“Little Green Men” is episode one of season two of The X-Files.
In the season one finale, “The Erlenmeyer Flask”, Deep Throat was killed and the X-Files were shut down. This episode opens with Mulder giving a voice over, about how we wanted to believe, how we wanted to call out. That in 1977 the two Voyager spacecraft were launched from Florida, each carrying a message. A gold-plated record with images, music and sounds from our planet – and extracts from this are played in the background. Arranged so that they would be understood if intercepted by a technologically mature interplanetary civilisation. Thirteen years after launch, Voyager 1 left the orbital plane of Neptune and essentially left the solar system.
No more messages were sent. In 1992, NASA started a radio telescope search for life, scanning for intelligence. We wanted to listen. Less than a year later, the project was terminated. Images of what appear to be the large radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rica, are now shown. We wanted to believe, but the tools were taken away. The X-Files were shut down. At Arecibo, there is a mothballed facility of old computers and electronics. Then the computers come to life. One has a ‘Receiving’ light lit up, a printout starts and sounds from the record are played.
Mulder is doing wiretapping surveillance. Scully is teaching at Quantico, specifically autopsies. At the FBI, Scully greets Mulder but gets no response. He sits at his desk and finds his photo of Samantha, his missing sister, face down.
That night, at the Watergate, Scully is waiting in the car park when Mulder arrives. She thought he looked like Deep Throat as he arrived. Mulder says he’s dead; he attended Deep Throat’s funeral at Arlington. With binoculars. The frame was a signal that Scully wanted to talk. She hasn’t found anything; she just wanted to talk. Mulder tells her they need to assume they are being watched. Scully asks what makes Mulder thinks anyone cares. She wanted to meet to check he was alright.
When the X-Files shut down, Mulder was committed to continuing. Scully no longer feels he is. Mulder mentions the Palomar observatory in San Diego. How it was conceived by George Hale. Who got the idea from an elf who climbed through his window. Scully asks if Mulder is worried about seeing elves. Little green men in his case. They have no solid evidence. He’s even doubting his sister’s abduction. Scully points out that the observatory may have been inspired by elves but it still got built.
That night, Mulder has a dream from his childhood, playing a board game with his sister with the news on about the Watergate scandal. That was the night Samantha was abducted. When Mulder wakes, someone opens his door and says they are going to the Hill.
To see Senator Matheson, who is listening to music, Bach, that was included on Voyager. Mulder knows he let the senator down, but he thinks they were so close to something. The senator writes ‘They may be listening’ on a piece of paper and shows it to Mulder. Using the music as cover, Matheson tells Mulder about the signal received at Arecibo. Mulder needs to head there. The senator can probably delay things for 24 hours; after that, the UFO retrieval team will be sent in, authorised to use deadly force. He hands Mulder a print out. What does it mean? Contact.
AD Skinner is playing a tape of him interviewing Scully about Mulder disappearing. The Smoking Man is there and wants to know why Skinner is so sure Scully doesn’t know where Mulder is. If she knew, she wouldn’t be so worried. The Smoking Man is convinced Scully will find Mulder. This is the most he’s spoken in total in all of his appearances.
Mulder gets dropped off outside Arecibo, which is fenced off. He gets inside the fence and to the control room, speaking into a Dictaphone. Mulder breaks into the control room and says there is no power, but the control panel lights are still on. There are no indications that anyone has been there in some time.
Scully is trying to find Mulder. She hears a phone message that suggests Mulder has blown off a date and manages to get into his computer, finding a copy of the print out. Mulder’s home is under surveillance, though, and two agents want to know what she’s doing there. She’s feeding the fish. Scully had printed out the transmission, but the agents don’t know what it is.
Mulder is not alone in the control room; there is someone else there. Someone who is terrified of something. Scully is making her way to Puerto Rico, using the printout to track down where he went (which includes a reference to the ‘Wow! Signal’, but she’s being followed and needs to shake off her tails. Mulder himself is still dealing with his doubts.