Tony Black begins an alphabetical breakdown of The X-Files by talking it's myriad range of alien lifeforms...
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If you think you've seen one alien, seen 'em all on The X-Files, then think again! Over the ten seasons so far, we've seen all sorts of weird and wonderful extra-terrestrial lifeforms, so chronologically here's a run down of the beings Mulder (and sometimes Scully) has faced down over the years.
While the 'Pilot' deals with alien abduction, all we see is a mysterious light, and not until 'Fallen Angel' does Mulder track a strange, invisible entity which can run through woodland and be illuminated by beams of light. Oh just before this, in 'Space', we see an alien space ghost. Or just a ghost. It's not clear. It's also shit. A similar visage appears to Mulder in 'Little Green Men', but this could be his mind seeing what it wants to see.
'E.B.E' promises an extra-terrestrial biological entity, but it's not really until 'Nisei' do we fully see one, after a few glimpses during the 'Anasazi' trilogy as the Grey aliens from traditional UFO mythology are killed in gas chambers by rescued Nazi scientists. Scully does see an EBE embryo in 'The Erlenmeyer Flask', which presumably grows into the same alien creature Duane Barry sees in 'Duane Barry' during his flashbacks. Mulder finds a frozen one in 'Gethsemane', but this appears to be a dupe. We later discover in 'Fight the Future' that these EBE's can be gestated inside human hosts, and later sloth their skins in 'The Beginning' from the less benign creatures into the alien ones from traditional lore.
Less traditional aliens show up in 'Colony/End Game' in the form of cloned extra-terrestrial colonists created to look human, who are systematically killed by an Alien Bounty Hunter who can shapeshift into anyone. 'Talitha Cumi' later sees fellow shapeshifter Jeremiah Smith, a benevolent entity who can heal with the palm of his hand, guide Mulder into discovering more clones being bred to cultivate an alien virus, which first appears in 'Piper Maru' in the form of an oily, black substance later known as Purity. It's the life force of an alien race colonizing the universe, which can infect a human host and gestate from it an EBE.
Rebel aliens appear in 'Patient X/The Red and the Black' to start eliminating alien abductees potentially infected with Purity, aliens who have sown up the orifices of their faces to prevent infection, and who carry sticks which can set people on fire. But wait... it gets weirder...
You see, those aforementioned abductees--including Mulder--we discover in 'DeadAlive' are being left for dead after experimentation, only to be 'reborn' as human replicants, part of a 'supersoldier' program who are directly linked to an off-shoot military conspiracy linked to alien babies being born via abductees, some of which look like EBE's. Scully becomes one such abductee possibly infected and in 'Existence' gives birth to William, who may or may not be alien himself - given he can control fragments of alien spacecraft with his mind, which does suggest some kind of power!
Finally, in the brand new revival series, the suggestion is made that human DNA through a virus resembling the common cold is activating alien genes inside human genetics which have existed since man's creation. Will this virus turn us all into aliens or just cause the sixth extinction? We'll hopefully find out in Season 11!
Have you spotted any other aliens wandering around in The X-Files? Let us know!
You can follow Tony on Twitter @ajblackwriter.
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