“Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space'” is episode twenty of season three of The X-Files.
The episode opens at night with a triangular-shaped ship passing overhead. It looks rather like an Imperial Star Destroyer – but it’s actually the bottom of a cherry picker; the power lines are being checked. It’s Klass County, Washington, and a car passes with a boy and a girl inside. The boy tells the girl he loves her. She tells him she likes him – but this is only a first date. They need more time to get to know each other.
Then the car conks out and a UFO is seen in the sky in front, shining a bright light. Two figures walk towards the car – Greys. The two in the car slump over, and the Greys start dragging them out. Then another craft, triangular in shape, appears, and a stop-motion monster appears in a beam of red light. One of the two Greys asks the other what that thing is. The other has no idea.
In Mulder’s office, a man is saying he never thought much about aliens. Feeling like an alien himself, aliens on other planets seem redundant. He’s talking to Scully. She never thought about it much before she started this job. Mulder is absent; he refuses to speak to the man, Jose Chung. The only reason Scully is talking to him is because she is an admirer of his work. Chung is a novelist.
As to why Chung is writing a book on alien abductions; it was his publisher’s idea. A whole new literary genre – non-fiction science fiction. A guaranteed best seller. The reason is money. Regarding the truth, Chung spent 3 months in Klass County interviewing everybody, and they all had a different version. Truth is subjective to reality. He’d like to know Scully’s version of the truth.
Scully explains that, when the girl, Chrissy, was found the next morning, she was missing time and had no memory of the previous night or how she ended up there. She showed signs of physical abuse and her clothes were on inside out. She was thought to be a victim of date rape, not an abductee. That night, her visitations started. She woke up and thought she saw a Grey, but it was a stuffed toy. Then she has a nosebleed and heard stones on her window. The boy, Harold is outside and she isn’t happy to see him.
Harold is scooped up by the police and claimed he was abducted by aliens. He’s willing to take a lie detector test – and he passed. He stuck to his story, until Mulder and Scully got there. He guesses if Chrissy says he raped her, he raped her. No, he isn’t willing to take a lie detector test to prove that. Mulder has Chrissy brought in and describes various symptoms which she confirms having. He wants to have her hypnotised. Scully does not think much of hypnosis.
During the hypnosis, Chrissy sees herself on an alien spaceship surrounded by Greys with Harold on another table. The Greys are arguing and she can only understand the leader. Mulder thinks that this is a typical abduction story. Scully thinks it’s too typical. Mulder thinks Chrissy and Harold’s stories verify each other. Though they are different. Detective Manners of the local police is not happy.
Harold’s story has him in an electrified cage with Chrissy, and a Grey in the next cage. The Grey is smoking a cigarette. When Chrissy comes around., Harold promises he will not let anything happen to her. She’s promptly dragged out of the cage. The Grey keeps on saying that this is not happening. Harold admits to having relations with Chrissy before the abduction.
Scully is still not impressed. Then they are informed there is an eyewitness claiming to have seen the UFO. He wrote his experience down first but, by reading it, Mulder and Scully are putting their lives in danger. A black car pulled into his garage and a window was rolled down. The driver told him that most UFO sightings are the planet Venus. Yes, the two in the car were dressed all in black. A common element in UFO stories. AS common element in fairy stories for centuries, according to Chung.
Quite what is going on isn’t clear. It initially looks like it’s part of the alien arc, but that seems to change. Were there aliens who were attacked by another? The Air Force gets involved and Scully is embarrassed that she wound up on an alien autopsy video hosted by the Stupendous Yappi from “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”. There are weird Men in Black and, as Chung said, people whose stories do not correspond with everyone else’s. Something went on, but what? Several people repeat the phrase about being a dead man.