The X-Files: Fight the Future

Perhaps nothing made conspiracy mainstream more than The X-Files, which debuted in 1993 on the fledging Fox Network. After struggling for years to launch a TV series, Chris Carter finally found success with an idea inspired by Watergate, classic horror and espionage television shows from his youth, and research suggesting that three percent of Americans believed they’d be abducted by aliens. 

Though initially rejected by Fox, Carter’s idea couldn’t have come at a better time. Art Bell’s Coast to Coast debuted in 1988 and received national syndication two years later. In 1989 Bob Lazar went public with claims of reverse engineering UFOs, and other military adjacent people came forward with similar accounts. Even major news outlets explored the idea that extraterrestrials traveled through our airspace. 

But perhaps most significantly, the world was at the dawn of the Information Age with the public gaining access to the Internet (we capitalized it back then). Anything that wasn’t readily available on “the web” left space for conspiracy theories, and message boards allowed like-minded people from around the globe to exchange and develop their ideas. And The X-Files arrived to connect the dots in a spooky, sexy, and often humorous weekly mystery. 

By the time The X-Files movie came out in 1998, Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) were pop culture icons. Even if the UFO frenzy had started dying down, fans of the show made the film one of the bigger financial successes of the year. Watching it now, certain elements seem a little tired and worn, others eerily prescient. And, I suspect, in a few years we’ll realize it’s not done projecting potential outcomes. Since its release, the subtitle Fight the Future was added. Perhaps with some foreknowledge, we’ll be able to do just that.

The film opens 35,000 B.C., in what will eventually be Texas, with some cavemen encountering hostile aliens and one of the hunters being consumed by the black goo (a major part of the show and something real-life paranormal investigators claim to have found). Jumping ahead to present day, some boys stumble upon the site and one of them suffers the same fate, along with two firefighters who go in to rescue him. Shadowy government men in hazmat suits show up to secure the scene.

One week later, Mulder and Scully are in Dallas after a bomb threat is made against a federal building. This was just three years after the Oklahoma City bombing, and it was still fresh in everyone’s minds. By simple, dumb luck, Mulder finds the bomb in a soda machine and they evacuate the building. However, we watch as the FBI special agent in charge doesn’t try to defuse the bomb and simply allows himself to get blown up. Later Mulder and Scully are disciplined because three more people were apparently killed in the blast: two firefighters and a little boy.

Mind you, this was long before 9/11 and as far as I can tell no one has suggested that the Oklahoma City bombing was designed to cover up some other crime. 

Mulder goes to a D.C. bar to drown his sorrows, and after telling the bartender that he’s just a guy “whose sister was abducted by aliens when he was a kid. Who now chases little green men with a badge and a gun, shouting to the heavens and anyone who’ll listen that the fix is in. That our government’s hip to the truth and a part of the conspiracy. The the sky is falling and when it hits, it’s gonna be the shitstorm of all time,” she cuts him off.

 

Outside, while drunkenly relieving himself on a movie poster for Independence Day (I don’t think that’s significant, just amusing), Mulder is approached by Dr. Kurtzweil (Martin Landau). And this is where things get interesting. Kurtzweil tells Mulder that he’s been following his career for some time and knew Mulder’s father. “We were what you might call,” he explains, “fellow travelers, but his disenchantment outlasted mine.” As we know, the question, “Are you a traveling man?” is used by Freemasons to identify one another. And we learn that Kurzweil worked for the Syndicate, a large (though not ancient) global organization that pulls the levers of government. However, in this case “fellow travelers,” likely relates to those who support a government ideology without becoming a formal member of the party.

While Kurtzweil now spends his time working as a gynecologist (which is stupid, because it gives the feds an easy way to frame him for heinous crimes) and writing conspiracy books, he may have some authority. Kurtzweil worked on the Project, a global conspiracy between the Syndicate and aliens to take over the Earth through creating alien/human hybrids. Sound familiar? It’s only been recently that Nephilim have gone mainstream, but here we’ve got hints of it almost three decades ago. In fact, as far as I can tell, Nephilim are never mentioned by name on The X-Files, but the implication is clear.

In The X-Files lore aliens want to create a slave race of alien/human hybrids, while the Syndicate plans to outsmart them by creating a vaccine to keep themselves from becoming infected hybrids themselves. Apparently, one can become a hybrid through receiving a virus carried by bees or through other means, and Mulder and Scully wander into the wrong, ginormous apiary. After Scully is stung and kidnapped, and Mulder nearly shot in the head, he’s given a syringe of the vaccine and told he had 96 hours to get it to her before she’s consumed. 

I won’t spoil the rest of the movie, though I’ll add that Mulder finds Scully in Antarctica and there’s a giant spaceship down there. Also, I’m sure I’ve overlooked elements that are worth further discussion, simply because there’s so much packed into this relatively short movie and we need to get into the nuts and bolts of what we’ve already covered. Obviously, our alarm bells are going off with the idea of a weaponized virus being unleashed by those who are supposed to protect us. Given recent government disclosures about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, would it really be shocking if we’re told our next pandemic came from outer space? 

However, what really put The X-Files: Fight the Future on my radar was this easily overlooked line from Kurtzweil: “Are you familiar with FEMA? What the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s real power is? FEMA allows the White House to suspend to suspend constitutional government upon declaration of a national emergency. To create a non-elected government. Think about that.” Predictive programming? A warning? Who knows.

Considering how much FEMA has been in the news recently, and for what, it’s no wonder some feel that it’s just as villainous in reality. If The X-Files has taught us anything, it’s the power and importance of the internet. The show wouldn’t have had a built-in audience without it. Yet according to Elon Musk, after Hurricane Helene, FEMA restricted his efforts to provide Starlink to the affected areas. And that was before reports that FEMA wasn’t providing aid to homes with Trump signs out front. You don’t necessarily need an alien virus to change a population.

If our next global panic is attributed to extraterrestrials, if FEMA continues to flex its power over US citizens, there’s nothing we can do to prevent it. But knowing it’s possible, that it may have even been foreshadowed in popular culture, will dull the shock and allow us to make wise decisions should the time come. At least that’s what “I Want to Believe.” 

In any case, The X-Files: Fight the Future is an entertaining movie and good entry point for those who’ve never watched the show. The conspiracy theory elements are never so overt as to feel like pandering, but fun(?) Easter eggs for those who know. Chris Carter is a skeptic, at best, and simply wanted to explore the psychology behind why some people believe in aliens and government coverups. Now, when so much of our entertainment is designed to tell us what to think, that alone makes The X-Files, grim as it may be, refreshing.