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   The X-Files Timeline

The truth is out There, but all the lies lead us to the truth

 

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1970 to Pilot Episode

1970s
Eddie Van Blundht, Senior, appears as Eddie the Monkey Man in a circus side show. His son, Eddie Junior, is also born with a vestigial tail, which is later surgically removed. Both of them have a unique layer of voluntary muscle under the skin that allows them to appear to be other people. They eventually settle in Martinsburg, West Virginia. (Small Potatoes)
1970
Samantha Mulder breaks her collar bone, at age 6. (Paper Hearts)
Circa 1970 young Dana Scully hides a rabbit in a lunch box, to protect it from her older brother, Bill. She returns to find it dead. (In Christmas Carol, she appeared to be 5 or 6 years old when dreaming about this event.)
Walter Skinner enlists in the Marines on his 18th birthday, but three months later becomes disillusioned when he has to kill an armed child in Vietnam. He begins using drugs. Later, his patrol is caught in an ambush, he is wounded and believes he has an out-of-body experience. He sees an old woman he believes to be an hallucination, watching his wounded body, and helping him return from "the light" that represents death. He wakes up in a Saigon hospital two weeks later, afraid to look beyond his experience.(Avatar)
A group of marines at Paris Island submits to a surgical process that eliminates the need for, and their ability to, sleep. Included is Augustas Cole, nicknamed Preacher, because he quotes the Bible. The theory is that sleep is the greatest enemy a soldier has. The squad eventually refuses to take orders from its company commander, including killing over 300 children at Phu By, in Vietnam.(Sleepless)
Circa 1970-72
In the episode Space, Mulder comments that the Apollo mission of astronaut Maruc Arelius Belt suffered an oxygen loss.
Marty Glenn is born as her mother dies from a stab wound inflicted by Charles Wesley Gotts. Surgeons save Marty, but she is born blind as a result of the loss of blood flow. Gotts, who is also Marty's father, is not caught but is arrested for another crime and sent to prison for 28 years. Marty grows us "seeing" through the eyes of Gotts as he lives in prison. She does not realize whose eyes she sees through. (Mind's Eye)
1971
Melissa Riedel is born. Mulder believes her to be a reincarnation of his civil war era lover. (TFWID)
In Vietnam, a helicopter carrying personnel of the Green Beret B-11 Bloody Sabers is shot down, including Sergeant Nathaniel J. Teager and Lance Corporal Gary Davenport. The soldiers are taken prisoner. Three teeth recovered from the crash site are identified as those of Teager, and he is reported dead. In fact, at least a dozen American soldiers are held in captivity for almost 25 years. When Saigon falls, they are not repatriated. (Unrequited)
Raybert Phillips goes to work for the Mississippi Department of Corrections.(Trevor)
1972
Near Bloomington, Indiana, a farmer named Pollidori realizes that his research-scientist son has created a deformed child. The farmer takes the child, and raises him as his own. (The Post-Modern Prometheus said the child came to life 25 years earlier. It was unclear how old the child was when Mr. Pollidori took him.)
May 2, 1972
J. Edgar Hoover dies. (Historical)
November 20, 1972
Carl Sagan, Philip Morrison, Ashley Montagu and other scientists participate in a symposium sponsored by NASA on intelligent life in the universe. The session is recorded, and Fox Mulder eventually acquires a copy of the video tape. (Gethsemane)
1973
The Adam and Eve clones in the Litchfield Experiment become homocidal. This may be about the time that Eve 8 escapes. The project is given the highest level of classified status by the Federal Government and all records are destroyed. Also around this time, Eve 7 enters college, with the goal of completing degrees in genetics and medicine. She takes the name Sally Kendrick.(Eve)(The escape of Eve 8 was given as ten years after Eve 7 escaped, which was given as early in the history of the project.
A photograph is taken at a West Virginia mine where medical data on hundreds of thousands of people is filed. The photo includes Bill Mulder, German scientist Victor Klemperer, the Cancer Man, the Well Manicured Man and several other members of the Conspiracy. (Nisei & 731) Development of this database may have been required prior to the beginning of the human-alien hybrid program. (Two Fathers, etc.)
In Detour, Mulder mentions that he and his father were Indian Guides. The YMCA reportedly sponsors this organization, which is similar to Boy Scouts but is specificly for fathers and sons. In 1973, Mulder is twelve years old. He might have been a member for up to three of four years.
Circa this period, the Scully family lives in California, while William Scully is stationed at Miramar Naval Air Station, San Diego. While there, Dana is vaccinated for smallpox. Commander Johansen is a neighbor, three doors down. His son Richard and Dana are playmates, and often play a game called Beckons Wanted. (731 & Nisei)
In Little Green Men, Scully says that in spite of having spent time in the San Diego area, she never visited the Mount Palomar Observatory.
Eight year old Lucy Householder is kidnapped and held captive for five years in a basement.(Oubliette)
The American Indian Movement occupies the Pine Ridge Reservation village of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, for 78 days. Law enforcement officers surround the community, including the FBI. A 43 year old Trego Indian man named Ish is one of the activists. (Historical and Shapes)
The Defense Department reports to the public that there are no further Americans prisoners of war in Southeast Asia. A cover-up is implemented to hide the fact that there really are Americans still held captive. (Unrequited)
October, 1973
John Lee Roche claims to have sold an Electro-vac Princess canister vacuum cleaner to William Mulder, as a gift for his wife, Tina. In fact, Mrs. Mulder is given a Princess model, which she takes with her to Greenwich, Connecticut after her divorce. (Paper Hearts)
October 13, 1973
(This entire date entry is based on One Son.)
State Department staff members have learned that the aliens encountered at Roswell are planning to colonize Earth in a process that will kill all humans. For reasons that are not completely clear, the Colonists negotiate to delay the colonization while the members of the Project develop both a means of distributing the alien Black Oil virus, as well as develop a race of human-alien hybrids that is immune to the Black Oil. The operatives of the project take a vote and agree to work with the Colonists as a way of stalling for time while they try to develop a defense against the Black Oil. In this way, the Conspiracy is born, and the new Consortium is not controlled by any government.

Bill Mulder is the only dissenting vote. When the aliens provide an alien fetus to the Consortium, providing DNA with which to develop the hybrids, Mulder devises a plan to use the DNA to create a vaccine, so that the entire human population might be saved.

When the humans agree to help the Colonists, the aliens demand that each give up a child or other loved one into the custody of the colonists, with the promise that they will be returned when the colonization begins. The plan is that they, as well as the members and other family of the Consortium, will receive the alien genes and become hybrids themselves.

It is unclear why the Colonists need help from humans, and why they are willing to wait for years for the hybrids to be developed. It is also unclear what use the Colonists would have for immune hybrids.

A dark, shadowy organization of people, mostly men, the Consortium eventually includes members from many countries. Conspiracy leaders and operatives do not hesitate at murder and other crimes to further the goals of the Conspiracy. The conspiracy is also also known as the Consortium and the Syndicate. (Two Fathers, etc.)

Conrad Strughold becomes involved at some point and gains a position of authority in the Consortium. Meetings involving him are generally held in London, as opposed to most meetings of the Consportium which are held in New York. This suggests that he may be unable to legally enter the United States.

As time goes by, and no vaccine is developed, some members of the Consortium come to believe that slavery for the human race is better than death. They become more interested in their personal futures and gaining preferred status from the Colonists. Other members of the Consortium, however, apparently remain pure to the original goal of defeating the Colonists.

November 1973??
In Demons, Mulder experiences a series of flashbacks to events in his family's summer cottage in Rhode Island during which Bill Mulder apparently tells his wife that Samantha must be taken. In the flashback, the Mulders argue and the Smoking Man is present -- at one point calling young Fox a spy. Closed captioning reveals Mrs. Mulder repeatedly says "not Samantha," and Bill Mulder says that the orders came down from on high. Bill Mulder and Cancer Man also argue during the flashbacks, which may or may not be true, due to the drugs Mulder received that induced the flashbacks.
Tina Mulder later (in Demons) says her husband asked her to decide which child should be taken, but she could not and hated her husband for making the choice. The evidence in a West Virginia mine indicates that Fox was originally chosen, but the decision was changed, with Samantha ultimately taken. Does that mean William Mulder chose Fox to be taken, and somehow his decision was overridden? Or that Bill changed his mind about which of his children would grow up to make the best operative agains the Colonists?
November 27, 1973
Samantha Mulder and Cassandra Spender both disappear. On this day Gerald R. Ford is confirmed as Vice President of the United States. Also on this date, Rosemary Woods admits that she was responsible for erasure of some, but not all of the 18 minute gap on a tape recorded in President Nixon's office. (Historical)
The date is given in the episode Conduit, which gives Samantha's address at the time as 2790 Vine Street, Chilmarc, Mass, different from the address on her smallpox vaccination certificate. It is repeated in Two Fathers and One Son, which makes clear that both women were taken on the same day.
Cassandra Spender, wife of C.G.M. Spender, is later confirmed to have been kidnapped repeatedly by the government conspiracy, working to make her a human-alien hybrid. C.G.M. Spender is later determined to be an alias of the Cigarette Smoking Man. (Two Fathers) Someone who is apparently Cassandra is seen in One Son preparing to enter the alien spacecraft along with other loved ones of the Consortium members. Either this delivery of family members took place after November 27th or it was not really Cassandra seen on screen.
Samantha is said in One Son to have been taken later than the others, because Bill Mulder delayed "coming to his senses" about the plan. In the X-Files Movie novelization, the Well Manicured Man tells Fox Mulder that his father refused to believe that victory against the Colonists consists of merely staying alive. WMM says that Samantha was abducted, to be taken to a cloning program so she would become immune and survive. WMM also says that Bill Mulder's hope for FOX was that he would uncover the truth about the Project and do everything possible to stop it.

It is unclear why Cassandra was apparently taken by the aliens but returned for experimentation.

Samantha is taken just as her older brother, Fox, is getting ready to watch his favorite TV program, The Magician, starring Bill Bixby. Their parents are next door, visiting the Galbrands.(Little Green Men) In Conduit, Mulder's voice on his hypnosis tape says as Samantha is being taken, he hears a voice in his head saying she will return someday, which is something he says "I want to believe."

Fox comes to believe Samantha has been kidnapped by aliens. Mr. and Mrs. Mulder separate soon after and divorce. William Mulder later sells the house in Chilmark and buys a home in West Tisbury, also on Martha's Vineyard. (Paper Hearts) After her divorce, Mrs. Mulder later lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, keeping much of her property in storage in the basement, including a vacuum cleaner. (731 & Nisei; Paper Hearts) By Sein Und Seit she is living in an apartment, rather than a house.
Samantha ends up in the care of C.G.M. Spender and she lives with his family in residential quarters on the April Air Force Base in California. Jeffrey spender is apparently living with the family, as well. Both of the children's handprints are placed in fresh concrete outside the family home. Samantha is subjected to repeated tests that she comes to hate. (Closure)
Young Fox has a recurring nightmare in which he wakes up and thinks he is the only person left in the world. He is always reassured to find his father in the study, eating sunflower seeds. (Aubrey) He often closes his eyes when he climbs the stairs of his house, hoping that he will open them again and his sister will be in her room.(Conduit)
1974
Government sponsored testing of radiation treatment on civilians, without first obtaining permission, ends. (Historical) Dr. Zama continues his experimentation in West Virginia. (731 & Nisei)
Jack Willis enters college. During his school years, both of his parents die, leaving him, among other things, a mountain cabin. At some point during his school years or later he decides on a career in the FBI.(Lazarus)
August 8th, 1974
Richard Nixon resigns the Presidency of the United States.(Historical)
June 1975
Addie Sparks is kidnapped from her home in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and killed by John Lee Roche. (Paper Hearts)
Circa 1975
A house near the Mulder's burns, and Fox and others sleep in the damaged building to keep looters away. For years after he has bad dreams about being trapped in a burning building. (Fire)
Mulder later says that when he was 14, he stayed up all night to watch the spacewalk of famous astronaut Marcus Aurelius Belt. (Space) (It is unclear what mission this was on. The last Skylab mission ended February, 8 1974. The only American manned spaceflight in 1975 was Apollo-Soyuz, July 15-24, 1975. The first orbital Space Shuttle flight was April 12-14 1981.)
Sometime during the 1970s, Herman and Albert Pinckbeck perform together in a magic act. Albert eventually leaves the act and ends up in a career in banking. Herman continues performing. (The Amazing Maleeni)
1976
Darius Michaud joins the FBI. (Movie)
1977
Star Wars is released. (Historical)
Cassandra Spender is involved in a UFO cult.(Patient X)
August 2, 1977
On this day and September 5, 1977, two Voyager spacecraft are launched from the Kennedy Space Flight Center in Florida. Each carries a gold recording with many messages from mankind. The first piece of music on the recording is Bach's Brandenberg Concerto Number Two.(Historical and Little Green men)
August 1977
A researcher working with the Ohio State University finds data on a signal received that was thirty times stronger than the galactic background, on a wavelength of 21 centimeters. He is so impressed that he writes "WOW" on the printout. The signal comes to be known as the "WOW Signal," and is considered the best evidence to date of a possible extraterrestrial transmission, although it is not considered to be definitive evidence. (Historical fact, mentioned in Little Green Men
December 25, 1977
In Christmas Carol, Dana dreams about receiving her cross necklace from her mother for Christmas in 1977 or maybe 1976. This contradicts the statement in Ascension that it was February 23, 1979. In the dream, Melissa Scully gets a similar one for Christmas. In the dream, Dana wears braces. In the dream, Dana also hopes to receive the album "Hotel California," which was released in 1976.
1978
Lucy Householder, age 13, escapes from her captor and is found alongside a road in Washington State. She subsequently is in trouble with the law for prostitution and drugs. For a while she lives with a boyfriend who later goes to prison for child endangerment. (Oubliette)
A fifth series of murders in the northwest, in which the victims are ripped to shreds and eaten. The case remains unsolved. (Shapes)
At age 13-14, Dana Scully repeatedly sneaks downstairs, steals her mother's cigarettes and goes outside to smoke. She is both revolted by the taste and excited by the danger. (Beyond the Sea and Never Again)
June 13, 1978
Morris and Joanne Fletcher are married. He soon becomes a "man in black" working at Area 51 to mislead the american public about the existance of aliens.(Dreamland II)
1979
Morris Fletcher later says that in 1979 he "created" Saddam Hussein, putting dinner theater actor John Gilnitz into the job of ruler of Iraq to that Gilnitz could make trouble every time a distraction was needed from other affairs.(Dreamland II)
February 23, 1979
On Dana's fifteenth birthday, Margaret Scully gives her daughter a necklace consisting of a gold cross on a gold chain. (Ascension) (Note: In Christmas Carol, Dana has a dream remembering receiving the necklace at Christmas, 2 to 3 years earlier. Since dreams are not always true, we can't tell for sure when she received it.)
1979
Eddie Van Blundht and his girlfriend Amanda date throughout high school. Amanda later says they went to the theater every weekend. In 1979, Star Wars was re-released in conjunction with the release of The Empire Strikes Back. This would have been the latest they could have seen it in the theater prior to release of the modified version of the film in 1997. Amanda presumably watched it many more times on video cassette in order to reach her figure of 400 times by Memorial Day 1997. If they were Freshmen in 1979, they would each be about 32 in 1997, which fits their apparent age as seen on screen. (Small Potatoes)
Izzy Berkewitz is born to Shaineh Berkewitz as the result of experiments by a farmer named Pollidori. The experiments are intended to create a mate for a physically deformed child in Pollidori's care. Over the succeeding years several additional children are born from such experiments. Each seems to have physical characteristics in common with a barnyard animal. (The Post-Modern Prometheus.)
Computer genius Donald Gelman is offered a commercial deal that could set him up as another Bill Gates. He goes hiking in the Sierras to think it over and disappears. His disappearance is infamous among computer geeks, but in reality he goes into hiding to pursue his own projects, in part because he is being investigaed by the NSA. Gelman is one of a group of Silicon Valley pioneers although at age 28 he is the "old man" and is not really "one" of them, although he works with them. One of his key interests is the fledgling networks that will become the Internet. He also has significant interests in artificial intelligence. (Based on the statement in Kill Switch that this happened in 1979.)
October 23, 1979
Unable to stand the tests any longer, Samantha Mulder, age 14, runs away from the Spender home at April Air Force Base in California. She believes that those performing the tests have taken her memories -- she has only vague memories of a brother. She is picked up by police as a runaway and taken to Dominic Savio Memorial Hospital, suffering from paranoia and what are considered to be self-inflicted wounds. She gives no name and allows no one but the emergency room nurse, Arbutus Ray, to touch her. As Samantha sleeps, Ray has a brief vision of Samantha dead in her bed, but the vision quickly passes and Samantha is fine. Late that night, a group of men arrives to take Samantha, but the nurse finds that Samantha has disappeared from a locked hospital room, never to be seen again. (Closure)
1980
Cancer Man rigs the Olympic hockey game between the United States and the Soviet Union by injecting the Soviet goal tender with a drug, causing him to be less effective during the game. He uses an unseen needle on a bogus wedding ring to make the injection. (Musings...)
Sometime while she is in high school, Dana Scully participates in a seance, possibly as a party game. (Closure)
May 1980
Fox Mulder graduates from High School. (Based on being 18 year old at graduation.)
1981
Dean Tencate is born in Pocatella, Idaho. (Sein Und Zeit)
1982
FBI agent Duane Barry is shot in the head. He survives, but has severe mental problems for the rest of his life. He later believes that he is repeatedly abducted by aliens. His wife and family leave him. (Duane Barry)
Spring 1982
Dana Scully and her boyfriend Marcus attend the Senior Prom. Afterwards, they party with some friends who build a campfire that attracts the fire department. (Small Potatoes)
Fall 1982
Dana Scully enters college, receiving an undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Maryland, taking courses in German (Unruhe) and writing a thesis on Einstein's Twins Paradox. (Pilot) (Some sources say she spends her first year at the University of California, Berkley and then transfers to Maryland.)
Augustus Cole is admitted to a VA hospital in New Jersey for problems relating to his inability to sleep.(Sleepless)
Harvard ethnobotanist Wade Davis does extensive field research in Haiti on the alleged phenomenon of zombies. He analyses several zombie potions prepared by voodoo priests and finds Tetrodetoxin in each of them. A lethal poison, in small enough doses it can depress cardiorespiratory reflexes, and cause paralysis. (Fresh Blood)
1983
Eve 6 is incarcerated in the Whiting Institute for the Criminally Insane, according to what she told Mulder and Scully in 1993. She claims to be the continuing subject of tests under the Litchfield Experiment. (Eve)
Fox Mulder enters college, graduating from Oxford with a degree in psychology in 1986. (Date from resume screen in Unusual Suspects.)
While at Oxford, he develops a relationship with Phoebe Green, who herself becomes a British law enforcement officer. He later comments that it took him ten years to forget about her, which would place it at about the time he will meet Scully. Fox and Phoebe share a "certain youthful indiscretion" atop the tomb of A. Conan Doyle. (Fire)
In Little Green Men he mentions taking Music Appreciation with Professor Ganz. Presumably this was in college.
1983
Computer genius Donald Gelman creates an interlocking set of computer viruses in an attempt to create an artificial intelligence. He releases the viruses into the computer networks which would later become part of the Internet. His intent is that the A.I. evolve in its natural environment. This is about the time that ARPANET is split into ARPANET and MILNET. This gave the A.I. access to the Defense Data Network created the previous year. (Based on the statement in Kill Switch that this happened 15 years earlier.)
Early 1984
The Air Force seizes 89,000 acres to the north and west of Groom Lake, pushing the security border far from the base.(Published accounts)
August, 1984
In Congressional hearings concerning the Groom Lake land seizure, the Air Force representative makes the statement that while the Air Force had no legal authority to seize the land (as far as he knew) the decision to do so was made at a much higher level than his. He would only go into the details in a closed session.(Published accounts)
1985
Sally Kendrick, AKA Eve 7, goes to work for the Luther Stape Center for Reproductive Medicine in San Francisco. Among her patients are Mr. and Mrs. Joel Simmons and Mr. and Mrs. Doug Reardon. Eve 7 is employed as a resident at the Center after having completed her MD degree at Yale, first in her class, and perviously having obtained a PhD in Biogenetics. She secretly clones herself twice. The clones are born as Cindy Reardon and Tina Simmons. Eventually, Eve 6 is suspended for experimentation with eugenics. She is fired and censured by the American Medical Association. The federal government declines to investigate her, and she disappears.(Eve)
1986
Fox Mulder completes his Oxford degree in Psychology. In the Pilot, Mulder tells Scully "I went off to school in England, I came back, got recruited by the Bureau..." implying his entire college career may have been in England. (1986 from resume screen in Unusual Suspects.)
Mulder is given the FBI badge number 22791. (The Amazing Maleeni)
At some point during his school years as he studies psychology, Mulder watches a documentary about an insane asylum in which an inmate claims to have been abducted by the "Fire Demons." The documentary gives Mulder nightmares, probably because of what he imagines might have happened to Samantha if she was abducted the same way, and because of his fear of fire. (Our Town)
In The End, the Lone Gunmen say that Diana Fowley was Mulder's "chickadee" at the time he graduated from the FBI Academy, in 1986. On the other hand, Diana implied that she and Mulder knew each other in 1991, about the time she graduated from the FBI Academy. One conclusion is that they had a relationship dating back to 1986, and she applied to the FBI later.
At Greenwood Memorial Hospital in Chicago, four people die. After a lengthy investigation, the incidents are declared accidents. A doctor is also reported dead, apparently from stress. Actually, he changes his identity and appearance, apparently with satanic assistance. (Sanguinarium)
Napoleon "Neech" Manley is sentenced to death for a Florida liquor store robbery. Manley was the get away car driver. The actual gunman was killed in the robbery. Appeals in Manley's sentence will take a decade. He has already been in Eastpoint State Penitentiary, Leon County, Florida for over a year, pending the final sentencing. He becomes obsessed with reincarnation. (The List)
Sometime in 1986 Gibson Praise is born. He later indicates that he lives in the Phillipeans, but details are unclear. (Might he be a US military dependent or son of an American businessperson?) Mulder later finds evidence suggesting that Gibson has alien DNA, allowing him to read minds. (The End)
May 15, 1986
The date on Scully's senior thesis, at the University of Maryland, "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation." Page twelve of the manuscript mentions MJ-12, and cites biographical information on two scientists connected with NACA, Dr. Detlev Bronk and Dr. Jerome Hunsaker, and mentions a super-secret operation. (Musing...)
The thesis also addresses time travel, as suggested by its title. The thesis includes the following two comments: "Although common sense may rule out the possibility of time travel, the laws of quantum physics certainly do not." "Although multi-dimensionality suggests infinite outcomes in an infinite number of universes, each universe can produce only one outcome." (Synchrony)
1986
Mulder graduates at the top of his 15-week class at the Quantico FBI academy, earning the nickname "Spooky." (1986 date from resume screen in Unusual Suspects.)
In many ways he is a protege of William Patterson. Famous in the FBI for his skill as a criminologist, Patterson teaches that it is necessary to "become the monster" in order to understand the murdered. Mulder feels Patterson dislikes him, because Mulder is not a dutiful enough student. Patterson, however, follows Mulder's career, and holds him in very high respect. (In Grotesque, Scully mentions that Patterson's conflict with Mulder was 8 years earlier, yielding early 1988 or maybe late 1987. 1986 date for Mulder at the FBI Academy given in resume screen in Unusual Suspects.)
Using what he has learned from Patterson, Mulder writes a monograph on serial killers and the occult that helps catch Monte Props.(Pilot)
Mulder's initial FBI assignment is apparently as a "general assignment" agent. (Unusual Suspects gives his assignment to the Violent Crimes unit as 1988, which is confirmed by statements in Tooms.)
1987
According to Deep Throat, a group of school children from a southern state is injected with cloned alien DNA without their parent's knowledge. (The Erlenmeyer Flask)
B.J. Morrow becomes a police officer, circa 1987. (Aubrey)
Scully's God-son is born to her friend Ellen. (The Jersey Devil)
In Pocatella, Idaho, Six year old Dean Tencate disappears from his bed. A note is found, written in his mother's handwriting, threatening Dean's life and containing the cryotic phrase "no one shoots Santa Claus." Kathy Lee Tencate is sentenced to twelve years in prison, although her son's body is never found.(Sein Und Zeit)
1988
The FBI begins a study that lasts seven years of devil worship and the occult, and their influence, if any, on American youth. (Die Hand Die Verleitz)
Members of the high school class of 1989 of Bellefleur, Oregon, begin suffering a series of unexplained disappearances and deaths. Others suffer from what appears to post traumatic stress syndrome. (Pilot)
Beginning this year, seven X-Files cases are opened in which people become deranged with the belief that a person is really a monster masquerading as a human. They each use a phrase something to the effect that the monster is "hiding in the light" so that most people do not see it. This same year, Greg Pinkas goes to work for VinalRight siding. He is present in each of the seven cases. Locations include Colorado, Texas, Missouri, Illinois, and Minnesota, among others. In fact, Pinkas is some sort of insectoid being that has the ability to cloud people's minds to not see him. Darkness reduces the effectiveness of this clouding. Pinkas creates zombies by injecting victims with a toxin at the backs of their necks. The final case is in Oak Brook, Illinois, in May of 1998. (Folie a Duex)
February 23, 1989??
In Lazarus, Scully says that when she was sitting for her Medical Boards, she forgot her birthday. It is unclear what year that would have been, but possibly before her internship?
Late 1988
Mulder is assigned to the violent crimes section, where he is generally considered to be an expert analyst. (In Tooms, Mulder says he worked for three years with the FBI Behavioral Science unit, profiling serial killers. In Unusual Suspects, the resume screen indicated 1988 for his assignment to Violent Crimes. This matches well with his assignment to the X-Files in late 1991 or early 1992.)
Mulder is partnered with Jerry Lamana in the Violent Crimes unit. (Ghost in the Machine)
1988 or 89
Mulder is stationed in Washington DC. He initially offends his supervisor, Reggie Purdue, who later comes to greatly respect Mulder's intellect.
In Mulder's first case in Washington DC, John Irvin Barnett, a New Hampshire native, kills seven people in the course of various armed robberies. A major task force is created, and Mulder's theory is that Barnett has a confederate in the armored car company, tipping him off to major cash shipments.
Barnett begins sending taunting notes to Mulder. Barnett is caught, but agent Steve Wohlenberg dies in a shoot-out. Mulder is convinced he could have saved Wohlenberg, although he acted by the book. Mulder never forgives himself. Barnett vows "I'll get you" to Mulder. (Young at Heart)
1989
Scully drifts away from the Catholic Church, making her last confession for six years. (Revelations)
February 23, 1989??
In Lazarus, Scully says that when she was sitting for her Medical Boards, she forgot her birthday. It is unclear what year that would have been, but possibly before her internship?
May 1989
Robert Lazar's first interviews are broadcast on KLAS-TV in Las Vegas. Lazar states he had been hired to reverse engineer extraterrestrial craft at a facility at Papoose Lake, just southwest of Groom Lake. Lazar's appearance focuses the first widespread public interest on the Groom Lake area. Lazar's background is suspect. Several items on his resume cannot be confirmed. (Published Accounts)
May 1989
Unusual Suspects. The trio of paranoid conspiracy theorists known as The Lone Gunmen meet and begin working together. At a consumer electronics show in Baltimore, Byers enlists the assistance of Melvin Frohike and Langly to help a women who claims her three year old daughter has been kidnapped by a psychopathic ex-boyfriend. The two are competing hackers, and are each selling equipment to steal and descramble cable television service.
The plot thickens when Susanne identifies Mulder, also attending the show, as the ex-boyfriend, and when Langly discovers that the woman, Susanne Modeski, is wanted by the FBI.
Susanne explains that she was a research scientist at the Army Advanced Weapons facility at Whitestone, NM. She developed a gas that causes fear and paranoia, that the military plans to test on civilians. They track the material to a warehouse, where they find the gas in a shipment of asthma inhalers. Mulder follows them, and there is a gunfight between Mulder and two agents of the Conspiracy, who want to take Susanne into custody. Suzanne kills them when they are about to kill Mulder. Mulder inhales some of the paranoia gas, and writhes on the floor, undressing.
Conspiracy operatives lead by X arrive to sanitize the site. They leave Byers, Frohike and Langly unharmed, with the caution to "behave." X specificly instructs his operatives to not touch Mulder. Susanne escapes. Mulder thinks he sees the crew sanitizing the site as aliens, although they are human.
The Lone Gunmen trace Susanne and she admonishes them to tell as many people as they can about the government conspiracy. They witness Susanne being taken into custody by X. (Richard Belzer guest stars as Lt. Munch, his character from "Homicide: Life on the Street." Langly's last name, reported to be "Ringo" in early scripts, did not make it into the final edit of this episode.)
In "Three of a Kind," we learn that Suzanne was held captive and possibly subjected to medical tests. Eventually Grant Ellis, another employee of the Advanced Weapons Facility, rescues her. She does not trust him for a long time, but eventually comes to believe that he is working from within to undermine the project. By 1999 she will be engaged to him.
June 16, 1989
Mulder works with Dr. Heits Werber to use regression therapy to remember the night his sister disappeared. He remembers a voice in his head telling him that Samantha will not be harmed and will one day return. Mulder tells Werber that "I want to believe" that voice. (Werber mentioned in Pilot, June 16 given in Conduit) In addition to the audio tape seen in Conduit, a videotape recording is made, seen in Closure.
September 16, 1989
John Irvin Barnett, the subject of Mulder's first investigation, is reported dead in Tashmoo Federal Correctional Facility, of cardiac arrest. (Young at Heart)
His friend, Joe Crandell, sees a doctor operating on Barnett, and believes Barnett is not dead. Dr. Joseph Ridley believes he has learned how to reverse the effects of aging and conducts secret unauthorized experiments on his patients. He eventually loses his medical license for unethical experimentation on humans, but no one connects his work with Barnett. (Young at Heart)
Late December 1989
Henry Weems is the only survivor of a commuter jet crash into Lake Michigan. He is sitting in Seat 13 of Flight 7. He soon discovers that he has acquired extraordinarily good luck, but that people around him tend to suffer because of his luck. He resigns his job in a train yard and moves to Melrose Park where he becomes an apartment building superintendent and tries to avoid situations in which his good luck will result in bad luck for others. He also begins building complex machines like those designed by Rube Goldberg because they illustrate how his luck sometimes causes events to play out. (The Goldberg Variation)
Late 1980s or early 1990s??
Dana Scully's nephew is born. (Home: This is apparently a son of Charles Scully, because Dana's other two siblings, Bill and Melissa, have no children as of this date. In 1996, Scully mentions her nephew watching the movie "Babe." Assuming that Charles is the younger of Scully's brothers, the nephew could not have been born much before this time frame.)
1990s??
Eddie Van Blundht, Sr., dies of heart disease and old age, but his son hides his body, using his unique shape changing abilities to impersonate his father to get the social security checks. (Small Potatoes)
At some point, described only as "several years" before 1997, a forensic anthropologist named Arlinsky is implicated in a UFO photo enhancement scandal. (Gethsemane)
At some point, possibly in the 1990s or possibly much earlier, a team of Russian geologists locates rock from the Tunguska meteorite. The rock contains an organism, probably extraterrestrial in origin, that invades human bodies. It comes to be called the "Black Cancer." Russians begin perfecting a vaccination. Eventually the Conspiracy learns of its existence and begins efforts to acquire samples of the rock and organism.
Working for the conspiracy, Dr. Bonita Charre-Sayre uses her position as a consulting physician for a chain of convalescent homes to test patients with Black Cancer, without their knowledge. She begins a relationship with the Well Manicured Man.
She also begins advocating the destruction of the last samples of smallpox virus, held in research laboratories following eradication of the disease. This position is the result of her secret knowledge of the use of smallpox by the Conspiracy.
The Russian government may have sent Alex Krycek to America as a mole to infiltrate the Conspiracy with the ultimate plan of ending Conspiracy Black Cancer research. On the other hand, maybe the Russians did not know that Alex was an agent of the Consortium, or maybe somebody else. It is hard telling. (Terma)
1990
At least two pilots at Ellens AFB begin acting strangely in a way Scully later says is typical of reaction to extreme stress.(Deep Throat)
Reggie Purdue assigns Mulder to a serial murder case involving girls age 8 to 12, thinking Mulder can get inside the killer's head. A profile written by Mulder helps catch John Lee Roche, who had traveled the Northeast as a vacuum cleaner salesman. Each girl he killed was abducted from her home and strangled with 8-gauge electrical wire. He kept a heart-shaped patch of cloth from the chest of each victim, hiding them in a copy of Alice in Wonderland, and hiding the book in the head liner of his white El Camino. Roche confesses to the murders of 13 girls, dating back to 1979, and is sentenced to life in prison. He does not mention his three earliest murders. The case comes to be called the Paper Heart murders, because of the cloth hearts he took as trophies. Mulder hopes to someday find the trophy hearts, and see if there were only 13 murders. (Paper Hearts)
The American Voyager 1 spacecraft crosses the orbit of Neptune, effectively leaving the solar system.(Little Green Men)
Early 1990
Dana Scully completes medical school. The FBI recruits her during final months of her residency and she enrolls in the 15-week FBI Academy training course. Her parents consider her joining the FBI to be an act of rebellion, but Dana sees it as a place where she can distinguish herself. (Pilot)
Scully's father, in particular, does not approve of her decision to enter the FBI, and never actually tells her prior to his death that he accepts her decision. (Beyond the Sea)
In Christmas Carol, Scully dreams about a conversation she had with Melissa shortly before going to Quantico. Scully says when she entered Medical School, the decision seemed right. Now, the FBI seems right. She expresses concern that it may turn out not to be right. Melissa cautions her that the real important things are the people she meets along the way. In the dream, the conversation was at Christmas, but in reality it may have been on another occasion.
February 23, 1990
Scully and FBI Academy instructor Jack Willis celebrate their mutual birthday by going to what Scully later called a "dive" in Stratford. They are involved in a relationship that lasts for roughly a year. It is unknown how they begin the relationship, but might it be the result of this joint birthday celebration?(Lazarus)
Spring 1990
Scully graduates from the 15-week new agent course at the FBI Academy, and is soon assigned to teach at the Academy, because of her medical degree. An infamous instructor is Nancy Spiller, a forensics specialist known by the nickname The Iron Maiden. (Lazarus) One student is Kelly Ryan, with whom Scully remains in contact, among other things telling her about Mulder. (Soft Light)
Winter 1990-91
Jack Willis takes his girlfriend, Dana Scully, to his parent's lake cabin. He teaches her ice fishing. While they are there, they run out of wood for heating the cabin and he has to wrap her in a blanket.(Lazarus)
November 17, 1990
Travelers. A sheriff's officer and a landlord arrive at a rundown rural house to evict the tenant, Edward Skur. They enter the house and find the remains of a body in the bathtub. Edward Skur attacks the officer and Skur is shot. He dies saying the name "Mulder."
Three days later, Fox Mulder interviews former FBI agent Arthur Dale who opened an X-Files on Skur in 1952. Most of the original FBI report has been edited out. Dale has little to say to Mulder, but Mulder realizes that Skur was saying the name of Bill Mulder, Fox's father. Dale mentions the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) and the Army-McCarthy hearings of the 1950s that investigated alleged communists in the American government in the 1950s. Mulder finds a tape of one of the hearings and sees his father in the audience. Returning to Dale's home, Fox gets Dale to tell him about the events of 1952.
1990
Fox Mulder may have had a brief marriage circa 1990. In Travelers he is seen to be wearing a wedding ring, although it is not referenced in the episode. David Duchovney has been quoted as saying that it was his idea to give Mulder a wedding ring as well as to show him smoking in Travelers. He said he wanted to give Mulder a wife that he never ever would talk about. On the other hand, in The End, we learn about Mulder's relationship with Diana Fowley, around this same time. Were they married? Did Mulder pick up with her after his divorce? Did Mulder have some reason for wearing a wedding ring when he was not married? What about the Lone Gunmen's comment placing the Mulder-Fowley relationship as far back as 1986? (Travelers and The End)
Late 1990 or Early 1991
Mulder's success in violent crimes allows him a certain latitude to pursue his own interests. He discovers the X-Files. (Pilot)
Lone Gunmen later tell Scully that Diana Fowley was Mulder's "chickadee" at the time he graduated from the FBI Academy, in 1986. On the other hand, Diana implied that she and Mulder knew each other in 1991, about the time she graduated from the FBI Academy. One conclusion is that they had a relationship dating back to 1986, and she applied to the FBI later. At any rate, the Lone Gunmen say that Diana was present when Mulder discovered the X-Files. This apparently happened given the tip provided to Mulder by former FBI agent Arthur Dale in November 1990. (Travelers and The End.)
1991
The Simmons family moves from San Francisco to Greenwich Conneticut, including their five year old daughter Tina, who is actually an Eve clone. Also during this year, Mrs. Simmons dies of ovarian cancer. Unknown whether it was before or after the move.(Eve.)
Scully's former playmate, Richard Johansen, is killed in a training accident during the Gulf War. (731 & Nisei)
Michael Kritschgau claims in 1997 that his son, Michael Jr., is very ill as the result of Conspiracy chemical warefare experiments during the Gulf War. (Gethsemane and Redux)
Militia member Timothy Edward Mayhew, tells Scully and Mulder in 1996 that the "Black Cancer" was used as biological warfare during the Gulf War. No corroboration of this statement has been found. (Terma)
Albert Tanner engineers his own death using his unique ability to generate a complete duplicate body. He is recorded as being killed in an automobile accident. He assumes the identity of Leonard Betts, and works as an EMT, to enable him to locate the cancerous tissue he must consume in order to survive. (Leonard Betts)
Luther Boggs is convicted of murder, based on a criminal profile written by Mulder. Authorities believe several of his killings are done with Lukas Henry, but cannot prove it. (Beyond the Sea)
The Church of the Red Museum moves from California to Delta Glen, Wisconsin, buys a "ranch" and turns the cattle into pets, because they are vegetarians. They refer to themselves as the second souls of the first bodies, making them what Mulder later calls "Walk-ins," a new age idea that holds that new souls can be invited to take over existing bodies, and lists Abe Lincoln and Charles Colson as walk-ins. (Red Museum)
Esther Nairn enters MIT. She develops a particular interest is automata theory.(Kill Switch)
Circa 1991: In 1994 Deep Throat says that only recently has technology been available for the Conspiracy to manipulate alien DNA, accomplish combinations of human and alien DNA, run from Los Alamos. He says Zeus Storage, somewhere in the Washington DC area, is where the first DNA transplant was made, and the first human/alien hybrid created, with six terminally ill human subjects volunteering. Dr. William Sakar recovers as the result of ET gene therapy, developing inhuman strength and the ability to breath under water and green caustic blood. A subject of study, Sakar soon becomes concerned that Conspiracy will not let him live -- if you believe Deep Throat. (The Erlenmeyer Flask)
USS Ardent, a Navy destroyer escort ship, is commissioned and launched. (Dod Kalm)
February 23, 1991
Dana Scully gives an engraved wristwatch to Jack Willis for his 35th birthday. Shortly after, their relationship ends, although she continues to have fond feelings for him.(Lazarus) In Never Again Scully mentions various father figures, implying unhealthy relationships, possibly including Willis.
December 1991
Mulder receives the assignment he has desired since joining the FBI, the X-Files, ending his partnership with Lamana. (Musings...)
The assignment is effective in January. (Inferred from Never Again, which indicates January is Mulder's anniversary date for purposes of vacation leave.)
One of his first actions is to open an X-File on his missing sister.(Conduit)
December 24, 1991
Cancer Man meets with his subordinates and discusses "management" of domestic unrest operations, international elections, Oscar award nominations, and controlling the winner of the Superbowl. Saddam Hussein telephones, but Cancer Man says he will call back. Gorbechev resigns, and Cancer Man feels "we have no more enemies."
He is attempting to quit smoking cigarettes, using the nicotine patch.
After getting yet another rejection letter from a publisher, Cancer Man begins a rewrite of his Jack Colquitt story based on his musings about loneliness, sacrifice and second thoughts.
At Dogway, West Virginia, a UFO crashes, and a critically injured EBE is recovered by the UFO recovery team working for Deep Throat. The EBE is placed in an intensive care unit. Humans working around the alien use gas masks. This could be because the air needed by the alien is unbreathable to humans or because the alien's blood generates noxious gas. It has also been suggested that Deep Throat, Cancer Man and their associates already know about the Black Cancer and the retrovirus, and the gas mask is to protect them from infection.
Deep Throat comments that the craft matches the dimensions of a UFO seen over Hanoi that the Marines could not shoot down when he was with The Company (CIA). (Of course, if they couldn't shoot it down, how did they learn its dimensions?) Cancer Man says it comes at a bad time, because the planted Roswell story is gaining momentum.
Russian forces track the UFO, and pinpointed touchdown. KGB, Chinese, British, and German operatives probably advance on the compound where the EBE is held.
Cancer Man calls Deep Throat by the first name "Ronald," indistinct in the episode, but contained in the closed captioning text.
Deep Throat unwillingly executes the EBE, citing Security Council Resolution 1013, stating that any country capturing an EBE is responsible for its immediate extermination, even though a living EBE could advance Bill Mulder's project enormously. Deep Throat states "Tonight we have a new enemy," meaning the EBE. He calls himself The Liar and Cancer Man The Killer. Cancer Man says Deep Throat's lies have killed many people.
Cancer Man claims to Deep Throat that he has never killed anybody, or any thing. Deep Throat killing the EBE causes Cancer Man to remove his nicotine patch. (All entries this date from Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man.)
1992
Mulder's mentor, William Patterson begins trailing a particularly gruesome serial killer in Washington DC. (Grotesque)
Sometime in 1992, Wilson Pinker Rawls robs a wire office of $90,000. He is arrested and convicted byt the money is never recovered. His girlfriend, June Gerwich, finds the money a few weeks after he goes to prison. Also in 1992, June has Pinker's son, Trevor, but she has broken off contact with Pinker, so he does not learn whether the child was a girl or boy until 1999. Bo Merkle presently moves in with June, in the house where she had lived with Pinker. By then, June's sister, jackie, is caring for Trevor as her own son. (Trevor)
February 1992
Mulder's work attracts the attention of the Conspiracy. They look for a way to reign Mulder in without making him a martyr. He tries to access certain information, but is blocked by higher offices.(Pilot)
NICAP, the National Investigation committee on Aerial Phenomenon, begins following the work of Agent Mulder. Using the Freedom of Information Act, NICAP obtains Mulder's travel vouchers, to track his investigations.

 

End of this section of the Timeline

 

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