(Two part episode; part 1)

Now that season 3 has got it’s usual spin off episodes out the way, it’s back to good old fashioned aliens again – This episode sees the start of the X-Files fascination with transporting things across America in train cars. Mulder gets in trouble with the government when he apprehends a suspect at a crime scene, only to find he is a Japanese diplomat who can’t be touched. Meanwhile Scully investigates the authenticity of a alien autopsy video Mulder brought from some guy. Although they don’t actually know it, we see this autopsy being performed at the beginning, so technically – this counts as them actually witnessing something unusual.

Skinner makes an appearance to warn Mulder he’s getting in the way and Scully starts to learn the truth about what happened to her when she went missing with Duane Barry. As a result, she gets an intervention with a load of other women, which helps Scully remember what happened to her during that time. After finding the ‘abductee’ who’s been taking the most, the group inform her they will all eventually die of cancerous brain tumours as a result of the experiments, leaving Scully on edge… probably for the rest of the X-Files. She also recognises one of the scientists in the autopsy video from when she was abducted herself. Mulder now gets pressure from Skinner about some photos he nicked from the Japanese guy he caught, containing satellite pictures of a ship.

So once again – Mulder’s apartment gets tossed, and he goes to his Senator friend on the hill for advice. With all this going on, we have another rare moment where Scully refuses to believe, Mulder follows this up with ‘after all you’ve seen’, the beings in the tunnel, the records – they are attempting to create an alien\human hybrid. Scully admits that believing is the easy part.. she just needs proof. Meanwhile, Mulder puts the pieces together and tries to figure out why all the scientists doing the autopsy on the alien were killed, he suspects the US government killed them to put a stop to the experiments they’ve been doing on aliens since the war.

When lurking around the train yard, he sees a large object covered up in a hanger, with various technicians working on it, based on the information of a strange ship that was pictured in the documents he recovered, he can only assume the ship recovered the crashed UFO, and the alien. However when he sees something being loaded onto a different box car, something alive – he must get on. Despite Mr X’s warnings about the dangers, Mulder jumps from a bridge onto the moving train.