Season 6: Field Trip (6X21)

Written by: Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan and John Shiban
Directed by: Kim Manners

After a day of hiking, a woman Angela complains that her husband Wallace left her behind and walked on ahead. Later in the shower she has a vision of being covered in yellow goo. That night as they embrace in bed, the scene changes to show their skeletons locked together in a field.

Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate, Scully speculates that the couple were killed and their bodies boiled to remove all the organs and tissue in some sort of ritualistic killing. But Mulder notes that the couple's remains were found on Brown Mountain, North Carolina. Where witnesses have report strange lights around the mountain for hundreds of years. On examination Scully discovers a yellow goo on Wallace and Angela's bones.

Meanwhile as Mulder combs the field where the couple were found looking for evidence, he encounters Wallace hiding in a cave. Wallace claims he was abducted by aliens, a claim backed up when a bright light appears and Angela is returned, recanting the same abduction story. Only Mulder can not figure out the skeletons.

The bright light returns and Mulder walks in to it. Mulder's skeleton is later found in the field, but Scully senses something is not right, especially when the Lone Gunman and Skinner both agree with her ritualistic killing theory with out question. Mulder returns with actual proof of alien involvement. However Scully's investigation seems to indicate that the yellow goo is a digestive secretion from a plant and holds the key to the case.

Notes:
The small gray alien was played by seven year old Cody Weselis, son of X-Files stunt coordinator Danny Weselis.

Quotes:
Scully: Well, what do you think this is?
Mulder: It's Brown Mountain, Scully. That doesn't ring a bell? The Brown Mountain lights? It's a famous atmospheric phenomenon dating back nearly 700 years witnessed by thousands of people — back to the Cherokee Indians. Strange multicoloured lights are seen to dance above the peak of the mountain. There's been no geological explanation, no scientific credible explanation at all.
Scully: And what does that have to do with these two?
Mulder: As I said, there's been no scientific credible explanation but there are those of us who believe these strange multicoloured lights are really...
Scully: UFOs. Extraterrestrial visitors from beyond who apparently have nothing better to do than buzz one mountain over and over again for 700 years.
Mulder: Sounds like crap when you say it. I'm just wondering if there's a connection, Scully. I mean, the conditions of these bodies are reminiscent of certain south-western cattle mutilations. Those are cases where there's no physical evidence and they've long been associated with UFO activity.
Scully: Mulder, can't you just for once, just... for the novelty of it, come up with the simplest explanation, the most logical one, instead of automatically jumping to UFOs or Bigfoot or...?
Mulder: Scully, in six years, how... how often have I been wrong? No, seriously. I mean, every time I bring you a new case we go through this perfunctory dance. You tell me I'm not being scientifically rigorous and that I'm off my nut, and then in the end who turns out to be right like 98.9% of the time? I just think I've... earned the benefit of the doubt here.

Mulder: Scully...

Scully: Mulder. Why the hell did you leave North Carolina without telling me?
Mulder: Long story.
Scully: You disappear and then I get a furtive call that you're back here in DC?
Mulder: I'm sorry. Does anybody know you're here?
Scully: No.
Mulder: Scully, this is...
Scully: Angela... and Wallace Schiff. But, Mulder, it can't be.
Mulder: This is my partner, Agent Scully.
Scully: Mulder, I IDed their remains myself.
Mulder: Yeah, I think you were meant to.
Angela Schiff: Agent Scully, the aliens planted decoys so you would think we were dead.
Scully: The aliens?
Mulder: Scully, I want you to... put aside your scientific bias for a moment. 'Cause what I'm about to tell you is going to change your life forever. Your life, my life, the life of everybody on this planet.
Scully: Mulder...
Mulder: I was out there... and I found it.
Scully: What?
Mulder: The truth. This couple... they were abducted by a UFO — the Brown Mountain lights.
Angela Schiff: They took me to a white place. There were men there. They put an implant in my neck.
Mulder: Just like what happened to you.
Scully: Mulder, from what very little I understand about this case, this is not what happened to me.
Mulder: There's more. (He leads Scully into the bedroom) It doesn't like the light.
Scully: Who?
(A small grey alien reaches around a bedpost)
Mulder: I abducted him. It's a grey. It speaks to me. We communicate telepathically. He told me everything.
Scully: I... I can hear him!
Mulder: Yeah.
Scully: Oh, my God.

Scully: I, uh... I don't know what to say, Mulder. Where to begin. I mean, you... you were right. All these years, you were right.

Mulder: You think so?
Scully: You were right about the greys, about... about the abductions, about the UFOs... the lights, the Brown Mountain lights...
Mulder: What about the skeletons?
Scully: They were... they were fake. They were decoys.
Mulder: You're buying that decoy theory? What about that organic substance we found on the skeletons? That goo you were so interested in?
Scully: It was nothing. It was bog sludge.
Mulder: That, uh... doesn't sound like you, Scully. It, uh... God, I can't believe you're buying this.
Scully: Mulder, I'm admitting that I was wrong. Are... are you all right? How are you feeling?
Mulder: Uh, this doesn't make any sense.
Scully: What?
Mulder: These two. Their story. Their skeletons. None of it.
Scully: Mulder, if I, of all people, can believe this then why can't you?

Highlights from ''Field Trip''

Episode Number: 138
Season Number: 6
First Aired: Sunday, May 9, 1999
Production Code: 6X21