“Fallen Angel” is episode ten of season one of The X-Files.
The episode opens in Townsend, Wisconsin in the middle of the night. In the woods there is what sounds like an explosion, followed by a plume of fire. A sheriff’s vehicle arrives and the deputy inside calls it in and requests fire crews. Interference makes it impossible to tell if his message got through. So, the deputy heads into the woods; perhaps not the smartest thing to do if there’s a fire.
At the U.S. Space Surveillance Centre, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, an officer tells the colonel in charge that they have an unidentified bogie and he needs to see it. The bogie was all over the screen and the operator says no know aircraft can manoeuvre like that. Then it dropped off the screen, hitting the ground outside Townsend, Wisconsin, at over 800 miles per hour. The colonel tells the operator and her supervisor that it was a meteor and the aberrant movement was caused by equipment malfunction and their report will reflect these facts. Even though they definitely aren’t facts (the operator later gets to make a comment about a hovering ‘meteor’). The colonel clearly knew what he stated wasn’t true also, and calls it in. They have a confirmed Fallen Angel and Operation Falcon is to mobilise immediately.
The deputy is approaching the fire but there’s something else out there in the woods, a shimmer in the air. It lunges at him and there’s a bright light and the man screams.
At the Budget Rest Motel in Townsend there’s a story on the news about a toxic cargo that has caused the immediate evacuation of Townsend. Mulder is there, packing; he was told something by the man he met in “Deep Throat”, about how the U.S. has an electronic surveillance fence reaching 15,000 miles into space. Last night that fence was breached. Colonel Calvin Henderson, who has Cold War experience preventing downed U.S. tech from falling into Soviet hands has been sent in. A craft retrieval unit; Mulder has 24 hours before the area is sanitised.
Mulder heads into the woods. The area is cordoned off by a laser detection fence. He observes a checkpoint for vehicles entering. At Operation Falcon HQ, a vehicle arrives; late, according to Henderson. A flat tire outside, according to the lieutenant. They are going to be issued live rounds. The lieutenant was told it was just a drill. He was told wrong. Mulder is underneath the vehicle. He heads into the woods and is taking photos of men in what look like hazmat suits spraying a downed something when a soldier comes up behind him and knocks him unconscious.
Mulder’s film is exposed and Henderson tells Mulder he has made the worst mistake of his life. He violated a government quarantine, a federal crime. Henderson is trying to contain an ecological disaster and can execute his orders as he sees fit. Mulder does not believe any of this. He gets put into a cage next to another man, Max Fenig of the National Investigative Committee of Aerial Phenomenon. Max wants to know if Mulder got close enough to see anything. It’s like the Roswell coverup all over again.
In the morning, Scully comes to retrieve Mulder. Section Chief McGrath wants the X-Files shut down and Mulder out of the Bureau. Mulder says the story is not true; there were no train tracks. Scully says of course it isn’t; it was actually a downed Libyan fighter carrying a nuclear warhead. Mulder says that’s untrue too. It’s highly classified. Then it’s a highly classified lie. The military is searching for someone and no human pilot could have walked away from what Mulder saw. Whatever the pilot was, it has just left the area covered by the laser fence.
Scully is supposed to take Mulder back for a hearing tomorrow; Mulder thinks that gives them a day to investigate. When they return to his motel room, it has been tossed. By, as it happens, Max, who is currently stuck in a window. Max knows who Mulder is; NICAP has been following his career using Freedom of Information Act requests for his travel expenses.
Outside is Max’s trailer, full of instruments and stuff. Using one of them he got the deputy’s broadcast two nights ago. Then, 35 minutes later, the fire crew. They stated there was a man down and requested medevac. Then sounded increasingly panicked. Speaking to the deputy’s wife doesn’t get far; she was told if she spoke to anyone, she would be denied her husband’s pension.
The Operation falcon team have detected something, using an IR scope, and Henderson sends a team in to search and destroy. The whatever it is is still invisible, and the team should really have had their own IR equipment, because they are hunting something, they can’t see which can see them. It does not go well.
Mulder keeps refusing to head back and there’s something about Max.