The X-Files
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170 free The X-Files trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free The X-Files trivia questions with answers. Think you're a true X-Files fan? Put your knowledge of the paranormal, government conspiracies, and FBI investigations to the test with our comprehensive trivia quiz. From memorable episodes to character details, this quiz covers all nine seasons of the cult classic series that defined a generation of television.
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Q 01Before creating The X-Files, Chris Carter spent years writing for a magazine devoted to which sport?
Surfing
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.
Q 02In The X-Files pilot, Mulder and Scully's first case takes them to which state?
Oregon
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.
Q 03Fox Mulder's younger sister vanished when he was 12; what was her name?
Samantha
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.
Q 04Why did The X-Files writers have Dana Scully abducted early in season two?
Her actress was pregnant
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.
Q 05Which actor played The X-Files' chain-smoking villain, the Cigarette Smoking Man?
William B. Davis
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.
Q 06Which sitcom's house does a telekinetic man recreate in the X-Files episode 'Sunshine Days'?
The Brady Bunch
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.
Q 07Where was The X-Files filmed for its first five seasons?
Vancouver, British Columbia
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.
Q 08What are standalone X-Files episodes unrelated to the main conspiracy commonly called?
Monster-of-the-Week
Monster-of-the-Week stories began with 'Squeeze', only the third episode aired, which showed the series could cover far more than UFOs.
Q 09Dana Scully earned a Bachelor of Science degree in what field from the University of Maryland?
Physics
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.
Q 10Fox Mulder's FBI background before joining the X-Files unit was primarily in what specialized field?
Criminal profiling
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.
Q 11In the X-Files episode 'Closure', what does Mulder learn became of his missing sister?
Benevolent spirits took her
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.
Q 12What name is given to the wave of women drawn into STEM careers by The X-Files' sceptical female lead?
The Scully Effect
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.
Q 13Which reality series lent its format and crew to an X-Files episode?
Q 21In the X-Files two-parter 'Dreamland', Mulder swaps bodies with a government man who works where?
Area 51
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.
Q 22Which FBI assistant director supervises Mulder and Scully's work on the X-Files for most of the series?
Walter Skinner
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.
Q 23Which future comedy star plays Zero, the lightning-summoner's friend, in the X-Files episode 'D.P.O.'?
Jack Black
Cops
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.
Q 14'The Unnatural', the first X-Files episode David Duchovny wrote and directed, is a period tale about which sport?
Baseball
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.
Q 15Where in FBI headquarters is Fox Mulder's X-Files office tucked away?
The basement
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.
Q 16According to the X-Files episode 'Travelers', why did the FBI first file its unexplained cases under X?
The U drawer was full
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.
Q 17What nickname did Fox Mulder earn due to his beliefs in the paranormal?
Spooky Mulder
'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.
Q 18Which number is on the door of Fox Mulder's apartment?
42
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.
Q 19In The X-Files, what has the Syndicate been developing so that its members can survive the coming invasion?
An alien-human hybrid
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.
Q 20What term do fans and staff use for The X-Files' overarching alien-conspiracy storyline?
The Mytharc
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.
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.
Q 24Which actor portrayed Mulder's first shadowy informant, Deep Throat?
Jerry Hardin
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.
Q 25Why did FBI bosses first assign Dana Scully to the X-Files?
To debunk Mulder's work
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.
Q 26What is Dana Scully's middle name?
Katherine
Katherine echoes the name of creator Chris Carter's mother, Catherine, whose maiden name, Mulder, he gave to Scully's partner.
Q 27Robert Patrick, who joined The X-Files as agent John Doggett, was best known for playing which film villain?
The T-1000
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.
Q 28The actor who plays the Cigarette Smoking Man comes from which country?
Canada
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.
Q 29What colour is the toxic, acid-like blood of The X-Files' shape-shifting aliens?
Green
Green: it burns like acid and carries a retrovirus that can kill any human exposed to it, though extreme cold neutralises the effect.
Q 30Who replaced Deep Throat as Mulder's informant in season two?
X
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.