Intro Video

INTRODUCTORY LETTER

The X-Files World

Dear reader,

My theme and fictional piece for my project is centered around the television series “The X-Files.” The characters Scully and Mulder are FBI agents specializing in unusual and unnatural cases. Mulder got into the field because his sister was abducted when he was a teenager, and still has hopes for finding her. Scully is a medical major and conducts autopsys on their cases. She is more of a skeptic when it comes to extraterrestrial life and relies on science to find answers. I have also included Skinner, who is Mulder and Scully’s boss, and the Man in Black, who helps Mulder and gives him secret information.

I chose this topic because I believe in alien life and am fascinated by our stereotypes of them. We picture these life forms like humans, having “limbs, two eyes and a face” (Michele Debczak). As a society we label and stereotype everyone, especially others we don’t know very well. We fear each other because of how the media portrays people, specifically minorities. Our “White society” wants to be both seen as accepting and who the world looks up to. Movies are still portraying the “white fantasy” (Susana Loza) and showing white supremacy over alien cultures. I think it’s important to point out these flaws and learn to better our views, especially in the media. Learning about these angles and the labeling of people will stop so we stop jumping to conclusions about each other. We fear the possibility of extraterrestrial life because of the unknown they bring and our fear of others.

Wheaton’s Obituary

The Dissolving Autopsy

Found Poems

I see the light from the sky

And it calls me to it,

Drags me into the fields at night

And hums in my ears.

I wake from my slumber, groggily, and

Walk through the peaceful forest.

My annual trips lead me far and sore,

Yet in the mornings I never remember the events

And all I see are the stars in the sky

And the light falling through the trees.

I feel weightless, yet I’m moving and swimming

In blue. I hear the whirring and it gets louder

And louder as it fills my head and mind. And then

I see them: Little Green Men, the only way I can

Describe them; their glowing figures standing above me and

Their faces their faces their faces

Their faces their faces their

Faces their faces their

Faces their faces th

And I awake in my bed, in my house, and

Wait for the process to start over

She doesn’t feel like herself.

She wakes in fields and parks and empty parking lots,

Not remembering her late night quests.

She calls her family for a ride, but

They too don’t have any answers. It’s become a new

Routine and everyone has stopped to question it.

But each time she returns, her memory forgets and

Can’t remember the little things, birthdays and vacations

And past conversations. She passes it off as normal

To everyone, blames her scatter brain, but is terrified

For she wakes empty of thoughts and emotions and

A sharp pain right between her eyes. She can live with

The constant headaches, it’s the thing she finds when

She awakes, when she cuts herself by accident; it

Falls freely from her nose and ears after being out all night;

Her blood flows thin and silent, but not red.

Her blood has turned green.

She knows she’s not herself anymore.

Endnotes: These poems were written by past abductees who had the same things happen to them as my character. I chose to do poems because of the freedom of them and the message you can set across. I was inspired by my characters case and my prior knowledge of abductees.

Mulder’s Journal

February 18, 1995

A new case was brought to Scully and I today, that has brought us to a similar pattern. Upon finding the body, it began to dissolve and nothing was left. The green acidic substance from under the skin stood out the most to me. There was no way she was human. And I think she’ll lead me to my sister.

February 19, 1995

Scully and I left to speak to Wheaton’s parents and to do some research. We discovered that there had been five other cases involving the bodies that completely disintegrate. I need to ask for information from the Man in Black, but he’s no where to be found. I haven’t had contact with him for over three weeks, and I’m starting to wonder what new secrets he’s been acquiring. The last time he gave me information about my sister, it wasn’t her. I can’t give up hope just yet, I feel like I can still find her.

February 22, 1995

I brought it up to Scully today. She doesn’t seem to think this case will connect to my sister. I hope she’s wrong. Our evidence that went missing is causing the case to move slowly. We visited with past abductee families, but came up with nothing. I’m exhausted, traveling far with nothing to show for it. We’re both frustrated. Scully is trying to find more information about the acidic substance, but without her tests, it’s basically impossible. I don’t know where else to look.

Endnotes: I chose to do journal entries to show more of Mulder’s point of view and relate it into the story. I was inspired by the X-Files and his search for his sister.

Scully’s Report

Dana Scully

Badge No. 1412

Federal Medical Examiner

2/26/95

Case No. 362 - Abigail R. Wheaton

Unusual skin deterioration

Over the past two weeks, Mulder and I have been investigating the unusual murder of Abigail Wheaton. Her body was pulled from the Patapsco river just outside of Baltimore, Maryland on February 18 at 6:38 am. Baltimore officials and I pulled her body out after having been missing for three days. Within two minutes of being removed from the water, the victim’s body started to dissolve, revealing a green, acidic substance that bubbled and deteriorated 45% of skin from the body in 20 mins and 80% in ninety-minutes. I was able to complete my autopsy, but there was nothing left of the body. Afterwards we left and went to talk to Baltimore P.D. to find Abigail’s parents and learn more information about her.

After doing some research, we found that there had been five other cases within a decade involving victim’s bodies being dissolved by a green substance, with all the bodies deteriorating completely in less than three hours. All victims were young adults, between the ages of 13-21 and all missing from the East coast: Florida, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Virginia, New Jersey, and now Maryland. From talking to those officials, they remember the other cases being deemed “unnatural and unusual”, but when asking for the files, all could not be found. Upon arriving back to F.B.I. Headquarters, my samples and testing on file of the victim’s body have gone missing. Mulder claims to have known where they’ve gone, but his leads have come up empty. We brought it up to Skinner, but he told us he has no idea.

From past cases in the X-Files division, getting information from abductees and their family about what took them has changed dramatically. From the first abduction cases, alien life was really considered the unknown. “Over time, they became more humanoid. They took on roles of reflecting aspects of humanity and who we are.”(Brooks Peck) When asking Samantha Wheaton about her past incidents, Abigail had claimed of at least three abductions. Her description of them having large heads, black eyes and being green was however not surprising. Mulder and I decided to head back to the Patapsco river in hopes of finding new information. He’s brought up his sister today and he feels that we’re even closer to finding her. I hope he does, but this case isn’t giving me much confidence about it.

It’s been over two weeks now, and Mulder and I have hit a wall. Without my samples and autopsy records of the abductees, we had no real information to go off of. We visited the river and the field where she was abducted, but we had no luck. We also visited Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, but could not find new information. “Defining life is a problem. If your definition is wrong, you’ll look for the wrong thing - and be liable to miss all kinds of weird forms of life.” (Carol Cleland) Skinner has lost his hopes on the case and we’re closing it. These cases have brought up the unknown and we only have access to science about the substance. How it gets inside the body while the host is still alive is a mystery to me. The only we’ll find out is if another body surfaces.

Endnotes: I chose to do a full report on this case because I wanted to include a lot of my research in with my fictional elements. I wanted details and imagery to pull the viewer into the X-Files universe. I was inspired by Why do we imagine Aliens as “Little Green Men”? and Would we know alien life if we saw it?.

Works Cited