The X-Files had several episodes that were inspired by true stories over its run. There are lots of TV shows that have episodes based on true stories, with police procedurals at the top of the list. It is easy to look at episodes of Criminal Minds or Law & Order and recognize the cases as having to do with real criminal cases from the past. There are even shows like Mindhunter that were actually based on real-life serial killers, using their stories to drive the plot. That said, when looking at a sci-fi series that alternates between Monsters of the Week and alien abductions, it is hard to believe anything is based on reality.
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Throughout its run, there were several X-Files episodes that pulled things from true stories to help tell its stories, proving that, in some cases, reality is stranger than fiction.
10) “Duane Barry” – Episode 2, Episode 5 – Phineas Gage
The X-Files Season 2 episode “Duane Barry” was based on the true story of Phineas Gage. Gage was a 19th-century railway worker who had a metal rod driven through his brain. He somehow survived, but it caused a considerable personality change. This episode took that idea and gave it a twist, as Phineas Gage was a former FBI agent who was shot in the head during a stakeout, and it turned him into a volatile, unstable man. While it turned into an alien abduction storyline, the initial injury, which caused side effects, was based on a true story.
9) “The Erlenmeyer Flask” – Season 1, Episode 24 – Gloria Ramirez
The first season episode of The X-Files titled “The Erlenmeyer Flask” was based on a bizarre true story that took place in Riverside, California, in 1994. In “The Erlenmeyer Flask,” the show explored the idea that scientists had collected alien DNA and were trying to mix it with human DNA. There was a scene in the episode where paramedics were working on Dr. Secare and ended up poisoned.
This was based on Gloria Ramirez, a woman who checked into an emergency room with late-stage cervical cancer. Soon, medical personnel ended up in the ICU themselves, and it turned out she had been secretly taking a medication without anyone knowing. When the paramedics gave her oxygen, it turned the medication in her body into poison, which became airborne and affected everyone around her.
8) “Home” – Season 4, Episode 2 – Ward brothers
The fourth season episode of X-Files, “Home,” is one of the most controversial for the show. The twisted episode was so deranged that it was banned from reruns on Fox and was never shown again until it hit cable television on FX. It was also the first episode to have a warning for “graphic content.” Mulder and Scully investigated the death of a baby with severe birth defects. This led them to the Peacock family.
What Mulder and Scully discovered was a history of incest involving the Peacock’s mother. The true story here was based on the Ward brothers, whose story was told in a documentary called Brother’s Keeper, where the four elderly, reclusive brothers faced an investigation that one of the brothers was killing the others. The X-Files based the Peacock brothers on the Ward brothers.
7) “Paper Clip” – Season 3, Episode 2 – Operation Paperclip
“Paper Clip” was the second episode of The X-Files Season 3. The name of the episode explains the exact true story, since Operation Paperclip was a historical secret operation the United States intelligence agencies enacted after World War II to recruit scientists, engineers, and technicians from nazi Germay to come work for the U.S. government.
In the X-Files episode, Mulder and Scully uncover some secret government records that indicate that a former Nazi scientist recruited by the U.S. government was responsible for creating a race of human-alien hybrids. This was a huge part of the Syndicate storyline, but it showed that the real-life Operation Paperclip was responsible for the secret plans.
6) “The Field Where I Died” – Season 4, Episode 5 – Waco
The fifth season of The X-Files was “The Field Where I Died,” which took strong inspiration from the massacre at the Waco siege with David Koresh and his cult. The true story saw the ATF agents attempt to serve a warrant, but the cult knew they were coming, leading to a fun battle that resulted in 10 deaths, including four ATF agents. This led to the FBI showing up for a standoff that ended with the death of 76 cult members, including between 20 and 28 children.
“The Field Where I Died” had Mulder search for an informant inside a cult compound. They soon learn that the cult is involved in some supernatural events involving reincarnation. The final scenes with the destruction of the compound and the countless deaths were based on the final moments at the Waco compound.
5) “Tunguska” – Season 4, Episode 8 – 1908 Tunguska Event
“Tunguska” is another X-Files episode that has a title based on the true story it was inspired by. This was the eighth episode of Season 4, and it followed Dana Scully and Walter Skinner, who were called in to a Senate hearing about where Fox Mulder disappeared to. This was the first part of a two-part episode that played into the alien subplot involving the black oil.
However, the inspiration for this episode was the Tunguska event in 1908, which was a huge explosion that was attributed to a meteor air burst, as an asteroid is reported to have headed toward the planet but exploded before impact. There were reports of evidence that there was extraterrestrial life on the meteorite, making this a perfect true story for The X-Files to pull from.
4) “Oubliette” – Season 3, Episode 8 – Polly Klaas
The third season episode “Oubliette” is based on a tragic true story, and it is one of the cases where the X-Files episode had a happier ending in the conclusion than the real-life incident. This episode had Mulder and Scully search for a kidnapped teenager who ends up imprisoned by an unstable photographer. Mulder then learns that another girl kidnapped by the same man has a psychic link to the new kidnapped girl.
The kidnapping plot was inspired by the real-life kidnapping victim named Polly Lkaas, who was 12 when she was kidnapped. In the real case, the kidnapper, Richard Allen Davis, strangled the young girl and killed her. In the X-Files episode, the teenager was rescued and lived. The show also increased her age, so the comparisons to Polly Klaas would be less apparent.
3) “Unruhe” – Season 4, Episode 4 – Ted Serios
The fourth season X-Files episode “Unruhe” was written by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and follows Mulder and Scully as they investigate a man who kidnaps women and then lobotomizes them. The only clue was distorted photographs of the kidnapping victims before their abduction. Gilligan said that he got inspiration for this story from all the stories about serial killers he read as a child.
The main inspiration for the episode was a man named Ted Serios. This was a man who claimed he had psychic powers that he used to create “thoughtographs” on Polaroid film. While Serios was not the base for the villain, the idea of thoughtography was the premise of the investigation.
2) “Squeeze” – Season 1, Episode 3 – Richard Ramirez
The third-ever episode of The X-Files introduced one of the most terrifying villains in the show’s long history, Eugene Victor Tooms. Mulder and Scully were investigating the ritualistic killings by someone who seems to be able to squeeze his body into impossibly narrow spaces. This makes them believe he might be a genetic mutant who has been killing people for at least 90 years.
The villain of Tooms was based on two serial killers in history, with the writers basing him on both Jack the Ripper and Richard Ramirez. The latter was a serial killer who terrorized the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay area from 1984 to 1985, murdering at least 15 people.
1) “Irresistible” – Season 2, Episode 13 – Jeffrey Dahmer
One of the greatest X-Files episodes of all time came in the second season with “Irresistible.” This was the first of two appearances in the show for death fetishist killer, Donnie Pfaster. This was the first time that Mulder and Scully faced Phaster, as he was kidnapping and killing women to satisfy his obsession. It also dealt with Scully dealing with PTSD from her previous abduction, which she deals with in this episode.
There was an X-Files scene where Scully, experiencing hallucinations during a moment of stress, sees Phaster morph into a devil. According to Chris Carter, this was based on people who were “under the spell” of Jeffrey Dahmer, and who claimed he could shapeshift when he was holding them hostage. It was an X-Files episode that delivered the message that some monsters were just regular people.
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