4. Conduit

Large glowing lights in the sky are never going to be scary. Even if it happened in real life, rational thinking would probably lead us to believe it was some oncoming aircraft or an approaching storm. So when this episode opens with a woman in a caravan whose windows suddenly light up, before the caravan begins shaking violently, my spirits sink somewhat, as I can smell another aliens episode on the way. And it isn’t the best of the bunch.

The story revolves around a family who were out camping within a supposed hot-spot for alien activity; the mother, as a girl scout, witnessed a UFO above the lake and subsequently spent her life being ridiculed for believing in aliens. On the night of the strange lights and intense heat (which singed the treetops, boiled sand into glass, and burned the roof of the caravan) the woman’s daughter, Ruby, disappears. Her little brother has no idea what happened, but begins acting suspiciously. Suspiciously in this case means staring at the static on a TV while scribbling down a series of 1s and 0s, which, for anybody who’s seen the episode of The Outer Limits entitled “The Message,” can be termed as pretty normal behaviour for people who have come into contact with extra terrestrials. When translated, the binary codes become famous art works, pieces of classical music…and a picture of the missing girl, Ruby.

This strange behaviour is what leads Fox Mulder into believing the child may be a link or conduit between aliens and earth, although Scully is firm in her belief that Mulder is driven by his desire to find his long-ago abducted sister and will never accept the signs that point to this simply being a murder case. A girl turns up and confesses to murdering Ruby’s boyfriend, although denies murdering Ruby herself. Ruby’s body is eventually discovered in the woods, apparently showing internal damage that could only have been caused by prolonged weightlessness. The girl’s mother refuses to let her talk about what happened, and Mulder is forced to let go of the case.

The episode ends very emotionally with what I’m sure must be a classic monologue by now, taken from a cassette tape recording of one of Mulder’s hypnotic therapy sessions. He describes the time his sister was abducted, how the room was filled with light, and how he was paralysed but could hear voices in his head. The voices told him his sister would come to no harm and would one day be returned to him. When asked if he believes what the voices said, Mulder delivers the line, “I want to believe.” Aww. An okay episode (although in he grand scheme of things, probably quite pivotal), but if the next one begins with a forest and some glowing lights, my patience may just snap.

Check out Matt's revisit to episode 3 here.