After the X-Files were shut down at the end of season one, Chris Carter used the first episode of season 2 to unveil the first live alien to appear on the show. Little Green Men opens with Mulder narrating the NASA Voyager satellite mission and the High-Resolution Microwave Survey which is now discontinued. The way the footage is put into a montage and how they used music over the video, I’m really reminded of the film Contact starring Jodie Foster. It opened much in the same way, following modern day sound through the galaxy until it is silenced by the vacuum of space. Even the radio telescope Mulder ends up going to later in the episode in Arecibo, P.R., is the very one that Jodie Foster’s character Ellie goes to early in her scientific career.
The film, released in 1997, three years after this episode aired, is about faith. Ellie falls for a priest who later keeps her from being chosen for a mission to travel through space to meet aliens by asking if she believes in God. Ellie does not and it keeps her from the mission until later when an explosion kills the person chosen to go. At the end of Contact, Ellie is questioned about her experience because people on Earth saw her vessel fall through the portal it was meant to travel through while her experience lasted hours. When asked if everyone should believe her on blind faith, she looks at her priest friend and says, “Yes,” even when presented with evidence that her camera recorded nothing but static. What is kept from her is that it recorded over eighteen hours of it so she is essentially gaslit to believe her experience did not happen.
In today’s episode, Mulder is lost in depression as he questions whether he actually saw any alien beings because the government has covered up everything he has found and shut down the X-Files. This episode shows us what happened when his sister Samantha disappeared when they were kids during what Mulder believes was an alien abduction. The event is why he continues to search even as he questions that reality. His faith is shaken.
Mulder is approached by a new ally, Senator Richard Matheson, who sends him to Arecibo to retrieve whatever signal that has been sent back from the Voyager mission before a Blue Beret UFO retrieval team can do it. The readouts and tapes he finds are proof of alien life, but he also finds a man who says he has seen an alien. During a storm that night, an alien figure appears in the door and a blinding light is all Mulder sees before waking up the following morning with Scully standing over him.
The retrieval team arrives and Mulder and Scully are forced to flee. Back in Washington, they meet with Assistant Director Skinner who beredes them for disappearing. Skinner is torn between disciplining them and standing up the Cigarette Smoking Man who wants everything covered up. At the end of the episode, Mulder is stuck doing wire tapping as the X-Files are not yet reopened.
This episode does not have the uplifting ending of Contact, but in fact is quite the opposite. While we see the alien, and Mulder believes he saw one, no one else will believe it. The parallels between the movie and this episode remain, though, as both Ellie and Mulder need to believe in little green men. That life exists elsewhere. That belief keeps them going. Keeps them digging for answers against all odds. Each character had allies. Ellie had Haddon, a rich man who funded her research when no one else would. Mulder had Deep Throat in season one and later Mr. X.
What strikes me whilst watching this episode all these years later is how similar Mulder and Ellie are. Perhaps that is why I gravitated toward Contact when it came out, even if I did not make the connection at the time. The film remains one of my all time faves and I’ve watched it more times than I can count.
Fun Fact before I leave you for today, the character of Senator Richard Matheson was named after a sci-fi and horror writer who wrote several episodes of The Twilight Zone. Just one of Chris Carter’s many Easter eggs.
Next week, I’ll be discussing one of the best episodes of season two. Until then, trust no one.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
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Becky Tyler Art and Photography 
After the X-Files were shut down at the end of season one, Chris Carter used the first episode of season 2 to unveil the first live alien to appear on the show. Little Green Men opens with Mulder narrating the NASA Voyager satellite mission and the High-Resolution Microwave Survey which is now discontinued. The way the footage is put into a montage and how they used music over the video, I’m really reminded of the film Contact starring Jodie Foster. It opened much in the same way, following modern day sound through the galaxy until it is silenced by the vacuum of space. Even the radio telescope Mulder ends up going to later in the episode in Arecibo, P.R., is the very one that Jodie Foster’s character Ellie goes to early in her scientific career.
The film, released in 1997, three years after this episode aired, is about faith. Ellie falls for a priest who later keeps her from being chosen for a mission to travel through space to meet aliens by asking if she believes in God. Ellie does not and it keeps her from the mission until later when an explosion kills the person chosen to go. At the end of Contact, Ellie is questioned about her experience because people on Earth saw her vessel fall through the portal it was meant to travel through while her experience lasted hours. When asked if everyone should believe her on blind faith, she looks at her priest friend and says, “Yes,” even when presented with evidence that her camera recorded nothing but static. What is kept from her is that it recorded over eighteen hours of it so she is essentially gaslit to believe her experience did not happen.
In today’s episode, Mulder is lost in depression as he questions whether he actually saw any alien beings because the government has covered up everything he has found and shut down the X-Files. This episode shows us what happened when his sister Samantha disappeared when they were kids during what Mulder believes was an alien abduction. The event is why he continues to search even as he questions that reality. His faith is shaken.
Mulder is approached by a new ally, Senator Richard Matheson, who sends him to Arecibo to retrieve whatever signal that has been sent back from the Voyager mission before a Blue Beret UFO retrieval team can do it. The readouts and tapes he finds are proof of alien life, but he also finds a man who says he has seen an alien. During a storm that night, an alien figure appears in the door and a blinding light is all Mulder sees before waking up the following morning with Scully standing over him.
The retrieval team arrives and Mulder and Scully are forced to flee. Back in Washington, they meet with Assistant Director Skinner who beredes them for disappearing. Skinner is torn between disciplining them and standing up the Cigarette Smoking Man who wants everything covered up. At the end of the episode, Mulder is stuck doing wire tapping as the X-Files are not yet reopened.
This episode does not have the uplifting ending of Contact, but in fact is quite the opposite. While we see the alien, and Mulder believes he saw one, no one else will believe it. The parallels between the movie and this episode remain, though, as both Ellie and Mulder need to believe in little green men. That life exists elsewhere. That belief keeps them going. Keeps them digging for answers against all odds. Each character had allies. Ellie had Haddon, a rich man who funded her research when no one else would. Mulder had Deep Throat in season one and later Mr. X.
What strikes me whilst watching this episode all these years later is how similar Mulder and Ellie are. Perhaps that is why I gravitated toward Contact when it came out, even if I did not make the connection at the time. The film remains one of my all time faves and I’ve watched it more times than I can count.
Fun Fact before I leave you for today, the character of Senator Richard Matheson was named after a sci-fi and horror writer who wrote several episodes of The Twilight Zone. Just one of Chris Carter’s many Easter eggs.
Next week, I’ll be discussing one of the best episodes of season two. Until then, trust no one.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
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