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Shout Out / The X-Files, Seasons 1 to 3

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    Season One 
Pilot
  • Answering the knocking at her door:
    Scully: Who is it?
    Mulder: Steven Spielberg.
  • Episode's concept was influenced on Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
  • After taking out a paper from a pile with his telephone as a paperweight, he takes off glasses and looks at it.
    Mulder: Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation. Dana Scully, Senior Thesis." Now that's a credential. Rewriting Einstein.

Deep Throat

Squeeze

  • The episode is slightly similar to The Night Strangler where a serial killer rises from the Seattle Underground every twenty some years and strangles his victims and use their blood to keep himself alive for over a century.
  • Tom Colton asks "had any Close Encounters of the Third Kind?" to Scully.
  • Colton's comment "lucked into the World Trade Center bombing" refers to the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on February 26, 1993 when a car bomb was planted in the underground garage by Islamic extremists.
  • Both Mulder and Scully are discussing Eugene Tooms' lack of family history:
    Mulder: So what's this, the Anti-Waltons?
  • Eugene Victor Tooms was inspired by serial killers Jack the Ripper and Richard Ramirez.
  • When Mulder shows Scully the elongated fingerprints from the previous murder, a picture of Laura Palmer's corpse is seen hanging behind Scully's head when she backs away in her chair and stands up.

Conduit

  • A 'conduit' is 1) a means of transmitting or distributing. 2) a channel for conveying fluid. 3) a tube or trough for protecting electric wires or cables.
  • On the phone:
    Mulder: I know you're busy, look erm, I know a friend who knows a friend who knows a friend who-oo can get you tickets to a Redskins game.
  • When Mulder and Scully are talking to the Pennsylvania Pub Bartender, "Whipping Post" by The Allman Brothers is playing in the background.
  • The address in Samantha Mulder's file, 2790 Vine Street, is the former address of The X-Files production office in Vancouver.

The Jersey Devil

  • In reality, the Jersey Devil is a well-known urban legend found in the southern environs of New Jersey.
  • Mulder asks why Thompson's going after a perpetrator late at night:
    Detective Thompson: Whether it's Hannibal the Cannibal or Elmer Fudd, I've got a job to protect people.
  • Dr. Diamond may been named after famed Anthropologist Jared Diamond who theorized the first wide scale genocide was of the Neanderthals

Shadows

  • In the autopsy report on "Jane Doe," the name of the coroner is K. H. Hawryliw, as in series' prop master Ken Hawryliw.
  • Mulder jokes Elvis was the only man ever to have successfully faked his own death.
  • After Mulder mentions psychokinesis:
    Scully: You mean how Carrie got even at the prom?
  • The date of birth on Sarah Lynn Graves' headstone is September 8, 1966, the date the original Star Trek series premiered.
  • Scully suggests Lauren Kyte crashed their car:
    Mulder: Either that or a poltergeist.
    Scully: They're heeeere.
  • The name being painted on the parking space previously used by deceased boss Howard Graves is Tom Braidwood, an Assistant Director of the show.
  • Episode takes inspirations from The Entity.

Ghost in the Machine

  • Scully's phone number is given as (202)-555-6431.
  • The way Eurisko computer Central Operating System (COS) speaks and sounds is reminiscent of HAL 9000.
  • The relationship between Brad Wilczek and Benjamin Drake is the inverse of Ed Dillinger and Dr. Walter Gibbs's relationship.
  • Scully asks if Wilczek had a different vision for the company:
    Brad Wilczek: I started Eurisko out of my parent's garage. I was twenty-two years old. I'd just spent a year following around The Grateful Dead.
  • 'Ghost in the Machine' derives from The Ghost in the Machine book by Arthur Koestler that inspired The Police's album and the cyber-punk anime Ghost in the Shell.
  • It's a phrase coined by philosopher Descartes as a way to explain conscious as the ghost being our soul, the machine to our bodies.
  • Name of the company 'Eurisko' is the name of a famous artificial intelligence program at Stanford which attempts to think like a human.

Ice

Space

  • Lieutenant colonel Marcus Aurelius Belt is named for Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161-180 AD and the last of the "Five Good Emperors."
  • Marcus Aurelius Belt decides to jump off his hospital room window to kill the 'spirit' possessing him like how Father Damien Karras jumps out a window to prevent his possessed self from killing Regan.

Fallen Angel

  • Deep Throat's warning to Section Chief McGrath "Always keep your friends close, Mr. McGrath, but keep your enemies closer" is a paraphrased quote from Michael Corleone. The phrase is often believed to have originated from Chinese general and military strategist Sun-tzu who actually said "If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."
  • The actual quote was from The Prince written by Italian statesman Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli.
  • 'Fallen Angel' could mean:
  • After Scully retrieves him from jail to take him back to headquarters to face his superiors for his folly:
    Mulder: The Last Detail starring Dana Scully.
  • There is an actual small town called Townsend in northeast Wisconsin though it's likely the town in this episode was based on the City of Tomahawk, a large town not far from Townsend where unusual phenomena have been reported, including aerial objects and the local cryptozoological Hodag mascot.
  • Dr. Oppenheim's name is an allusion to Robert Oppenheimer, nuclear physicist and chief of the Manhattan Project.

Eve

  • The Ms. Pac-Man arcade game is visible at the roadside diner.
  • The line "I am her, she is me and we are all together" said by Eve is a reference to a lyric from "I am the Walrus" by The Beatles.
  • 'Eve' is the name of Biblical first woman.
  • Eve 6 recounts how she bit the eye off of a nurse before biting her teeth repeatedly in the same manner as Dr. Lecter.
  • Mulder refers to Jonestown in Guyana by saying "Mini-Jonestown".
  • Cindy briefly watches Eek! The Cat on television.
  • Tuckerization: Cindy and Teena are the names of the wives of writers Glen Morgan and James Wong.

Fire

  • The episode contains references to Sherlock Holmes:
    • Phoebe Green reminds Mulder they once made out on the tombstone of Sire Arthur Conan Doyle.
    • Phoebe mentions a "three-pipe problem," an expression used in The Red-Headed League that refers to the idea that a person has to sit and smoke at least three pipes in order to solve a case with the gathered information.
    • Scully asks if the game is afoot, an expression used many times in the Sherlock Holmes novels.
    • Scully calls Mulder Sherlock and he calls her Watson in return.
  • First victim Malcolm Marsden is named after the show's hairstylist.

Beyond the Sea

  • In the scene where Scully's father appears in her apartment, he's silently mouthing the Lord's Prayer.
  • The newspaper article about the gas chamber was written by a G. Morgan, a nod to screenwriter Glen Morgan.
  • 'Beyond the Sea' refers to the song with the same name adapted from French song "La Mer" by Charles Trenet.
  • It's also a song by Bobby Darin, heard during Mr. Scully's funeral.
  • There are many connections between Special Agent Dana Scully and FBI student Clarice Starling:
    • Similarities in appearance as well as their positions in a patriarchal working environment.
    • Both having emotional connection with and a need to prove themselves to their deceased fathers.
    • Both showing concern if their fathers were proud of them.
    • The relationship between the female and the serial killer.
    • They seek the help of a serial killer to catch another serial killer.
  • Scully and her father call one another Ahab and Starbuck.
  • After Luther Boggs slumps down in his chair after an impassioned revelation about the kidnapped couple, Mulder slowly walks over to him and kneels down in front of his face, taking a cloth out of his hand and holds it up:
    Mulder: I tore this off my New York Knicks t-shirt, it has nothing to do with the crime.
  • Names of the two killers, Luther Lee Boggs and Lucas Jackson Henry, are a division of real life killer Henry Lee Lucas.
  • Mulder makes this crack about how he spent the afternoon:
    Mulder: It was five hours of Boggs's "channeling". After three hours, I asked him to summon up the soul of Jimi Hendrix and requested "All Along the Watchtower".

Gender Bender

  • In several aspects, the fictitious Kindred are similar to the actual existing Amish.
    • Mulder and Scully leave the Kindred group, each carrying lanterns at night:
      Mulder: The Addams family finds religion.
  • The music used for the disco in the opening scene is from Mark Snow's theme music for television movie In the Line of Duty: Street War.
  • Marty stands next to a large painting by H. R. Giger on a wall in the background of the discotheque.

Lazarus

  • 'Lazarus' is the name of the man Jesus brought back to life after being dead for four days in one of the miracle recounts in The Four Gospels.
  • In regards to Lula Phillips:
    Scully: Well, we're putting her face out there – local newspapers, America's Most Wanted.

Young at Heart

  • Episode features numerous links to Frankenstein.
  • 'Young at Heart' is taken from the famous Frank Sinatra song "Young at Heart" and used in the film of the same name in 1954.
  • Dr. Joseph Ridley admits people called him Dr. Mengele and Dr. Frankenstein in the past.
  • 'Progeria' is a very rare condition that causes premature ageing in newborns and young children.

E.B.E.

  • 'E.B.E.' stands for Extra-Terrestrial Biological Entity.
  • Mulder refers to hot dogs served at Dodger Stadium, home to Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers.
  • 'Agent Orange' was the codename for an herbicide/defoliant used during The Vietnam War by the United States as part of its Herbicidal Warfare.
  • When Mulder and Scully enter the Hanford power plant, the aliases provided by The Lone Gunmen for them are Tom Braidwood and Val Stfoff, the names of two of the show's First Assistant Directors.
  • Mulder mentions the Kennedy assassination, the MIAs, radiation experiments on terminal patients, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Roswell and the Tuskegee experiments that all allude to events many believe to be some extent of government conspiracy.
  • Lee Harvey Oswald has long been thought a pawn in some conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy.
  • Missing In Action (MIAs) are the ones still thought to be missing in Vietnam that the government did nothing to find.
  • Radiation experiments are believed to have been carried out on all sorts of people without their knowledge.
  • The Watergate Scandal being the biggest political scandal to hit the United States where five men were arrested for breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee on June 17, 1972 at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C..
  • The Iran-Contra Affair was an elaborate three-way deal between the CIA, Iran and a band of Nicaraguan rebels where the CIA illegally sold weapons to Iran in exchange for cash and hostages and then funneled much of the proceeds into the pocks of the Contras.
  • The Roswell Incident where personnel from the Roswell Army Air Field recovered materials from a ranch outside Roswell, New Mexico on June 7, 1947 and their initial press release stated the materials resembled a flying disk though they issued a correction that it was in fact a weather balloon the same day.
  • The Tuskegee Experiment refers to a program whereby US Health Officials enrolled 399 very deprived and uneducated African-American men suffering from syphilis in a testing process but never told what they were suffering from, thus not getting aid for syphilis, which even at the time the experiment was performed was treatable, just to see what effect the disease would have as time went on for over forty years. By the end in 1972, twenty-eight men died of direct related consequences, one hundred died from complications, forty of their wives been infected with the disease and nineteen children born with congenital.
  • Mulder tears his apartment apart looking for a tracking bug.
  • Mulder mentions looking at pictures of Gulf Breeze, a small town becoming famous in 1987 as a site of large numbers of UFO sightings.
  • Mulder asks the government if Barney is part of a conspiracy.

Miracle Man

  • Scully suggests heading backstage to see Reverend Hartley:
    Mulder: No, wait. This is the part where they bring out Elvis.
  • Scully admits The Exorcist is one her favorite movies.
  • Upon entering the sideshow tent, Mulder mentions seeing Woodstock.

Shapes

  • Character name 'Manitour' is used to designate the spirits among many Algonquian groups.
  • Ish mentions being at Wounded Knee, the seventy-one day standoff between the federal authorities and militants of the American Indian Movement at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Wounded Knee holds some significance in American Indian history as it was the site of the last armed conflict between the Great Sioux Nation and the USA in 1890.

Darkness Falls

  • The phrase 'darkness falls' has been used in poetry for hundreds of years.
  • Ranger Larry Moore is part of Federal Forest Service. The Federal Forest Service is part of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) along with the National Parks Service.
  • Moore mentions a man caught in some kind of insect cocoon, an occurrence that happens in nature though usually not to humans. Spiders trap and drink their prey in similar, but not in identical fashion. Female spiders do spin cocoons but to hold egg sacs not to immobilize prey. Spiders also drink their food, but don't just drain all the fluids out of it, instead predigesting like most other arachnids.
  • As explained liberally in the episode, 'ecoterrorists' are environmentalists who have decided to take it one step further and begin sabotaging logging equipment and driving spikes into trees which are illegal acts in most places.

Tooms

  • The name on the door adjoining Eugene Victor Tooms' cell is L. Robbie Maier, Rob Maier is the construction coordinator.
  • During Tooms' sneaking into Mulder's apartment and fakes an assault from the FBI agent, The Fly (1958) with Vincent Price can be seen on Mulder's television as he sleeps on the couch.
  • Several scenes modeled on Dirty Harry, with Mulder tracking Tooms after his release from prison, and Tooms faking a beating to implicate Mulder.

Born Again

  • Detective Sharon Lazard mentions Mr. Greenjeans in regards to Detective Barbala bringing the fact he's good with kids.
  • While discussing Charlie Morris:
    Scully: You think he's back like Peter Proud to avenge his murder?
  • The plaque with Charlie Morris' picture contains names of previous rewarded recipients who actually work on the show's production. The 1985's recipient was Ken Hawryliw, the prop-master for the show, the 1986's recipient was Robert Maier, the construction coordinator, the 1989's recipient was Judy Fairly, the script coordinator and the 1992's recipient was Jim Pate, the assistant prop manager.
  • 'Born Again' is usually used to describe someone who has found religion.

Roland

  • In discussing the manner of Dr. Keats' death:
    Scully: An organic object exposed to liquid nitrogen at minus 320 degrees will become frozen, exhibiting great tensile strength, but is vulnerable to stress from compression or impact. Now, I've seen this demonstrated on a fish before.
    Mulder: I don't think they'll be performing this experiment on Beakman's World
  • As Mulder and Scully walk down the hallway, leading to the wind tunnel control room, Scully notices a folder in Mulder's hand:
    Scully: So is that what you couldn't talk to me about over the phone?
    Mulder: (hands her the folder) The project that everyone says doesn't exist, does exist.
    Scully: (reading the label) The Icarus project?
  • Dr. Nollette quips famous quote "If I've seen further than other men, it's because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" from a line Sir Isaac Newton wrote in a letter to Robert Howe.

The Erlenmeyer Flask

  • The 'Erlenmeyer flask' is a common laboratory container.
  • At the start of the episode, a scene from Journey to the Center of the Earth can be seen and heard on Mulder's TV where he awakens on his couch to answers a phone call from Deep Throat.
  • Mulder compares his and Deep Throat's relationship to the one between Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
  • Deep Throat acting like Obi-Wan Kenobi is taken from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi where Obi-Wan appears every now and then to give Luke some advice and guidance.
  • A police officer compares a manhunt to Silence of the Lambs.
  • Where Dr. Secare poisons the paramedics while being operated on is similar to real life case of Gloria Ramirez, a Los Angeles woman who reportedly emitted toxin fumes when having blood drawn.
  • Scully tells Carpenter the bacterial sample she obtained that the latter inquired about was recovered at a crime scene:
    Dr. Anne Carpenter: Well, we've come a long way from Colonel Mustard in the den with the rope, haven't we?
  • Scully mentions the 'Human Genome Project (HOP)' initiated in 1989 and still continues today as an effort to map the human genetic code.
  • In regards to Dr. Terrance Allan Berube's death.
    Mulder: The man we met yesterday kept this place like he was waiting for the people from Good Housekeeping to show up. I would never pegged him as someone to do all this, or a Greg Louganis out the window...
  • The final scene has Cigarette Smoking Man placing a box containing an important item on a storage shelf in a vast warehouse space in the Pentagon filled with nondescript boxes.
  • The location of Zeus Storage is 1616 Pandora Street. Both Zeus and Pandora are from Classical Mythology.
    • Pandora is also a street in East Vancouver.

    Season Two 
Little Green Men
  • 'Little Green Men' alludes to the age-old viewing of aliens as little green men from Mars.
  • Senator Richard Matheson is introduced, named after Richard Matheson. This may also be an In-Joke reference to The Godfather Part II, where Matheson cameos as a Senator.
  • Several to All the President's Men, with Mulder meeting Scully in a parking garage and Matheson playing classical music to obscure his conversation with Mulder.
  • Matheson calls up Mulder to visit the Arecibo Observatory near San Juan, Puerto Rico.
  • The 'wow' signal' Dr. Troisky mentions was a mysterious radio signal received at an Ohio state radio telescope on August 15, 1977. Though the signal's source was never identified, astrophysicist jerry R. Ehman was so impressed by the transmission readout on a print out, he wrote "wow" in the margins.
  • Young Mulder and his sister play Stratego right before her abduction.
  • Young Mulder tells his sister he wants to watch The Magician.
  • The Offspring along with their song "Come Out and Play" are mentioned.
  • After incorrectly naming the instrumental work number of Brandenberg Concerto:
    Mulder: Good thing it wasn't a double jeopardy question.
  • This episode begins with Mulder's voiceover about the Voyager project. Voyager 1 and Voyager II were a pair of NASA space probes launched in 1977 to study the solar system and the galaxy beyond, each carrying an universal message intended to any alien life they might encounter. Having finished the study of planets around our sun in 1989, the two probes have continued to travel further than ever before, eventually passing Neptune and leaving the solar system.

The Host

  • Mulder refers to the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986.
  • Member of the Men in Black and Mulder's informant X or Mr. X is based on another character also known as X from JFK.
  • The look of the fluke man appears to be strongly based on a birth defect known as 'harlequin type ichthyosis' where babies with this birth defect are born with extremely dry skin resembling scales or armored plating and a mouth pulled into a wide circular gape due to the tightly pulled skin.

Blood

  • Edward Funsch climbing the Franklin Community College clock tower overlooking a blood drive to carry out his shooting spree is based on an actual incident where Charles Whitman went to the observation deck on the twenty-seventh floor of the clock tower at the University of Texas, Austin campus August 1, 1966 and began a ninety-two minute shooting spree leaving sixteen dead and many wounded, finally ending when Whitman was shot by police.
  • After Larry Winter angrily walks out a room of the Franklin Community Hospital where Scully is finishing taking Mulder's blood after saying there's no proof of the spray caused violent behaviors:
    Scully: I'm sorry Mulder, he's right. I'd love to tell you that I flew three-hundred miles In the middle of the night to perform tests that prove that you're about to become the next Charles Manson but I find little physiological evidence that L.S.D.M. has toxically affected you even after massive ingestion.
  • Sheriff Spencer leaves the room.
    Mulder: He's probably one of those people who thinks Elvis is dead.
  • The nurse buzzing the doorbell is writing "KILL" in Morse Code.
  • One of the television sets at the supermarket is featuring an episode of Bobby's World.

Sleepless

  • Saul Grissom shares the last name as American astronaut Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissoom. Both died after being trapped in a blaze of fire, Saul Grissom being trapped in his own apartment and Gus Grissom being trapped in Apollo 1 with two other astronauts.
  • While performing an autopsy during her class, Scully receives a phone call from Mulder, calling himself "George Hale," name of the visionary behind the Palomar Observatory in California.

Duane Barry

  • Just before Duane Barry's 1985 visit by aliens, he is napping in front of his television where the clip of accidental time-traveler Hank Martin being brought before King Arthur is visible.
  • A sign at the Jefferson Memorial Hospital reads Please Line Up Quietly.
  • Scully explains to Agent Lucy Kazdin that Duane Barry was shot in the line of duty where the bullet pierced his brain.
    Scully: Now, almost a hundred years ago, there was a famous case. A man named Gage had a blasting rod pierce the same region.
    Kazdin: And what effect did it have?
    Scully: He became a pathological liar, suffering from severe delusions. His behavior was characterized as bizarre and violent was a tendency to act out his fantasies.

Ascension

  • 'Ascension' is the act or practice of ascending.
  • The song playing while Duane Barry is driving through Virginia on his way to Skyland Mountain but is pulled over by a cop is "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
  • In regards to asking Duane Barry about Scully, Alex Krycek said he started whistling Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven"..
  • Krycek mentions Chernobyl, Exxon and Valdez all being linked to sleep deprivation.
    • Chernobyl is the site of a nuclear power plant that exploded in 1986.
    • Exxon Valdez is the name of an oil tanker which caused a massive oil spill in 1989 after hitting Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef before the coast of Alaska
    • Three Mile Island is the location of a nuclear power plant which suffered a partial core meltdown in 1979.
  • Walter Skinner refers to the Nuremberg Trials held in the German city of Nuremberg from 1945 to 1949, conceived to bring the major war criminals/leaders to Nazi Germany to justice and their defense was that they were just following orders.

3

One Breath

  • Nurse Owens was named after writer Glen Morgan's grandmother.
  • In her dream, Scully's father calls her and himself Starbuck and Ahab from Moby-Dick.
  • Langly says he hopes to nitpick the scientific inaccuracies of Earth 2 on the internet.
  • Cigarette Smoking Man is watching Twelve O'Clock High on TV when confronted by Mulder.
  • The scene in "One Breath" where Mulder goes to the CSM's apartment is basically a re-creation of the scene on The A-Team where Murdock gets onto Stockwell's private jet. They're both faced with the possibility of losing someone they care about (for Mulder it's Scully, for Murdock it's the rest of the team), they both get access to a powerful, manipulative man who is supposed to be untraceable, burst in brandishing a gun, and demand information. Also, both are met with a calm, unfazed response from said powerful men.
    CSM: Don't try and threaten me, Mulder. I've watched presidents die.
    Compare that to...
    Stockwell: Whoever judged you insane, Captain, should have his license lifted.

Firewalker

  • The silicon based fungi which influences its hosts into infecting others has a real life carbon-based analogue known as 'Cordyceps.'

Red Museum

  • Mulder's comment "I think the Spur Posse just rode into town" refers to a group of high school boys known as 'The Spur Posse' from Lakewood, California who kept a score system to compare their sexual conquests.
  • Gird Thomas, the peeping tom who writes 'he/she is one' on the backs of kids, shares his name with the original and famous Peeping Tom of Coventry - the original peeping tom.
  • Rick Mazeroski calls a teenager Aladdin because he looks like the protagonist.
  • The band playing in Rick's truck is Corrosion of Conformity.

Excelsis Dei

  • "Excelsis Dei" is nongrammatical Latin. "Excelsis" means "high" or "elevated"; "Dei" is the genitive case of "Deus", meaning "God", so "Dei" means "belonging to God" or "having to do with God". Therefore, the phrase "Excelsis Dei" is a double adjective that means something like "High of God".note 
  • Scully mentions Carlos Castenada, an author of controversial series of books that described his training in Native American Shamanism.

Aubrey

  • Mulder mentions Swiss psychiatrist Jung, considered the father of analytical psychology who believed one could understand the psyche through extensive analysis of dreams, art, mythology, religion and philosophy.
  • Of French origin, 'Aubrey' is a given name and surname that comes from the Germanic 'Alberich' or 'Albrich' and possibly out of Old English 'Ælfric.'
  • 'Aubrey' is also:
  • Harry Cokely watches His Girl Friday right before he is attacked at the end.

Irresistible

  • 'Irresistible' is the impossibility of successfully resisting.
  • Mulder and Scully were supposed to attend a football game between Washington and Minnesota though later the game is seen on television, just in time to catch a play made by Cris Carter.
  • Mulder tells Agent Moe Bocks that Elvis has been reportedly been seen in three cities across America every day.
  • When Donnie Plaster is talking to the other suspects in jail, one suspect recalls Scully's name because it was like that baseball announcer in reference to Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully in which FBI Agent Dana Scully is named after.

Die Hand Die Verletzt

  • Agent Bocks' comment "People wondered why it took them so long to catch this kid in Milwaukee. Thought someone should have noticed he was killing all those young boys. The truth is, no one ever believed it could happen" is most likely in reference to Jeffrey Dahmer.
  • 'Die Hand Die Verletzt' is German for "The Hand that Wounds," a part of the satanic prayer spoken in the teaser by the members of the PTA
  • When the teens hold their "ritual" in the woods, they call upon Azazel, a name appearing in The Bible that refers to a fallen angel and a cliff from which sacrificial animals were thrown.
  • Mulder mentions Megadeth and song "The Night Chicago Died" by British band Paper Lace.
  • Name of the school is Crowley High School.
  • The conference of teachers and parents are discussing plans for the school's spring production.
    Peter Calcagni: Yeah, I got word that for the spring drama productions, Howard Roberts intends to put on Jesus Christ Superstar.
    Ms. Deborah Brown: Um... I don't think that play is appropriate for this high school.
    Paul Vitaris Well if he wants to be young, I have no problems with, uh, Grease or Annie or-
    Calcagni: Doesn't Grease have the "F" word?
  • Drama teacher Howard Roberts may be named for the stage name of real-life drama teacher Bob Howard who teaches at El Cajon Valley High School.
  • Howard Roberts is also the name of an American jazz guitarist, educator and session musician.
  • The name is also shared with a sculptor.
  • Jim Ausbury tells Mulder his step-daughter confused reality with the reports on Geraldo.

Fresh Bones

  • Colonel Wharton trapped inside a coffin mirrors Dennis Alan's moments in a coffin.
  • The cemetery groundskeeper's Rottweiler was named Wong, after writer James Wong

Colony

  • 'Colony' refers to 1) a body of people living in a new territory or a territory inhabited by these people. 2) a localized population of organisms. 3) a group with common interests situated in close association or an area occupied by such a group.
  • Alien Bounty Hunter uses the alias CIA Agent Ambrose Chapel, a church in London, to speak with Mulder and Scully.

End Game

  • 'End Game' refers to a chess game and a one act play by Samuel Beckett.
  • Mulder's first name Fox refers to the company 20th Century Fox that owns the rights to the show.

Fearful Symmetry

Død Kalm

  • "Død Kalm" is Danish for "dead calm".
  • More considerably aged and has developed a twitch in his neck.
    Mulder: I think I just lapped George Burns.

Humbug

  • The trailer park is named Gulf Breeze, a suburban town.
  • The song Hepcat Helm listens to is "Frenzy" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
  • A 'humbug' is 1) a hoax or a fraud. 2) a deception. 3) one who attempts to trick or deceive.
  • The situation with Lanny and his brother is known as 'asymmetric conjoined twins' or 'parasitic twinning'. In some cases both twins survive though in other cases the lesser twin is absorbed.by the other called 'inclusion twinning'. In real life, there are no recorded cases of a parasitic twin's ability to leave the host twin.
  • Scully said she read the fascinating life of Chang and Eng Bunker.
  • As Sheriff James Hamilton takes Dr. Blockhead to the station with Mulder and Scully following.
    Dr. Blockhead: This has all the makings of one of those mistaken identity, miscarriage of justice things that prove so popular on 60 Minutes.
  • When Scully visits the museum and ends up paying extra to see an empty box, that was, in-fact, a real P.T. Barnum exhibit. Barnum displayed a sign that proudly pointed visitors to "The Egress", which people assumed led to another of the many oddities in the museum, but which actually led to an exit. Once outside, visitors had to pay again to re-enter the museum.
  • Scully's statement "Do you recall what Barnum used to say about suckers?" refers to the "There's a sucker born every minute...and two to take 'em" saying attributed to showman Phineas Taylor Barnum. It also been variously attributed to con-man Joseph "Paper Collar Joe" Bessimer, banker David Hannum, circus owner Adam Forepaugh and Chicago gambler Michael Cassius McDonald.

The Căluşari

  • Charles Burk remarks witnessing a guru named Sai Baba creating an entire feast out of thin air in 1979. The original Sai Baba of Shirdi was an Indian guru and fakir who died in 1918, considered a saint by his many Hindu and Muslim followers. Today, several Indian gurus claim to be the reincarnation of Sai Baba.
  • 'The Căluşari' were members of a Romanian fraternal secret society who practiced a ritual acrobatic dance known as "căluş."

F. Emasculata

  • 'F. Emasculata' refers to genus/species name name of the insect carrying the 'Faciphaga emasculata' infection and, though this particular insect in the episode is fictional, there are diseases with symptoms which resemble those depicted here.
  • Marshal Tapia mentions Smokey and the Bandit.

Soft Light

Our Town

  • Episode's location is likely a spoof on Tyson Chicken, a nationwide purveyor of poultry products likewise founded in Arkansas.
  • Walter Chaco's name is a reference to Chaco Canyon, a major cultural center of the ancient pueblo peoples.
  • Chaco Chicken was named for Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, where the Anasazi tribe lived and where boiled bones such as those depicted in the episode were uncovered.The episode's location is likely a spoof
  • Sheriff Arens' name is likely a reference to William Arens, author of a 1979 work on anthropology purporting to debunk several cannibalism myths.
  • Debunking the claims of a witness:
    Scully: Yes, I read that report. She claims that she saw some kind of a foxfire spirit. I'm surprised she didn't call Oprah as soon as she got off the phone with the police.
  • Mulder quips a text from William Blake's Proverbs of Hell by saying "if a fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise."
  • 'Our Town' shares the same name as the play by Thornton Wilder.
  • Almost every character in this episode was named after a real-life cannibal.
  • Dudley's not the first town with a dark secret.
  • The phenomenon that Mulder and Scully observe where the ends of the bones are smooth is commonly referred to as 'pot polish' by archaeologist, owing to the ends of the bones rubbing the inside of the pot as it is stirred.

Anasazi

  • The 'Majestic 12' files supposedly document the existence of a secret organization dedicated to the concealment of extraterrestrial contacts that purport to have been compiled for Harry Truman soon after the 1947 Roswell crash.
  • 'Anasazi' was an Indian tribe that disappeared without a trace.
  • As Mulder peruses the un-translated text on his computer screen, five lines under the Department of Defense heading is the line "do-ray-me-fa-so-la-todo," a reference to show tune "Do-Re-Mi" from The Sound of Music.

    Season Three 
The Blessing Way

Paper Clip

  • 'Paper Clip' alludes to the 'Operation Paperclip' project authorized by President Harry S Truman, a codename under which many German scientists were recruited and secretly brought to The United States during the final days of World War II.
  • Scully asks which of the large black high-tech doors they should try:
    Mulder: I'd like to try door number one, Monty.
  • There's a mathematics reference to Napier's Contant in which mathematical constant e is the base of the natural logarithm. It is occasionally called Euler's number after the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, or Napier's constant in honor of the Scottish mathematician John Napier who introduced logarithms.

D.P.O.

Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose

  • The victim found in the mud under the wheels of the car is named Claude Dukenfield, the middle and original last name of W. C. Fields.
  • Detective Cline share the surname of Eddie Cline, the director of several Buster Keaton comedies.
  • Detective Havez gets his last name from silent movie writer Jean C. Havez.
  • Clyde Bruckman shares the same name as American writer and director of comedy films during the late silent era as well as the early sound era of cinema.
  • Name of the hotel Bruckman stays is Le Damfino, echoing the name of a boat.
  • Clyde Bruckman isn't the first evil salesman.
  • The name "The Stupendous Yappi" may be a reference to Jim Randi, known as "The Amazing Randi", a professional magician and skeptical debunker.
  • One of Yappi's predictions is that Elvis is really dead but Buddy Holly is still alive
  • Scully watches The Bullfighters with her new dog.
  • There is a scene where Clyde Bruckman is playing cards with Scully and the camera briefly shows his cards which is two black aces, the ace of hearts, and the two black eights. That hand is a variation on the so-called Dead Man's Hand that Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was shot in the back of the head in 1876 while playing poker. Four of the five cards in Hickok's hand were the two black aces and the two black eights.

The List

2Shy

  • Virgil Incanto's name may come from the first part of The Divine Comedy divided into three long sections called 'cantos', where Roman poet Virgil is Dante's guide through the first two books Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio.
  • Mulder comments "Looks like she took her pound of flesh" when he finds skin under Holly's nails is from The Merchant of Venice in which Shylock demands Antonio give him a pound of flesh to repay a debt.
  • A prostitute who gets murdered is called Holly McClane.

The Walk

  • Mulder's line "What destroyed those parts of him that make us human beings, those better angels of our nature?" comes from the ending of the sixteenth president's inaugural address:
    Abraham Lincoln: The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
  • Leonard Trimble wishes to be able to walk again after losing his legs in war just like Marlon Brando's character.

Oubliette

  • 'Oubliette' is a medieval dungeon having a trap door in the ceiling as its only means of entry or exit, deriving from the French word 'oublier' meaning "to forget."

Nisei

  • Meaning "second generation," 'Nisei' is a Japanese word meaning "second generation" for a person born in America or Canada to Japanese parents born in Japan.
  • Agent Pendrel's last name comes from a street name in the west end of Vancouver where the series is filmed.
  • The number appearing on the alien autopsy boxcar "82517" refers to the date August 25, 1917, the start of the Bolshevik Revolution.

731

  • The Japanese scientists once worked for the infamous 'Unit 731' during World War II. 'Camp 731' was a a germ warfare research station in Manchuko where Japanese chemical and biological army unit performing horrific experiments on prisoners of war during WWII, such as testing poison gas and bubonic plague in rooms often filled with the population of entire villages.
  • Doctor's name Takeo Ishimaru and his alias Shiro Zama is an amalgamation of the name of the real head of Unit 731, Dr. Shiro Ishii.

Revelations

  • 'Revelations' refers to 1) the Book of Revelations, the last book of the New Testament. 2) an act of revealing. 3) an enlightening or astonishing disclosure.
  • Kevin Kryden having stigmata along with others claiming to have it was inspired by Pio of Pietrelcina.
  • 'Stigmata' is a term used by member of the Christian faith to describe body marks, sores or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ such as the wrists and feet.
  • About a composite sketch:
    Mulder: Looks like Kevin was abducted by Homer Simpson's evil twin.
  • There's a picture of Bert and Ernie visible at Ridgeway Middle School.

War of the Coprophages

  • Mentioned by Scully as a reference to the stoner guy's belief he has cockroaches inside him, 'Ekbom's Syndrome' is a very real syndrome sometimes called 'cocaine bugs' but more medically known as 'Delusional Parasitosis' when people think they have parasites inside their body, usually insects or worms being exacerbated by use of certain stimulant drugs, most commonly cocaine or methamphetamine.
  • The word 'coprophages' means "dung eaters".
  • Name of the town is Miller's Grove.
  • The episode's title alludes to War of the Worlds, foreshadowing the fact that the only thing that actually poses any danger in the episode is mass hysteria.
  • Scully is reading Breakfast at Tiffany's during one of Mulder's many telephone interruptions.
  • Robotics researcher A. Ivanov has a name similar to Isaac Asimov.
  • Dr. Jeff Eckerle is named after an actual Jeff Eckerle who served as a creative consultant for Secrets of the X-Files, Part 2
  • Sheriff Frass' last name means caterpillar dung or any insect feces.
  • Dr. Bambi Berenbaum's last name comes from famous entomologist Dr. May Berenbaum of the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign and author of many books on insects who also keeps live insects in her desk.
  • Heck, her first name is Bambi!
  • A Chinese man watches The Seven Year Itch on TV.
  • Names, characters and dialogues from Planet of the Apes are mentioned.

Syzygy

  • The cross dressing doctor R. W. Godfrey shares a similar name to co-executive producer R. W. Goodwin.
  • Keystone Hotel is played on all the possessed televisions.
  • The song playing during the Keystone Cops on all channels of the motel room televisions as well as later during the mayhem at the police station is "The Sabre Dance" Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian.
  • The song playing during the birthday party is Live's "All Over You".
  • There are a couple references to The X-Files Game: The motel in the game is the Comity motel. One of the basketball players during practice is named Craig Willmore, the lead character.
  • Name of the high school is Grover Cleveland Anderson and it's also the name of President Grover Cleveland.
  • The school mascot is a two horned goat, often used in Satanic rituals.
  • Agent Angela White's number is given as 555-0114.
  • After Mulder asks if Uranus being in the house of Aquarius is a bad thing:
    Madam Zirinka: Bad like an Irwin Allen movie.
  • There are numerous similarities between this episode an the events that occurred in the Salem Witch Trials which was used by Arthur Miller in his The Crucible play as an allegory of the McCarthy trials.
  • When Terri Roberts and Margi Kleinjan go into the bar to tell their latest prey Scott Simmons they're not dressed up for the funeral, Terri mentions they are there to give him a good time that evening, ending the sentence with "carpe pm", a pun of Latin phrase 'Carpe Diem' for seize the day.
  • 'Syzygy' is an astronomical term for an alignment of three bodies of the solar system along a straight or nearly straight line, usually the sun, the Earth and the moon or planet..

Grotesque

  • 'Grotesque' means 1) fanciful or bizarre. 2) absurdly incongruous. 3) eccentric.
  • The concept of a man coating human corpses with clay to make sculpture was used prominently in A Bucket of Blood.
  • Agent Nemhauser is named after post-production supervisor Lori Jo Nemhauser.

Piper Maru

  • Episode title and the French salvage ship 'Piper Maru' is named after the daughter of Scully's actress Gillian Anderson.
  • In Japanese, "Maru" means flower.
  • "Piper Maru" is the name of the ice-breaking ship used by Weyland Corporation's retrieval team.
  • French deep-sea diver Gauthier is named after the show's special effects coordinator David Gauthier.

Apocrypha

  • 'Apocrypha' means writings that are not considered genuine.
  • Well-Manicured Man mentions "foo fighter", a term used in World War II to refer to the types of aerial sightings that, in the postwar period, became known as UFO's, usually assumed to be some sort of enemy secret weapon or experimental aircraft, or the name of an alternative rock band.
  • In the same scene, Well-Manicured Man tells Mulder that "anyone can be gotten to," possibly referencing The Untouchables.

Pusher

  • Pusher, aka Robert Modell is very similar to Andy McGee.
  • Former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters member David Grohl and his wife, Jennifer Youngblood-Grohl, can be seen in the background as Modell enters the foyer of the FBI building.
  • FBI Agent Holly who beats up Skinner woes her name to Lucy "Holly" Hartwell Rice, Vince Gilligan's girlfriend.
  • The Loudoun County Courthouse was named for writer Vince Gilligan's actual home town.
  • Detective Frank Burst mispronounces "rōnin."
    Mulder: (correcting him) Rōnin Rōnin, it's a samurai without a master. (Scully gives him a weird look) What? You never saw Yojimbo?
  • Robert Modell considers himself as a Rōnin.
  • Frank Burst mentions well-known fashion critic Mr. Blackwell.
  • Investigating a killer who has the power to persuade people with his voice, Svengali is shown on TV when Mulder and Scully storm the killer's apartment.
  • After Walter Skinner asks for his identity and the reasoning of being at the firing range:
    Modell: Take a walk, Mel Cooley.
  • Burst asks Modell if the Grinch decorated his apartment.
  • Modell forces Mulder to play Russian roulette with him.
  • Mulder asks if the tiny camera he has strapped on picks up the Playboy Channel.
  • Johnny Mathis' "Misty" is heard playing as background music in the grocery store.
  • Next to the Japanese dictionary is a book in Russian Cyrillic "Война и Мир," translated to War and Peace that's most likely quite rare.
Teso Dos Bichos
  • Graduate student Mona Wustner is named after writer John Shiban's mother.
  • 'Yajé', 'Yagé' or 'Ayahuasca' is an actual hallucinogenic drug, traditionally used by South American Indians.
  • 'Teso Dos Bichos' is a site of archaeological interest in the Southern Amazon in Brazil.
  • 'Teso' is Portuguese for "burial ground" and 'Bichos' means "small animals."
  • Making a joke when investigating a death involving rats:
    Scully: So, what are talking here Mulder, a possessed rat? The return of Ben?
  • Last name of one of the doctors is Lewton.

Hell Money

  • The term 'hell money' comes from Chinese tradition of offering representations of money or goods to the dead in the Chinese Festival of the Hungry Ghosts.
  • Mulder jokes "Who you gonna call?" when Scully questions his ghost theory.

Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'

  • The opening sequence where what appears to be the underside of a huge spaceship moving slowly across the screen is taken from A New Hope's beginning.
  • Lieutenant Jack Shaeffer molds his mashed potatoes shaped just like the Devil's Tower.
  • The teen boy who gets abducted along with his girlfriend Chrissy is named Harold Lamb.
  • The witness to Harold's and Chrissy's abduction is Roky Crickenson, a similar name to psychedelic lead singer Roky Erickson of Roky Erickson and the Aliens who claims to be an alien abductee.
  • According to Mulder, Chung's publishing house is owned by Warden White Incorporated, a subsidiary of MacDougall-Kessler," the last two names a reference to Heather MacDouglall who edited this episode and Sue Kessler, an assistant editor.
  • Some guy is wearing a Space: Above and Beyond t-shirt.
  • Names of several famous UFO researchers and skeptics show up:
    • Klass County is named for Philip Klass who writes books debunking UFO sightings.
    • One of the pilots, Robert Vallee, who dressed up like an alien is named after UFO author Jacques Vallee.
    • Another pilot who also dresses up like an alien, Jack Schaffer, is named after antoher UFO author Robert Schaffer.
    • Sergeant Kynek is named for J. Allen Kynek, a researcher who once worked for the US Air Force and wrote The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on UFOs.
  • Mulder is seen watching the 1967 Bigfoot in bed.
  • Title of Jose Chung's thriller novel is The Caligarian Candidate, alluding to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Manchurian Candidate Candidate''.
  • The episode title "Jose Chung's From Outer Space refers to Plan 9 from Outer Space.
  • Cover of Chung's fictional book is very similar to the cover of Whitley Strieber's book Communion.
  • The autopsy movie of his that Chung shows Scully is called Dead Alien: Truth or Humbug, referring to TV Fox's fake documentary.
  • Supposed alien's name Lord Kinbote is a reference to Charles Kinbote, the unreliable and possibly insane narrator of Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire.
  • The Man in Black was mentioned resembling the Jeopardy! game show host Alex Trebek.
  • Chung gives Mulder the pseudonym 'Reynard' after the fox, which is French for fox.
  • Blaine Faulkner is a fan of Dungeons & Dragons.

Avatar

  • Skinner keeps seeing an old woman actually his wife Sharon in a red raincoat.
  • 'Avatar' refers to the human incarnation of a deity.
  • When Skinner talks about his past in Vietnam, he says "I wasn't a choir boy; I inhaled," a reference to Bill Clinton's answer when asked if he tried marijuana once in college, but he swore he didn't inhale.

Quagmire

  • A 'quagemire' is 1) land with a soft, yielding surface. 2) a difficult or irksome situation.
  • The boat that sinks out from under Mulder and Scully is called Patricia Rae, named after writer Kim Newton's mother.
  • Millikan County is named for casting director Rick Millikan.
  • Supposed lake monster "Big Blue" is possibly named after Mulder's actor David Duchovny's dog Blue.
  • Dr. Faraday is named for chemist and physicist Dr. Michael Faraday.
  • Photographer Ansel Bray is named after famous photographer Ansel Adams.
  • Heuvelman's Lake is named after Belgian-French cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans.
  • Scully named the dog she obtained after the former owner's death from two episodes back Queequeg.
  • Millikan County is named after Rick Millikan, a casting director for the show.
  • Mulder's speech about wanting a wooden leg in order to justify not having to work so hard in life comes straight out of Berne's pop psychology bible Games People Play.

WetWired

  • The name John Gillnitz is a combination of three staff writers and producers John Shiban, Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz.
  • In the home of the woman who shot her neighbor, Scully opens a trunk to find many neatly labeled videotapes, one of them labeled Jeopardy!.
  • Mulder and Scully find two trespassing boys watching Die Hard at Joseph Patnik's house.

Talitha Cumi

  • 'Talitha Cumi' is Aramaic for "Little Girl Arise" used in The Bible when Jesus raises the young daughter of a Jewish leader from the dead.
  • The scene between Jeremiah and Cancer Man is in homage to a classic scene between the Grand Inquisitor and Jesus Christ in The Brothers Karamazov.
  • A reference to Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel is the name of the fast food restaurant Brothers K.
  • The name Jeremiah for Jeremiah Smith could be a reference to the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah who was imprisoned and feared for his life for telling God's inconvenient message that shed light on Jerusalem's wicked ways and announced a coming captivity.

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