Pilot Episode Synopsis

Episode 1X01: Pilot First aired: September 10, 1993 Written by: Chris Carter Directed by: Robert Mandel	Guest stars: Charles Cioffi: Chief Blevins Cliff DeYoung: Dr. Jay Nemman Sarah Koskoff: Theresa Leon Russom: Det. Miles Stephen E. Miller: Truitt Zachary Ansley: Billy Miles Jim Jansen: Dr. Heitz Werber Malcolm Stewart: Dr. Glass Alexandra Berlin: Orderly William B. Davis: Cigarette-Smoking Man Katya Gardener: Peggy O'Dell J. B. Bivens: Truck Driver Ric Reid: Astronomer Lesley Ewen: Receptionist Ken Camroux: 3rd Man Doug Abrams: Patrolman
Short Synopsis: FBI agent Dana Scully is paired with agent Fox Mulder, who has made it his life's work to explore unexplained phenomena. The two are dispatched to investigate the mysterious deaths of a number of high school classmates.

Detailed Synopsis: The show opens with an alien abduction as a girl is found dead in the Oregon woods with two peculiar marks on her back. In Washington D.C., meanwhile, Dana Scully, a doctor who has spent two years in the FBI, meets with her superiors (one of whom is the Cigarette-Smoking Man, who remains silent throughout). Scully is asked if she's heard of Fox Mulder, an Oxford educated psychologist known to be the Bureau's best crime investigator but who's earned the nickname "Spooky" because of his obsession with the paranormal. Mulder has taken on what she is told are unassigned projects outside the Bureau mainstream, known as "X-Files," and she's asked to become his partner, reporting on whether there's anything to substantiate his work. Mulder is wary of Scully at first, saying he's "under the impression that you were sent to spy on me." He has already checked out her background, mentioning her senior thesis, "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation." When she asks somewhat testily if he bothered to read it, he assures her that he did. "It's just that in most of my work," he adds wryly, "the laws of physics rarely seem to apply." The next day, they're off to investigate a series of youth murders in Oregon, South Dakota, and Texas that Mulder believes involve alien abduction and experimentation. In Oregon, four classmates have been found dead near the woods, each with the two tell-tale marks. They exhume one of the victims only to find a non-human, almost simian shrunken form in the casket with an odd metallic device lodged in its nasal cavity. Of the remaining youths, one, the sheriff's son, is a near vegetable, and another is wheelchair bound. Mulder voices his abduction theory, while Scully argues that "there has got to be an explanation" of a more earthy variety. Later, the two are blinded by a sudden light, nine minutes have inexplicably elapsed, and another youth turns up dead. Back at the hotel, Scully notices some marks on her back and, fearing they're the same as those found on the dead girl, rushes into Mulder's room. They're mosquito bites, he assures her, proceeding to explain the cause behind his obsession with alien abuductions-how his sister was abducted at the age of eight and that the incident destroyed his family. His success as an investigator and "connections in Congress," he says, have "allowed me a certain freedom to pursue my interests" despite efforts to thwart his work. Mulder and Scully ascertain that the sheriff's son, Billy, is, in fact the force behind the string of deaths-the aliens having implanted something in his head that left him near-comatose, to be roused when needed. The agents encounter Billy and his father in the woods, and in a blaze of light the boy is suddenly normal again-the two marks having disapeared. When the two agents return to the hotel, however, it is to find it burning to the ground. All of their notes and reports having gone down in flames with it. Scully tells her superiors she believes Mulder's theory but can't substantiate it, other than the one remaining piece of evidence-the cylinder found in the corpse's nose, which Scully had kept in her jacket pocket. Mulder calls to tell Scully that any record of the case has been erased, while the Cigarette-Smoking Man is shown depositing the alien device Scully gave the Bureau in a bin, next to similar evidence, in a huge Pentagon storage room.