scully Clarice Starling's red hair on purpose.

Which TV duo inspired Mulder and Scully's platonic dynamic?

Emma Peel and John Steed of The Avengers were Carter's model for partners who stay platonic, a line he held until Mulder and Scully finally kissed in season seven.

Which early-1990s series was a major influence on The X-Files' dark, surreal atmosphere?

Twin Peaks, David Lynch's 1990 series, shaped the show's dark, surreal mood, and Duchovny had already played transgender DEA agent Denise Bryson on it.

What did the network want its Scully to be, rather than Anderson?

Someone 'taller, leggier, blonder and breastier', or at least better known, was the network's wish; Carter insisted that Anderson, then 24, had the no-nonsense integrity the part needed.

Why had Mitch Pileggi failed earlier X-Files auditions before he was finally cast?

He had been shaving his head, and Carter could not picture him in the earlier parts; for the part he won his hair had grown back, and his grumpy mood that day suited the role.

What did Duchovny's 1999 lawsuit accuse the studio of doing with X-Files reruns?

Selling them cheaply to itself was the charge: Duchovny, owed a share of the profits, said in-house deals with channels such as FX had cost him millions. The suit was later settled.

Which snack is Fox Mulder almost always seen eating?

Sunflower seeds: Duchovny put the habit down to an oral fixation, while in 'Aubrey' Mulder recalls being calmed as a boy by the sound of his father crunching them at night.

In which first-season episode were The Lone Gunmen introduced?

'E.B.E.' introduced the Lone Gunmen as a one-off, but the trio proved popular and returned in season two's 'Blood'.

Which two writers created Scully's family characters, including her father William?

Glen Morgan and James Wong wrote 'Beyond the Sea', where Scully's father dies and, for the first time, she turns believer while Mulder plays the sceptic.

Which actress played Scully's mother Margaret?

Sheila Larken is married to R.W. Goodwin, the show's producer-director; both left when production moved after season five, though she later returned briefly as Margaret Scully.

Which actress's marriage to Duchovny helped prompt The X-Files' relocation after season five?

Téa Leoni married Duchovny in 1997, and his unhappiness at living apart from her pushed the series to relocate after season five; Anderson also wanted to work in the United States.

In which Season 5 X-Files episode do Mulder and Scully meet Gibson Praise, a chess prodigy who reads minds?

'The End' opens with a sniper killing a chess grandmaster, though his real target was the boy across the board; it was also the last episode made before the show moved its production base.

Which season-six Vince Gilligan episode guest-starred Bryan Cranston, later his Breaking Bad lead?

'Drive' needed a villain viewers could still pity, and Gilligan felt Cranston could make the dying hostage-taker human; that performance later won him Walter White.

Which Smiths track did Carter send the X-Files composer as inspiration for the theme?

'How Soon Is Now?' was sent for its guitars, yet the finished theme has none: its hook is a whistle, half synth sample and half the composer's wife whistling.

How did the X-Files composer create the theme's echo effect?

By accident, with his forearm on the keyboard: the arm came down while an echo delay was switched on, and the rippling pattern it set off became the accompaniment figure that runs through the theme.

The X-Files pilot aired without the famous theme, so which episode was the first to carry it?

'Deep Throat', the second episode, introduced the title sequence and theme; the pilot had opened with only a caption claiming the story was inspired by documented accounts.

Which act recorded a new version of the X-Files theme for the 2008 film's end credits?

UNKLE, the British electronic act led by James Lavelle, recorded the new end-credits version and also gave the soundtrack its song 'Broken'; the series' own composer wrote the orchestral score.

What did The X-Files' first Emmy win, in 1994, recognise?

Its title sequence and graphic design won a 1994 Emmy, and the sequence had its first major change only in season eight, when Duchovny's reduced role brought new images and a new co-star's credit.

Which episode aired after Super Bowl XXXI and became The X-Files' most-watched ever?

'Leonard Betts' drew 29.1 million viewers after the Super Bowl, and its tumour-eating mutant tells Scully she has 'something I need', which is how she learns she has cancer.

Which two shows later surpassed The X-Files as the longest-running US sci-fi series?

Stargate SG-1 passed the show's nine-season run in 2007 and Smallville did the same in 2011, both reaching a tenth season.

Which Princess Bride actor joined The X-Files in its ninth season as an FBI assistant director?

Cary Elwes, the film's Westley, played a Bureau boss who is revealed late in the season to have taken a mobster's bribes, and who ends his run by shooting the man dead.

Which X-Files episode became the de facto series finale in 2018?

'My Struggle IV' ends with Mulder shooting the Smoking Man and Scully revealing she is pregnant; no twelfth season followed, so that cliffhanger is where the series stops.

Who directed the first X-Files feature film, released in 1998?

Rob Bowman, a regular director on the series, shot the film in the summer of 1997, in the break before season five, a full year before it reached cinemas.

Who appeared only in the 1998 X-Files film?

Martin Landau, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Blythe Danner play an informant, a Syndicate elder and an FBI inquisitor seen only in the film, where John Neville's Well-Manicured Man dies helping Mulder.

Which blockbuster, then in its second weekend, did Duchovny blame for the 2008 X-Files film's weak opening?

The Dark Knight: Duchovny said the film had opened on 'the worst day in the history of cinema', the second week of Batman, and it took only about $10 million that weekend.

Which company took over The X-Files by buying 21st Century Fox's studios in 2019?

Disney took over the X-Files rights when it absorbed 21st Century Fox's film and television studios in 2019, which is why Ryan Coogler's reboot pilot was ordered by Disney-owned Hulu in 2026.

Which 2004 PlayStation 2 survival-horror game let players control both Mulder and Scully?

Resist or Serve let players switch between Mulder and Scully across three new 'episodes' set in season seven, with the show's cast voicing their own characters.

Which British band had a 1998 UK top ten hit called 'Mulder and Scully'?

Catatonia's 'Mulder and Scully' reached number three in the UK in 1998; the song is really about a romance so strange it could be a case for the two agents.

In The Simpsons' X-Files crossover, who is the glowing 'alien' that Homer meets in the woods?

Mr. Burns: in 'The Springfield Files' his weekly longevity treatments are behind the eerie figure, and Mulder and Scully, voiced by Duchovny and Anderson, leave town with no evidence.

Which Star Trek series named two time-travel investigators Dulmur and Lucsly, scrambling Mulder and Scully?

Deep Space Nine's 'Trials and Tribble-ations' has the deadpan pair question Captain Sisko about his trip into the 1960s tribble episode; 'Dulmur' swaps one letter of the true anagram.

Which piece of fan slang seems to have begun with X-Files fans?

Ship is short for 'relationship': its earliest known uses come from mid-1990s fans who wanted Mulder and Scully to become a couple and called themselves 'relationshippers'.

Which show did Joss Whedon describe as My So-Called Life meets The X-Files?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer borrowed the show's moody look and its mix of horror and humour, and Russell T Davies later pitched Torchwood as The X-Files meets This Life.

Which scientist attacked The X-Files because its paranormal theory beats the rational one week after week?

Richard Dawkins likened it, in a public lecture, to a crime series in which the black suspect turns out to be guilty every week, and said 'it's only fiction' was no defence.

Which awards named The X-Files best drama three times?

Golden Globes went to it as best drama series three times in the 1990s, and to both its leads in 1997, whereas its Emmys came for acting, writing and craft, never for best drama.

Which prestigious honour did The X-Files receive in 1996 for being 'thought-provoking'?

A Peabody Award in 1996 praised the show for ideas 'both entertaining and thought-provoking', the kind of television people talk over at the office water cooler the next day.

On which island was Fox Mulder born?

Martha's Vineyard, off Massachusetts, was the Mulder family home, and it was from there that his sister was taken when he was twelve, the loss that drives his whole career.

Where does Mulder habitually sleep in his apartment?

On his couch: Duchovny noted that viewers never see Mulder in a bed, and his junk-filled bedroom only gains one, a waterbed, after a season-six body swap.

In which city was Dana Scully born?

Annapolis, Maryland, home of the US Naval Academy, suits the daughter of Navy captain William Scully; the family moved to San Diego when he was stationed there.

What nicknames did Scully and her father give each other, from Moby-Dick?

Ahab and Starbuck: Captain William Scully called his daughter Starbuck and she called him Ahab, a Moby-Dick bond echoed when she named her dog Queequeg.

Which ex-FBI agent kidnaps Scully in Season 2?

Duane Barry, a former FBI agent and multiple abductee, seizes Scully in 'Duane Barry' and hands her over at Skyland Mountain in 'Ascension'; a microchip later found in her neck, once removed, triggers her cancer.

What is the name of the daughter Scully learns she unknowingly had during her abduction?

Emily, conceived from ova taken during Scully's abduction, is found as a three-year-old in season five and dies of an incurable illness before Scully can adopt her.

Which cigarette brand does the Smoking Man chain-smoke?

Morley, a fictional brand whose pack resembles Marlboro's, is the Smoking Man's constant cigarette; the same prop brand turns up in many other films and television shows.

What birth name does the Smoking Man reveal in Season 11?

Carl Gerhard Busch is the name he gives in 'My Struggle III', at last explaining the initials of his alias C.G.B. Spender; Raul Bloodworth was only his pen name.

How many audible words does the Smoking Man speak in the entire first season of The X-Files?

Four: written as a mere extra for the pilot, he speaks just once, late in the first season, then grows into the series' chief villain.

Whom does the Smoking Man shoot in the X-Files episode 'Musings'?

John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.: in 'Musings' he shoots Kennedy in 1963 and King five years later, yet what he really wants is to see his spy novels published.

Which sports team's fate does the Smoking Man control in 'Musings'?

The Buffalo Bills never winning the Super Bowl: in 'Musings' he orders that Buffalo must not win it, a joke on the team's four straight Super Bowl defeats in the early 1990s.

Where does the Lone Gunmen's name come from?

The Warren Commission's finding on Oswald, that he alone shot the president, gives the conspiracy-minded trio their name; their paper was once titled The Magic Bullet, after another theory from the same case.

Which actor, an assistant director on The X-Files, played Melvin Frohike?

Tom Braidwood was working on the crew when he was picked for what was meant to be a one-off part, and went on playing Frohike for years, including in the trio's own spin-off.

Which Lone Gunman is a Ramones fan who plays Dungeons & Dragons as 'Lord Manhammer'?

Langly, the long-haired hacker played by Dean Haglund, returns in season eleven as a consciousness uploaded into a simulation after his death.

Which game-show host appears as a Man in Black in the X-Files episode 'Jose Chung's From Outer Space'?

Alex Trebek plays one of two Men in Black who warn Mulder off; asked later whether it really was the Jeopardy! host, Scully admits she cannot remember.

Which Season 2 episode was Vince Gilligan's first X-Files script, written as a freelancer?

'Soft Light', about a scientist whose shadow disintegrates people, was written by Gilligan as a fan and freelancer; Carter then offered him a staff job.

Which right-wing webcaster reunites Mulder and Scully in the 2016 revival?

Tad O'Malley, played by Joel McHale, shows Mulder a working craft built with alien technology, and Mulder decides the invasion he chased was a smokescreen for a conspiracy of men.

Which contagion threatens humanity in The X-Files' Season 10 finale?

The Spartan Virus is designed to strip people of their immune systems, and it spreads nationwide in 'My Struggle II' as Scully races to make a vaccine.

Under what surname was Scully's son William adopted?

Van De Kamp was the name of the couple who adopted William after Scully gave him up in season nine; he returns in season eleven as teenager Jackson Van De Kamp.

Which actress played conspirator Erika Price in Season 11?

Barbara Hershey played Erika Price, the conspirator plotting to abandon Earth with a chosen elite in season eleven; A.C. Peterson played her partner Mr. Y.

In the black-and-white X-Files episode 'The Post-Modern Prometheus', which singer does the Great Mutato adore?

Cher is the Great Mutato's idol, and the episode ends with Mulder and Scully taking him to her concert; the part was written for the real Cher, but a stand-in had to play her.

Before joining the FBI, John Doggett served in which branch of the US military?

The Marine Corps: Doggett served as a Marine in Lebanon in the early 1980s alongside Knowle Rohrer, the friend who later resurfaces as one of the 'super soldiers'.

Which actress played Diana Fowley, Mulder's former partner on the X-Files?

Mimi Rogers played Fowley, who had explored the X-Files with Mulder before Scully; her true loyalties were never settled on screen, and she is found murdered in season seven.

Which company published the first X-Files comic series, launched in 1995?

Topps, far better known for trading cards and bubble gum, ran the first X-Files comic for 41 issues from January 1995, with Stefan Petrucha writing the early stories.

Which agent does the player control in the 1998 X-Files PC game while hunting for Mulder and Scully?

Craig Willmore, a young Seattle agent sent to find the missing pair, is the player's character; Duchovny, Anderson and Pileggi reprised their roles in new video scenes for the game.

The Flukeman, the sewer-dwelling mutant of the X-Files episode 'The Host', is said to be a product of which disaster?

The Chernobyl meltdown made the Flukeman, Scully concludes: a freighter hauling salvage from the site carried the creature to the sewers of New Jersey.

In the X-Files episode 'Pusher', a hitman who can bend people to his will forces Mulder into which deadly game?

Russian roulette ends the episode, and the network's censors fought the scene on the grounds that the game had never been shown in a television series.

Which insects seem to be killing the residents of a Massachusetts town in the X-Files episode 'War of the Coprophages'?

Cockroaches cover every body in the town, in a story whose title riffs on The War of the Worlds. About three hundred live ones were used, and only one died, of old age.

In the X-Files episode 'Small Potatoes', five babies in one West Virginia town are all born with what?

Tails made it to the screen after an earlier script gave the babies something else, and the father of all five turns out to be a janitor who can change his face.

To make a grey rock quarry pass for Southwestern desert in the X-Files episode 'Anasazi', what did the crew use?

Gallons of red paint, about 1,600 of them, went onto the quarry by crane. The later widescreen release exposed grey, unpainted rock at the edges of the frame.

In the X-Files season-two finale 'Anasazi', the stolen Defense Department files are encrypted using which language?

Navajo is the language Scully spots in the encryption, so she seeks out a code talker, and the elder Albert Hosteen ends up translating the files.

What is behind Fox Mulder's violent, paranoid behaviour in the X-Files season-two finale 'Anasazi'?

A drug in his water supply is the cause, which Scully uncovers after one of Mulder's neighbours shoots her own husband and Mulder himself attacks his boss.

In the X-Files episode 'Anasazi', Mulder finds a pile of alien-looking corpses inside what buried desert object?

A railway boxcar hides the bodies, and the Smoking Man has it set alight with Mulder seemingly trapped inside, the cliffhanger that ended the second season.

In which X-Files episode do Mulder and Scully go undercover as a married couple in a strict planned community?

Arcadia sends the agents undercover as Rob and Laura Petrie, and its author drew on his own spell living in what he called an uptight planned community.

Which X-Files episode about a Nazi scientist brought to America after the war ends the trilogy begun in 'Anasazi'?

Paper Clip features Victor Klemper, a scientist brought over under the real Operation Paperclip, and wraps up the story that 'The Blessing Way' had carried on.

Which tabloid talk-show host plays himself in the black-and-white X-Files episode 'The Post-Modern Prometheus'?

Jerry Springer broke a house rule, since The X-Files had long avoided casting well-known faces. In the story, a single mother learns of Mulder from his programme.

The X-Files episode 'The Post-Modern Prometheus' included a part written for which sitcom star, who proved unavailable?

Roseanne Barr had asked to guest on the show, so Chris Carter wrote the single mother Shaineh Berkowitz for her; Pattie Tierce played the part instead.

The X-Files episode 'The Post-Modern Prometheus' opens and closes with the story presented in what form?

A comic book frames the tale, drawn by a local teenager who invented the Great Mutato, which leads some critics to read the happy ending as his own invention.

In The X-Files' 'The Post-Modern Prometheus', whom does Mulder demand to see when the creature is refused a mate?

The writer is who Mulder asks for, calling the outcome unjust, and the story then swerves into a fanciful happy ending at a concert.

Which cartoonist let The X-Files use the name 'The Great Mutato', which he had already given a character of his own?

Matt Groening had used the name, pronounced differently, in the world of The Simpsons. Chris Carter found out only after creating his monster and got in touch to ask.

Which Seinfeld regular plays the gene-splicing Dr. Pollidori in The X-Files' 'The Post-Modern Prometheus'?

John O'Hurley had tried out for several X-Files roles without luck, but Chris Carter judged him the perfect casting choice for the scientist who made the monster.

'The Post-Modern Prometheus' earned The X-Files seven Emmy nominations in 1998, but which was its only win?

Art direction brought the lone win, for Graeme Murray, Greg Loewen and Shirley Inget, while Chris Carter missed out for both writing and directing the episode.

Mulder's first informant in The X-Files borrows his nickname from the secret source behind which real scandal?

Watergate supplied the model: the real source fed reporters details of the FBI's inquiry and was unmasked, after The X-Files had ended, as a senior bureau official.

Which illness, apparently caused by her abduction, is Dana Scully diagnosed with in The X-Files' fourth season?

Cancer, in the form of an inoperable tumour behind her sinuses, split the writing staff, and Chris Carter first thought of giving the illness to Scully's mother instead.

In which city does The X-Files' Syndicate hold most of its meetings, in a nondescript building?

New York hosts the group, in a building on West 46th Street, while in the 1998 film its elders gather in London to meet Conrad Strughold.

In X-Files mythology, the shadowy Syndicate was formed in the wake of which real UFO event?

The Roswell crash started it all: Mulder's first informant says the great powers then agreed that any country holding a surviving extraterrestrial must exterminate it.

Marita Covarrubias, who becomes Mulder's informant in The X-Files' fourth season, works for which organisation?

The United Nations employs her in the office of the Secretary-General's special representative, and Mulder is led to her by four letters his dying previous informant writes in blood.

In X-Files mythology, which real vaccination programme was secretly used to collect tissue samples from Americans?

Smallpox jabs were the cover, with the records and tissue samples filed away in a disused mine. The show's makers liked turning a routine inoculation into something to fear.

What name does The X-Files give the near-indestructible human replacements that menace its eighth and ninth seasons?

Super Soldiers have a single known weakness, the mineral magnetite, which finally destroys Knowle Rohrer, the one played by Adam Baldwin.

Which X-Files season-one finale ends with Mulder's first informant shot dead at an exchange on an overpass?

The Erlenmeyer Flask kills him off as he hands over a frozen foetus, a death meant to show that anyone but the two leads was expendable.

In The X-Files, at which Siberian site is Mulder held in a gulag and used as a vaccine test subject?

Tunguska, where a mysterious cosmic impact occurred in 1908, gives the two-parter its setting, and the gulag scenes drew on the writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Which British member of The X-Files' Syndicate betrays it by leaking information to Mulder in the 1998 film?

The Well-Manicured Man, played by John Neville across eight episodes and the film, gives Mulder a vaccine and the place where the abducted Scully is being held.

Which composer wrote The X-Files' whistled theme and the music for the series and both feature films?

Mark Snow got the job through his friendship with producer R.W. Goodwin, then pushed back against a brief for ambient synthesiser soundscapes because it bored him.

Which Bobby Darin hit gives its title to the X-Files episode in which Dana Scully's father dies?

Beyond the Sea is played at the funeral of Scully's father, and a death-row inmate who claims psychic powers later sings it back to her.

Which band covered Gary Numan's 'Down in the Park' for the 1996 X-Files album Songs in the Key of X?

Foo Fighters' cover was singled out by reviewers as a highlight of the compilation, and the band returned with 'Walking After You' for the 1998 film's soundtrack.

Which Britpop star contributed the instrumental 'Teotihuacan' to the soundtrack album of the 1998 X-Files film?

Noel Gallagher's piece plays over the ending credits, and he later reworked it with Ian Brown under the title 'Keep What Ya Got'.

The X-Files theme was released as a single in 1996 and reached number one in which country?

France sent the instrumental to the top of its singles chart, while on the UK chart it entered at number two and stayed there for three weeks.

Which singer joined reggae group Aswad to remake 'Invisible Sun' for the soundtrack album of the 1998 X-Files film?

Sting had first recorded the song with The Police, and the reggae remake sat on an album from which only one song is actually heard during the film.

The eerie whistle in The X-Files theme blends a synthesiser sample with the whistling of which person?

The composer's wife, Glynn, whistled along with a stock sound named Whistl'n Joe from the Proteus range of synthesisers.

Which crooner read the script and refused to let his hit play in The X-Files' tale of the inbred Peacock family?

Johnny Mathis objected to the graphic content, so the producers hired a sound-alike to record a cover of his song instead.

On the X-Files album Songs in the Key of X, how do listeners reach two hidden Nick Cave tracks?

Rewind from track one by a full nine minutes and the disc's pregap gives up a second take on the show's theme and a song with a Latin title.

Which singer's 1999 debut single, named after an X-Files star, inspired a crew-made video of lip-syncing celebrities?

Bree Sharp's ode to David Duchovny got a homemade video for the set's Christmas party; it was never officially released, yet became an underground hit.

Fox Mulder's first name is often taken as a nod to the Fox network; whom did Chris Carter say it honours?

A childhood friend called Fox was the source, Carter said, while the surname Mulder was his own mother's maiden name.

Fox Mulder graduated with first-class honours in which subject before joining the FBI in The X-Files?

Psychology was his degree, taken in England in 1983, three years before he graduated with honours from the FBI's own training academy.

Which fear of Fox Mulder's does an ex-girlfriend from London's police exploit in a first-season X-Files case?

Fire terrifies Mulder, and the detective who brings him the case, an old flame from his student days, was considered for a recurring role but never appeared again.

Where does Fox Mulder go on holiday, leaving Scully alone on a case, in the X-Files episode 'Never Again'?

Graceland draws Mulder away on vacation, and Scully, left behind, falls in with a man whose tattoo seems to have a mind of its own.

What sentence do the judges hand Fox Mulder when he is tried for murder in the 2002 X-Files finale?

Execution is the verdict despite a string of defence witnesses, but Mulder breaks out of prison and goes on the run with Scully.

After a body-swapping impostor takes over Fox Mulder's life in The X-Files, what does Mulder's bedroom gain?

A waterbed, bought by the man occupying Mulder's body, later springs a leak in another episode, whose crew found it the hardest prop of all to find.

At David Duchovny's audition for Fox Mulder, what made Chris Carter doubt that the actor was very bright?

He talked slowly, which misled Carter, who later called Duchovny one of the best-read people he knew.

Which condition spares Fox Mulder from the mind-altering television signal in the X-Files episode 'Wetwired'?

Colour blindness makes him immune to a signal that turns viewers' fears into paranoid delusions, so it is Scully who cracks, shooting at her hotel-room door when he knocks.

Under hypnosis in the X-Files episode 'The Field Where I Died', Fox Mulder recalls dying in battle in which war?

The Civil War took that earlier self, a soldier named Sullivan Biddle who died in a Tennessee field as the woman he loved looked on, one of two past lives Mulder recalls.

A younger Fox Mulder smokes a cigarette while questioning which retired FBI agent in the X-Files flashback 'Travelers'?

Arthur Dales, played by Darren McGavin, tells him about one of the very first X-Files. Mulder also wears a ring in the episode, a glimpse of his life before the series began.

Which Oscar-winning actress voices Betty, the talking tattoo in the X-Files episode 'Never Again'?

Jodie Foster voiced the jealous pin-up, in an episode Quentin Tarantino had been due to direct until a dispute with the directors' union ruled him out.

Which comedian plays Fox Mulder in the film-within-an-episode of The X-Files' 'Hollywood A.D.'?

Garry Shandling plays Mulder in The Lazarus Bowl, a zombie picture made about the agents, in an episode that David Duchovny both wrote and directed.

In the X-Files episode 'Monday', Mulder and Scully keep reliving a day that ends in what kind of disaster?

A bank bombing ends each version of the day, set off by a robber with a device strapped to his chest, until the blast is at last prevented.