August 17, 2021 • 31 mins
An interview with Chris Carter, the creator of a little television show you might have heard of called The X-Files.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart three D
audio for full exposure, listen with headphones. Do I really
need to tell you who Chris Carter is. He's the
creator of The X Files, which is one of the
(00:22):
iconic TV shows and probably the best known piece of
popular culture to deal with the paranormal and issues of
skepticism and belief. I talked to him in December of
a quick note Chris mentions Bud Hopkins, David Jacobs, and
John Mack. The end of season one of Strange Arrivals
(00:44):
looks at their work, particularly Hopkins. In addition, I interviewed
Carol Rainey, who is Bud hopkins ex wife and former
research partner, about him and his research. That interview is
a bonus episode from season one. So with that in mind,
here's my chat with Chris Carter. Could you introduce yourself
(01:06):
Chris Carter, best known as creator of The X Files.
Let's talk a little bit about the origin of the
X Files. How did you come up with that idea
or who did you work with? I had an idea
way back in the nighties. There was a show on
that I loved when I was a kid called Cold Check.
(01:27):
The night Stalker. It was the scariest thing I've ever
seen on TV. So I thought, there's nothing scary on TV.
Why don't I try to do a show that is
as scary as that one. I pitched the idea to
Brandon Chartikoff when I was at NBC, and he passed
on it. And then I was hired by twenty Century
Fox to create TV shows, and I pitched the same
(01:49):
idea to Peter Roth, and he said he had been
thinking about the same thing. So I sat down and
came up with the characters of Moldern Scully FBI agents.
I was inspired, especially you can see Scully's red hair
by Silence of the Lambs. That was an early inspiration.
So I came up with these two characters, and I
kind of turned the tables on what would be the
(02:11):
stereotypical believer in skeptic Maiden Molder the male, the believer
in Scully the female the skeptic. I wanted to make
her not only a doctor, but a scientist, so she
could refute Molders claims with her hard science. So you
had this idea for a series that would be scary,
(02:34):
and how did you know? How did UFOs come to
be serve a central part of that. There were two
things I've been reading about UFOs and alien abductions. But
also I was given, just by chance, a survey called
the Roper Survey, which was done by Dr John Mack,
(02:57):
who any UFO afficionado will know well, and it said
that millions of Americans believed in the UFO phenomenon, some
millions less believed they had actually seen a UFO, some
millions less believed they had had contact, but that there
was interest in the phenomenon. And so I thought the
(03:20):
first thing and I would like to do is play
with that in a personal way, making molder Sister an abducte,
which is what his entry was into the world of
the paranormal. What what kind of source material you're looking at?
And yet you were, as you were thinking about the
particularly the UFO component of the X Files, I had
(03:44):
kind of three go to guys was Dr John mac,
David Jacobs, and Bud Hopkins. Those were the three people
that I read mostly and I had I really developed
my uh sense of all things UFOs and and abductions
(04:06):
through reading their books. Yeah, I would say that those
are my go to guys. You know, I know that
those three were really sort of involved in in the
sort of abduction movement, I guess in the in the
eighties and nineties. But it seems like there's also these
(04:27):
other components two the X files UFO sort of mythos um,
one of which is, you know, the government conspiracy. The
government knows more than they're letting on. They're doing a
lot to try and cover it up. What were some
of the source material or the inspiration or whatever for that,
(04:50):
you know, that's part of the literature. But I've always
been interested in conspiracies, I think because I was a
child of the Watergate era. You know, I was a
disbeliever in what our government was telling us and a
believer that they were keeping things from us. So they
fit in perfect with the UFO literature, which is all
about government, you know, black budget, secret operations and all
(05:15):
the reasons there are for the government to keep the
truth about extraterrestrial life from the American public, and those
would you know, things that are you know, scientific, cultural, religious,
It would upend a lot of the institutions, uh in society.
(05:35):
And when you were looking at I guess particularly the
Jacobs Hopkins mac stuff, like what was your what was
your assessment of what they were coming up with. Did
this seem more like sort of ideas for fictional storylines,
or did it at the time seem sort of compelling
(05:56):
as a possible um description of of things that were
actually happening. And I asked partly because you know, I've
talked to um people have made, you know, certainly less
influential things about UFOs, and you know, for the large part,
(06:16):
they seem to be really looking at sort of these
fictional representations as a way of getting out something that
they feel is at some level, you know, true or
at least like highly possibly true. And I was kind
of interested because it does seem like other than other
(06:38):
you know, there's other things like if you're doing a
Western and you're in you're and you're doing research into
what was it like in the in the Western the
eteen eighties and nineties or or what have you, that
there's certain sort of you know, kind of undisputable facts
or things that are I think, are you quote unquote
(06:59):
true to whereas most of the ting about UFOs really
seems in dispute. So it seems like that's a slightly
different thing in figuring out what you want to use
and how you want to use it. Am I Am
I thinking too much about this? No? I mean I
think even the believers, guys like David Jacobs and Bud
(07:22):
Hopkins and John Matt they doubted certain accounts, and they
doubted certain individuals, and they doubted themselves sometimes. But when
three smart people do the kind of research that they
did and come up with as a bottom line, I
believe in the phenomenon. It's powerful, smart people doing investigative
(07:47):
science on the subject. That was for me that was very,
very powerful. They were the ones to help paint the
picture that became the backdrop for the X Files Alien Mythology.
Could you talk a little bit about the development of
the mythology as as a series progress, because um, it
(08:07):
sounds like you didn't have that altogether when the series started. No.
I had what I would consider to be the kind
of foundation of the mythology that was based in things
that anybody could read about alien abductions and kind of
(08:28):
classic scoopmark stars, the triangular shapes, it kind of shape
that appeared on Scully's back and the pilot episode. So
I had the ideas that I had taken from all
of the accumulated science and background on alien abductions, and
I created a world with the episode. Actually, if you
(08:52):
watch the first and second episode of The X Files
and the season finale, which is called The erlen Meyer Flask,
you will really get a foundational view of the X
Files mythology. Now, there's this idea that the government has
been keeping all this stuff quiet secret for their own purposes,
and that one day somebody will get them to disclose,
(09:16):
or there will be reason to disclose the truth. I
think that's where the X Files mythology took flight from
the accepted Expiles mythology, and so we were imagining the
world before disclosure and modern Scully as the people seeking
to learn the truth. So you mentioned the Arlan Meyer Flask,
(09:43):
which I watched recently with my daughter. You know that
there's so many sort of iconic figures, I guess, and
things that happen. You know, the smoking Man, he serve
an iconic figure now, and there's a there's a deep
throat figure, and you know the erlan Meyer Flask. There's
they go to a warehouse sort of out of the way,
(10:04):
sort of rundown warehouse and find, you know, what appeared
to be Men Underwater being developed, or what have you.
What sort of assumptions were you making about people's understanding
of these issues or thoughts about these issues that kind
of went in into creating the storyline. You know, I'm
(10:25):
thinking also to U two episodes that morgana. Wong did.
I'll preface that by saying, when we started out the show,
I told this staff that I didn't want to I
didn't want to see aliens for five years. I wanted
to keep them in the shadows and the deep background.
That lasted all of about a year. Glenn Morgan and
(10:46):
James Wong did two great episodes, one called e B
and another one called Little Green Men, and we actually
did see an alien and Little Green Men, which was
the season opener for season two. So we took a
lot of what people knew about aliens or believed about
aliens and UFOs, extraterrestrials and the government conspiracy. And there
(11:11):
was a certain fascination with Roswell with the area one
and I would call them not tropes, but they were
part of the X file. I'm sorry, the extraterrestrial alien
abduction UFO lore. You know, I think Bolder, Molder and
Scully are I think of the iconic duos in uh
(11:34):
in television history, at least in what I've watched. I
think I think it's them in Kirk and Spock are
sort of closest to my heart, and I think a
lot of people's hearts. You know, there's clearly this interesting
play between you know, skepticism and belief, And how did
(11:54):
you see the arc across the seasons as far their
relationship and they're edging each other towards their own beliefs.
How do you see that that playing out? Well? I
can speak to the structure of the way we did
the seasons. We did I think six mythology episodes typically
(12:17):
per season, three two parters actually, and that kind of
became our formula. The way Molder and Scully approached the other,
typically h sixteen to nineteen cases was by taking positions,
by taking hard edged science versus a obdurate and determined
(12:41):
belief in the paranormal on Molder side. And it became
kind of competitive, and it became a really a long
nine year flirtation between the two characters and a seduction
of sorts. It's funny when you are selling your position,
and this is something I always find interesting with Mulder
(13:03):
and Scully. When you are selling your beliefs in your
position and your your side to your to the other
side to the opposition, which would if Mueller is selling
to Scully, there's something seductive about it. It just became
kind of the nature of the show. So when it ends,
do you feel like Mulder has been more brought towards
(13:24):
skepticism or Scully has been brought more towards belief or
do you think they fight to a fight to a standstill? Well,
you know, someone said, how can Scully go for nine
years and still be a disbeliever with all she's seen?
And so we played with that a little bit. We
actually had her witness things and she came to the
(13:46):
other side and Mulder went to skepticism. So we did
play with that idea through the course of this show.
But it's a fair argument that Scully uh seeing so
much that she could had no answers for because science
does not have answers for these things, that she would
come to mother's side more readily than Mud would go
(14:08):
to her side. When we first started this show, there
was something interesting that happened. Fox had bought my pitch.
They had liked my outline. They had liked the pilot script.
We had begun casting and we had filmed the pilot.
We had shown the pilot to the network. They were
(14:31):
very happy with it, but they wanted me to put
a disclaimer up before the show, saying that for the viewer,
that these are all based on actual events. It was
as if we were creating a kind of documentary in
the network's mind. And I went along with it. But
(14:52):
then it's like, for the pilot episode, I went along
with it, but then it's like, I realized, that's not
what the show is. The show is fictionalized, scripted storytelling
vehicle for these characters Molder and Scully looking for the truth.
(15:12):
And I said to them, you know, they wanted to
wrap up the episodes at the end, kind of in
a neat bow, with an explanation for what Malder and
Scully had seen. And I said, that's exactly what you
don't want. You don't want to have the answers. You
want to be left with wonder, you want to be
left with ah, you want to be left with your
own opinions at the end. And it took me a
(15:35):
real hard sales pitch to get them to understand that. Yeah,
well that seems critical. Uh. You know, I think I
feel like that's that's such a big part of the
X Files, and I think part of what really captured
people's imagination, even people talking about it today. Is there
(15:57):
something that you're trying to get across, Especially in the
in the Mythos episodes, I was trying to create a
sense of awe and the idea that science doesn't have
all the answers, and that religion doesn't have all the answers,
and that there are things beyond the pale. I liked
all that, but I also have to say I come
(16:18):
at this from more Scully side than Molder's side, with
a science bias, and it's I really have a kind
of prove it to me philosophy. And so really it
was me. The thesis was my own troubled perspective on
(16:39):
what is true and what is not. I want to
see an alien, I want to see a UFO. These
are things that I want to believe in. But thus
the poster on Molder's wall, I want to have my
hopes confirmed. I want that experience, uh, and I'm longing
(17:02):
for it as his Molder, But I'm also doubtful of
it that I will ever have it, which is skilling.
And so you know, in the course of you know,
the research for the X files, and I'm sure you
must have had zillions and sillions of people getting in
touch with you about their experiences, how did you find
(17:23):
or did you find that your thoughts about UFOs changed?
You know, people ask me if I'm a believer or
a skeptic, and I say, I'm a skeptic, but I
have to say that with a asterisk because I've met
so many people who tell so many believable stories, stories
(17:46):
that they absolutely believe in that who am I to
doubt them? So while I am skeptical because there isn't
a lot of hard, hard evidence, There isn't a lot
of come helling testimony that leads to the heart evidence.
Uh there is, there are, just there are a lot
(18:08):
of personal accounts that one can take with a grain
of salt. So you didn't find I mean, did you
ever feel like you were led on to something that
that most people or just about everybody wouldn't have known
in the course of this stuff. It clearly wasn't something
that would have changed your mind. I didn't find anything
(18:32):
that necessarily changed my mind. There was something interesting that
I did that I had a chance to do, and
and I had written about regression hypnosis, and this is
the way Bud Hopkins worked and John mac worked, taking
people back through their memories, maybe removing the screen memories
(18:55):
that the aliens had implanted them with. And I actually
got to sit in on a regression hypnosis went. I
flew to Boston while the show was being produced and
sat in on one of these events. And it was
powerful to be sitting next to someone who is going
(19:15):
through the abduction experience. In this case, it was someone
who was taken from a campground. So who am I
to say that it's not true when it seemed so
vivid and powerful in this in this person's mind. Can
(19:50):
you talk a little bit about the dynamic of the
of the writing of the X Files and and you
know the other things that kind of went into create
eating the storyline and sort of the look and feel.
They are very very strong. Yeah. I was really lucky
to hire two teams of smart guys, and that would
(20:14):
be people have mentioned already. Glenn Morgan and James Wong
were a writing team, uh, and then a writing team
of Howard Gordon and Alex Gonza, who were also too
smart guys who went on to create Homeland together. So
I had these capable people, and the way we began
(20:35):
to work was we would gather together and people would
pitch their ideas for episodes, and if the ideas were good,
and they almost always were, that person would go and
create a plot, so basically go to the drawing board
and create the plot for the story. They would bring
(20:56):
that plot, which was done on three buy five cards
on a bulletin board, to the group and we would
go through it and listen, and once again I got
very lucky. People had very good ideas of how to
develop the modern Scully storyline through horror, thriller, suspense, and
(21:20):
paranormal episodes. So the X Files from the very beginning
was not just going to be a UFO alien show.
It was going to be more than that. And uh,
I had actually created a marketing package before any of
these people came on, when I turned the pilot and
originally into twenty Century Fox, spelling out what the show was.
(21:42):
So it just happened that I was able to pair
with the right people to bring the idea of making
it a horror show, a suspense show, a thriller, what
have you. That it became really three fifths of the
time it was something other than alien and aliens and UFOs.
(22:04):
I'm really interested in this idea of working with other
people on something that's essentially, you know, your brainchild. Was
everybody sort of on the same page, particularly with Moulder
and Scully and how they would react to certain things
or was askedly that that was hashed out over the
course of of meetings. You know, I have to say
(22:28):
that the characters were they developed over time, that people
added to them, that people created and created nuances for
the characters. But the idea that they were the believer
in the skeptic and their personalities were really came from
the pilot. And so while everyone added to the creation
(22:53):
in the most amazing ways, and the show wouldn't be
the same without those additions. Modern Scully, I think, or
Modern Scully from the beginning, and they just uh their
characters and their stories and their backgrounds and their attitudes
changed with time because that's the nature of producing a
(23:15):
television show, right. Interesting, So what is it about UFOs
that you think makes for good and compelling TV or movies?
I think it's interesting because I think people look up
into the sky at night and wonder if the truth
(23:36):
is out there, if the if there are other civilizations.
So it has a kind of human component to it,
and the idea that the aliens have in many cases
humanoid qualities, and that they actually seem to have some
steak and humanity and they have some either good or
(23:58):
bad purposes for being year it's our fear of the
other that is natural, and in this case, I think
it's the fear of a another that has either a
good or evil intent. Have you been have you been
following what's been going on recently, you know, in the
(24:19):
last couple of years, the revelations that the Pentagon continued
to have a quote unquote UFO program up until very recently.
You know, you have Marco Rubio, Senator Marco Rubio asking
the Department of Defense to give him unclassified report of
(24:42):
what they've been doing and what they potentially know. Do
you have thoughts? Yeah? I do. I mean Obama asked
the Defense Department for any files. Hillary Clinton, who with
John Fodesta on her staff, we're avid believers, or I
should say want to believers, and the phenomenon were had
(25:05):
even said during our campaign that they were going to
get to the bottom of it. So you know, this
has been going on for quite a while. People want
to know. I think Bill Clinton wanted to know, and
so Marco Rubio is just the latest in a long line.
I think. I thought it was interesting that Harry Reid
basically did have a secret alien project UFO project that
(25:30):
he financed with taxpayer dollars, which was not I was
not unsurprised. How do you how do you look at
the legacy of the X Files. That's a big question,
you know. I hope that it was nine years of
quality entertainment. Two put a big stamp on the whole thing.
(25:55):
But I think that what as you say, modern skelling
the iconic duo, I think this show was always While
it was about a group of or I should say,
a file cabinet full of spiles of the unknown, it
really was a show about Molder and Scully in their relationship.
So I think the legacy is those two characters. It's
(26:18):
funny the way Molder and Scully now kind of rolls
off the tongue and you know exactly what you know
that means the believer in the skeptic and that I
would take you know, that name Molder, which isn't the
most poetic, malifluous name, and parrot with Scully and somehow
Mulder and Scully sounds as if the two characters have
(26:41):
existed forever. Yeah. Absolutely, What if I missed? Is are
there other? Is there something else that people should know? Now?
You know, it's funny when you when I think about
the show, I think about you know, it was always
surprising to me. I was mentioning the writers and what
people would bring in was always interesting to me and
(27:04):
things I hadn't imagined, takes on the show that I
haven't imagined. But once those scripts were written, you are
our first audience was always the crew, and you knew
that if the crew liked an episode, it was a
good episode. They were our toughest critics and they really
invested themselves in the show because they liked the show.
(27:25):
But I think about taking a script and handing it
over to the people like the production designers and seeing
what they came up with, what their visions were, and
it seems like every episode they always came up with
something that none of us quite imagined, or a way
(27:46):
to do something that none of us quite imagined. I
think the pilot episode was done by Michael Namursky, and
then the five seasons. The next five seasons were Graham Murray,
Uh these people, Uh she speak to a case in point,
Dwayne Berry. What Graham Murray came up with for an
(28:08):
examination table of this character? Dwayne Berry, surrounded by Gray
Aliens was production design costume, said Deck. You know, all
these people came together and created something that was better
than I ever imagined. Yeah, did you did you know
at the time, well you're working at this on this
(28:29):
that this would have like a very long life beyond
its initial run. No, there are so many pitfalls that
are you try to avoid through the process, and they
are They could be one bad note from a studio
executive could change the course of the show, much like
(28:50):
I was. You know, there was something that Jillian Anderson
became pregnant during the first season of the show, and
we scrambled because we didn't know what to do, how
to uh if she was going to be pregnant for
the whole first part of the second season, how we
were going to do Molder and Scully. And we figured
(29:11):
out a clever way to do that, a way that
actually played into the larger storyline. But I actually had
a network executive say to me, you've got to get
rid of her, and he was, you know, in no
uncertain terms, And so you have to fight against that.
You know, you can't establish these two characters and then
just break them up because he uh doesn't want a
(29:33):
pregnant woman working on the show. It worked out that
we were able to film Scully and I think it
was episode five of season two, and she is taken
away by it. I just mentioned Dwyane Berry. She is
abducted by this character, Dwayne Berry, which leads to what
is supposed by Mother as an alien abduction. You know,
(29:58):
there's actually one other thing I'd like to say about Sure.
They talked about its origins, and I talked about Silence
Phil Lambs, and you know, it was loomed huge in
my mind. I loved the movie, and it's really that
I was inspired by that Jodie Foster character to a
large part. But I think that also and this actually
plays out in an episode called Fire on the series
(30:21):
UH in the first season, where Malder is paired with
the British woman who refers to Sherlock Holmes. I read everything.
I read all of Sherlock Holmes as a kid, and
I loved that kind of storytelling. I loved Sherlock and
and Watson's interplay, and I think that is a big
(30:41):
for me, was a big part of the dynamic between
Mother and Scully as well. People are gonna be really
excited to hear this as I was excited to hear
it myself. Thanks Kobe, Okay, thanks so much, Chris. Strange
Arrivals is a production of I Heart three D Audio
(31:03):
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. This episode was
written and hosted by Toby Ball and produced by Miranda
Hawkins and Josh Say, with executive producers Alex Williams, Matt Frederick,
and Aaron Mankey. Learn more about Strange Rivals over at
Grimm and Mild dot com, and find more podcasts from
my Heart Radio by visiting the I Heart Radio app,
(31:25):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart three D
audio for full exposure, listen with headphones. Do I really
need to tell you who Chris Carter is. He's the
creator of The X Files, which is one of the
(00:22):
iconic TV shows and probably the best known piece of
popular culture to deal with the paranormal and issues of
skepticism and belief. I talked to him in December of
a quick note Chris mentions Bud Hopkins, David Jacobs, and
John Mack. The end of season one of Strange Arrivals
(00:44):
looks at their work, particularly Hopkins. In addition, I interviewed
Carol Rainey, who is Bud hopkins ex wife and former
research partner, about him and his research. That interview is
a bonus episode from season one. So with that in mind,
here's my chat with Chris Carter. Could you introduce yourself
(01:06):
Chris Carter, best known as creator of The X Files.
Let's talk a little bit about the origin of the
X Files. How did you come up with that idea
or who did you work with? I had an idea
way back in the nighties. There was a show on
that I loved when I was a kid called Cold Check.
(01:27):
The night Stalker. It was the scariest thing I've ever
seen on TV. So I thought, there's nothing scary on TV.
Why don't I try to do a show that is
as scary as that one. I pitched the idea to
Brandon Chartikoff when I was at NBC, and he passed
on it. And then I was hired by twenty Century
Fox to create TV shows, and I pitched the same
(01:49):
idea to Peter Roth, and he said he had been
thinking about the same thing. So I sat down and
came up with the characters of Moldern Scully FBI agents.
I was inspired, especially you can see Scully's red hair
by Silence of the Lambs. That was an early inspiration.
So I came up with these two characters, and I
kind of turned the tables on what would be the
(02:11):
stereotypical believer in skeptic Maiden Molder the male, the believer
in Scully the female the skeptic. I wanted to make
her not only a doctor, but a scientist, so she
could refute Molders claims with her hard science. So you
had this idea for a series that would be scary,
(02:34):
and how did you know? How did UFOs come to
be serve a central part of that. There were two
things I've been reading about UFOs and alien abductions. But
also I was given, just by chance, a survey called
the Roper Survey, which was done by Dr John Mack,
(02:57):
who any UFO afficionado will know well, and it said
that millions of Americans believed in the UFO phenomenon, some
millions less believed they had actually seen a UFO, some
millions less believed they had had contact, but that there
was interest in the phenomenon. And so I thought the
(03:20):
first thing and I would like to do is play
with that in a personal way, making molder Sister an abducte,
which is what his entry was into the world of
the paranormal. What what kind of source material you're looking at?
And yet you were, as you were thinking about the
particularly the UFO component of the X Files, I had
(03:44):
kind of three go to guys was Dr John mac,
David Jacobs, and Bud Hopkins. Those were the three people
that I read mostly and I had I really developed
my uh sense of all things UFOs and and abductions
(04:06):
through reading their books. Yeah, I would say that those
are my go to guys. You know, I know that
those three were really sort of involved in in the
sort of abduction movement, I guess in the in the
eighties and nineties. But it seems like there's also these
(04:27):
other components two the X files UFO sort of mythos um,
one of which is, you know, the government conspiracy. The
government knows more than they're letting on. They're doing a
lot to try and cover it up. What were some
of the source material or the inspiration or whatever for that,
(04:50):
you know, that's part of the literature. But I've always
been interested in conspiracies, I think because I was a
child of the Watergate era. You know, I was a
disbeliever in what our government was telling us and a
believer that they were keeping things from us. So they
fit in perfect with the UFO literature, which is all
about government, you know, black budget, secret operations and all
(05:15):
the reasons there are for the government to keep the
truth about extraterrestrial life from the American public, and those
would you know, things that are you know, scientific, cultural, religious,
It would upend a lot of the institutions, uh in society.
(05:35):
And when you were looking at I guess particularly the
Jacobs Hopkins mac stuff, like what was your what was
your assessment of what they were coming up with. Did
this seem more like sort of ideas for fictional storylines,
or did it at the time seem sort of compelling
(05:56):
as a possible um description of of things that were
actually happening. And I asked partly because you know, I've
talked to um people have made, you know, certainly less
influential things about UFOs, and you know, for the large part,
(06:16):
they seem to be really looking at sort of these
fictional representations as a way of getting out something that
they feel is at some level, you know, true or
at least like highly possibly true. And I was kind
of interested because it does seem like other than other
(06:38):
you know, there's other things like if you're doing a
Western and you're in you're and you're doing research into
what was it like in the in the Western the
eteen eighties and nineties or or what have you, that
there's certain sort of you know, kind of undisputable facts
or things that are I think, are you quote unquote
(06:59):
true to whereas most of the ting about UFOs really
seems in dispute. So it seems like that's a slightly
different thing in figuring out what you want to use
and how you want to use it. Am I Am
I thinking too much about this? No? I mean I
think even the believers, guys like David Jacobs and Bud
(07:22):
Hopkins and John Matt they doubted certain accounts, and they
doubted certain individuals, and they doubted themselves sometimes. But when
three smart people do the kind of research that they
did and come up with as a bottom line, I
believe in the phenomenon. It's powerful, smart people doing investigative
(07:47):
science on the subject. That was for me that was very,
very powerful. They were the ones to help paint the
picture that became the backdrop for the X Files Alien Mythology.
Could you talk a little bit about the development of
the mythology as as a series progress, because um, it
(08:07):
sounds like you didn't have that altogether when the series started. No.
I had what I would consider to be the kind
of foundation of the mythology that was based in things
that anybody could read about alien abductions and kind of
(08:28):
classic scoopmark stars, the triangular shapes, it kind of shape
that appeared on Scully's back and the pilot episode. So
I had the ideas that I had taken from all
of the accumulated science and background on alien abductions, and
I created a world with the episode. Actually, if you
(08:52):
watch the first and second episode of The X Files
and the season finale, which is called The erlen Meyer Flask,
you will really get a foundational view of the X
Files mythology. Now, there's this idea that the government has
been keeping all this stuff quiet secret for their own purposes,
and that one day somebody will get them to disclose,
(09:16):
or there will be reason to disclose the truth. I
think that's where the X Files mythology took flight from
the accepted Expiles mythology, and so we were imagining the
world before disclosure and modern Scully as the people seeking
to learn the truth. So you mentioned the Arlan Meyer Flask,
(09:43):
which I watched recently with my daughter. You know that
there's so many sort of iconic figures, I guess, and
things that happen. You know, the smoking Man, he serve
an iconic figure now, and there's a there's a deep
throat figure, and you know the erlan Meyer Flask. There's
they go to a warehouse sort of out of the way,
(10:04):
sort of rundown warehouse and find, you know, what appeared
to be Men Underwater being developed, or what have you.
What sort of assumptions were you making about people's understanding
of these issues or thoughts about these issues that kind
of went in into creating the storyline. You know, I'm
(10:25):
thinking also to U two episodes that morgana. Wong did.
I'll preface that by saying, when we started out the show,
I told this staff that I didn't want to I
didn't want to see aliens for five years. I wanted
to keep them in the shadows and the deep background.
That lasted all of about a year. Glenn Morgan and
(10:46):
James Wong did two great episodes, one called e B
and another one called Little Green Men, and we actually
did see an alien and Little Green Men, which was
the season opener for season two. So we took a
lot of what people knew about aliens or believed about
aliens and UFOs, extraterrestrials and the government conspiracy. And there
(11:11):
was a certain fascination with Roswell with the area one
and I would call them not tropes, but they were
part of the X file. I'm sorry, the extraterrestrial alien
abduction UFO lore. You know, I think Bolder, Molder and
Scully are I think of the iconic duos in uh
(11:34):
in television history, at least in what I've watched. I
think I think it's them in Kirk and Spock are
sort of closest to my heart, and I think a
lot of people's hearts. You know, there's clearly this interesting
play between you know, skepticism and belief, And how did
(11:54):
you see the arc across the seasons as far their
relationship and they're edging each other towards their own beliefs.
How do you see that that playing out? Well? I
can speak to the structure of the way we did
the seasons. We did I think six mythology episodes typically
(12:17):
per season, three two parters actually, and that kind of
became our formula. The way Molder and Scully approached the other,
typically h sixteen to nineteen cases was by taking positions,
by taking hard edged science versus a obdurate and determined
(12:41):
belief in the paranormal on Molder side. And it became
kind of competitive, and it became a really a long
nine year flirtation between the two characters and a seduction
of sorts. It's funny when you are selling your position,
and this is something I always find interesting with Mulder
(13:03):
and Scully. When you are selling your beliefs in your
position and your your side to your to the other
side to the opposition, which would if Mueller is selling
to Scully, there's something seductive about it. It just became
kind of the nature of the show. So when it ends,
do you feel like Mulder has been more brought towards
(13:24):
skepticism or Scully has been brought more towards belief or
do you think they fight to a fight to a standstill? Well,
you know, someone said, how can Scully go for nine
years and still be a disbeliever with all she's seen?
And so we played with that a little bit. We
actually had her witness things and she came to the
(13:46):
other side and Mulder went to skepticism. So we did
play with that idea through the course of this show.
But it's a fair argument that Scully uh seeing so
much that she could had no answers for because science
does not have answers for these things, that she would
come to mother's side more readily than Mud would go
(14:08):
to her side. When we first started this show, there
was something interesting that happened. Fox had bought my pitch.
They had liked my outline. They had liked the pilot script.
We had begun casting and we had filmed the pilot.
We had shown the pilot to the network. They were
(14:31):
very happy with it, but they wanted me to put
a disclaimer up before the show, saying that for the viewer,
that these are all based on actual events. It was
as if we were creating a kind of documentary in
the network's mind. And I went along with it. But
(14:52):
then it's like, for the pilot episode, I went along
with it, but then it's like, I realized, that's not
what the show is. The show is fictionalized, scripted storytelling
vehicle for these characters Molder and Scully looking for the truth.
(15:12):
And I said to them, you know, they wanted to
wrap up the episodes at the end, kind of in
a neat bow, with an explanation for what Malder and
Scully had seen. And I said, that's exactly what you
don't want. You don't want to have the answers. You
want to be left with wonder, you want to be
left with ah, you want to be left with your
own opinions at the end. And it took me a
(15:35):
real hard sales pitch to get them to understand that. Yeah,
well that seems critical. Uh. You know, I think I
feel like that's that's such a big part of the
X Files, and I think part of what really captured
people's imagination, even people talking about it today. Is there
(15:57):
something that you're trying to get across, Especially in the
in the Mythos episodes, I was trying to create a
sense of awe and the idea that science doesn't have
all the answers, and that religion doesn't have all the answers,
and that there are things beyond the pale. I liked
all that, but I also have to say I come
(16:18):
at this from more Scully side than Molder's side, with
a science bias, and it's I really have a kind
of prove it to me philosophy. And so really it
was me. The thesis was my own troubled perspective on
(16:39):
what is true and what is not. I want to
see an alien, I want to see a UFO. These
are things that I want to believe in. But thus
the poster on Molder's wall, I want to have my
hopes confirmed. I want that experience, uh, and I'm longing
(17:02):
for it as his Molder, But I'm also doubtful of
it that I will ever have it, which is skilling.
And so you know, in the course of you know,
the research for the X files, and I'm sure you
must have had zillions and sillions of people getting in
touch with you about their experiences, how did you find
(17:23):
or did you find that your thoughts about UFOs changed?
You know, people ask me if I'm a believer or
a skeptic, and I say, I'm a skeptic, but I
have to say that with a asterisk because I've met
so many people who tell so many believable stories, stories
(17:46):
that they absolutely believe in that who am I to
doubt them? So while I am skeptical because there isn't
a lot of hard, hard evidence, There isn't a lot
of come helling testimony that leads to the heart evidence.
Uh there is, there are, just there are a lot
(18:08):
of personal accounts that one can take with a grain
of salt. So you didn't find I mean, did you
ever feel like you were led on to something that
that most people or just about everybody wouldn't have known
in the course of this stuff. It clearly wasn't something
that would have changed your mind. I didn't find anything
(18:32):
that necessarily changed my mind. There was something interesting that
I did that I had a chance to do, and
and I had written about regression hypnosis, and this is
the way Bud Hopkins worked and John mac worked, taking
people back through their memories, maybe removing the screen memories
(18:55):
that the aliens had implanted them with. And I actually
got to sit in on a regression hypnosis went. I
flew to Boston while the show was being produced and
sat in on one of these events. And it was
powerful to be sitting next to someone who is going
(19:15):
through the abduction experience. In this case, it was someone
who was taken from a campground. So who am I
to say that it's not true when it seemed so
vivid and powerful in this in this person's mind. Can
(19:50):
you talk a little bit about the dynamic of the
of the writing of the X Files and and you
know the other things that kind of went into create
eating the storyline and sort of the look and feel.
They are very very strong. Yeah. I was really lucky
to hire two teams of smart guys, and that would
(20:14):
be people have mentioned already. Glenn Morgan and James Wong
were a writing team, uh, and then a writing team
of Howard Gordon and Alex Gonza, who were also too
smart guys who went on to create Homeland together. So
I had these capable people, and the way we began
(20:35):
to work was we would gather together and people would
pitch their ideas for episodes, and if the ideas were good,
and they almost always were, that person would go and
create a plot, so basically go to the drawing board
and create the plot for the story. They would bring
(20:56):
that plot, which was done on three buy five cards
on a bulletin board, to the group and we would
go through it and listen, and once again I got
very lucky. People had very good ideas of how to
develop the modern Scully storyline through horror, thriller, suspense, and
(21:20):
paranormal episodes. So the X Files from the very beginning
was not just going to be a UFO alien show.
It was going to be more than that. And uh,
I had actually created a marketing package before any of
these people came on, when I turned the pilot and
originally into twenty Century Fox, spelling out what the show was.
(21:42):
So it just happened that I was able to pair
with the right people to bring the idea of making
it a horror show, a suspense show, a thriller, what
have you. That it became really three fifths of the
time it was something other than alien and aliens and UFOs.
(22:04):
I'm really interested in this idea of working with other
people on something that's essentially, you know, your brainchild. Was
everybody sort of on the same page, particularly with Moulder
and Scully and how they would react to certain things
or was askedly that that was hashed out over the
course of of meetings. You know, I have to say
(22:28):
that the characters were they developed over time, that people
added to them, that people created and created nuances for
the characters. But the idea that they were the believer
in the skeptic and their personalities were really came from
the pilot. And so while everyone added to the creation
(22:53):
in the most amazing ways, and the show wouldn't be
the same without those additions. Modern Scully, I think, or
Modern Scully from the beginning, and they just uh their
characters and their stories and their backgrounds and their attitudes
changed with time because that's the nature of producing a
(23:15):
television show, right. Interesting, So what is it about UFOs
that you think makes for good and compelling TV or movies?
I think it's interesting because I think people look up
into the sky at night and wonder if the truth
(23:36):
is out there, if the if there are other civilizations.
So it has a kind of human component to it,
and the idea that the aliens have in many cases
humanoid qualities, and that they actually seem to have some
steak and humanity and they have some either good or
(23:58):
bad purposes for being year it's our fear of the
other that is natural, and in this case, I think
it's the fear of a another that has either a
good or evil intent. Have you been have you been
following what's been going on recently, you know, in the
(24:19):
last couple of years, the revelations that the Pentagon continued
to have a quote unquote UFO program up until very recently.
You know, you have Marco Rubio, Senator Marco Rubio asking
the Department of Defense to give him unclassified report of
(24:42):
what they've been doing and what they potentially know. Do
you have thoughts? Yeah? I do. I mean Obama asked
the Defense Department for any files. Hillary Clinton, who with
John Fodesta on her staff, we're avid believers, or I
should say want to believers, and the phenomenon were had
(25:05):
even said during our campaign that they were going to
get to the bottom of it. So you know, this
has been going on for quite a while. People want
to know. I think Bill Clinton wanted to know, and
so Marco Rubio is just the latest in a long line.
I think. I thought it was interesting that Harry Reid
basically did have a secret alien project UFO project that
(25:30):
he financed with taxpayer dollars, which was not I was
not unsurprised. How do you how do you look at
the legacy of the X Files. That's a big question,
you know. I hope that it was nine years of
quality entertainment. Two put a big stamp on the whole thing.
(25:55):
But I think that what as you say, modern skelling
the iconic duo, I think this show was always While
it was about a group of or I should say,
a file cabinet full of spiles of the unknown, it
really was a show about Molder and Scully in their relationship.
So I think the legacy is those two characters. It's
(26:18):
funny the way Molder and Scully now kind of rolls
off the tongue and you know exactly what you know
that means the believer in the skeptic and that I
would take you know, that name Molder, which isn't the
most poetic, malifluous name, and parrot with Scully and somehow
Mulder and Scully sounds as if the two characters have
(26:41):
existed forever. Yeah. Absolutely, What if I missed? Is are
there other? Is there something else that people should know? Now?
You know, it's funny when you when I think about
the show, I think about you know, it was always
surprising to me. I was mentioning the writers and what
people would bring in was always interesting to me and
(27:04):
things I hadn't imagined, takes on the show that I
haven't imagined. But once those scripts were written, you are
our first audience was always the crew, and you knew
that if the crew liked an episode, it was a
good episode. They were our toughest critics and they really
invested themselves in the show because they liked the show.
(27:25):
But I think about taking a script and handing it
over to the people like the production designers and seeing
what they came up with, what their visions were, and
it seems like every episode they always came up with
something that none of us quite imagined, or a way
(27:46):
to do something that none of us quite imagined. I
think the pilot episode was done by Michael Namursky, and
then the five seasons. The next five seasons were Graham Murray,
Uh these people, Uh she speak to a case in point,
Dwayne Berry. What Graham Murray came up with for an
(28:08):
examination table of this character? Dwayne Berry, surrounded by Gray
Aliens was production design costume, said Deck. You know, all
these people came together and created something that was better
than I ever imagined. Yeah, did you did you know
at the time, well you're working at this on this
(28:29):
that this would have like a very long life beyond
its initial run. No, there are so many pitfalls that
are you try to avoid through the process, and they
are They could be one bad note from a studio
executive could change the course of the show, much like
(28:50):
I was. You know, there was something that Jillian Anderson
became pregnant during the first season of the show, and
we scrambled because we didn't know what to do, how
to uh if she was going to be pregnant for
the whole first part of the second season, how we
were going to do Molder and Scully. And we figured
(29:11):
out a clever way to do that, a way that
actually played into the larger storyline. But I actually had
a network executive say to me, you've got to get
rid of her, and he was, you know, in no
uncertain terms, And so you have to fight against that.
You know, you can't establish these two characters and then
just break them up because he uh doesn't want a
(29:33):
pregnant woman working on the show. It worked out that
we were able to film Scully and I think it
was episode five of season two, and she is taken
away by it. I just mentioned Dwyane Berry. She is
abducted by this character, Dwayne Berry, which leads to what
is supposed by Mother as an alien abduction. You know,
(29:58):
there's actually one other thing I'd like to say about Sure.
They talked about its origins, and I talked about Silence
Phil Lambs, and you know, it was loomed huge in
my mind. I loved the movie, and it's really that
I was inspired by that Jodie Foster character to a
large part. But I think that also and this actually
plays out in an episode called Fire on the series
(30:21):
UH in the first season, where Malder is paired with
the British woman who refers to Sherlock Holmes. I read everything.
I read all of Sherlock Holmes as a kid, and
I loved that kind of storytelling. I loved Sherlock and
and Watson's interplay, and I think that is a big
(30:41):
for me, was a big part of the dynamic between
Mother and Scully as well. People are gonna be really
excited to hear this as I was excited to hear
it myself. Thanks Kobe, Okay, thanks so much, Chris. Strange
Arrivals is a production of I Heart three D Audio
(31:03):
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. This episode was
written and hosted by Toby Ball and produced by Miranda
Hawkins and Josh Say, with executive producers Alex Williams, Matt Frederick,
and Aaron Mankey. Learn more about Strange Rivals over at
Grimm and Mild dot com, and find more podcasts from
my Heart Radio by visiting the I Heart Radio app,
(31:25):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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