“Nisei” is episode nine of season three of The X-Files.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, a train pulls into a yard and stops. A man uncouples one of the carriages. At night, steam is pluming from the carriage and there’s a satellite dish inset in the roof. Two cars arrive and a Japanese man gets out of the carriage. He greets four more Japanese men who get out of the cars. The four enter the carriage and the first leaves. Inside, the carriage is some sort of lab. The four are wearing gas masks and working on something that green liquid is being extracted from. This is being recorded. Then soldiers, also wearing gas masks, storm the carriage, shooting the Japanese men, and taking the thing they were working on. Revealed to be a Grey.
Mulder is in his office watching a video when Scully enters. She thinks it’s not his usual brand of entertainment. According to the magazine ad Mulder answered, the video shows an alien autopsy. Guaranteed authentic. Only $29.95 + shipping. The video is from the train carriage. Scully thinks it’s even hokier than the one on the Fox Network. Mulder asks if it does look like an autopsy being done. Technically, yes. Scully doesn’t know why they are wearing gas masks, though. Perhaps because of the green substance being extracted, is Mulder’s suggestion. Scully suggests it’s olive oil. Or snake oil. Not alien blood. Mulder says aliens are said not to have blood. What strikes him is the lack of detail. The fake autopsy tried to show too much. This is real because it doesn’t, and because at the end soldiers are briefly showed storming the car. Mulder bought it from someone in Allantown, Pennsylvania, who claims he pulled it off a satellite at two in the morning.
They head to Allantown and arrive at the house of the seller. The front door is boarded; the back has been broken in. Inside, a man is lying face down on a bed, a bloody pillowcase over his head and his hands tied behind his back. He’s dead. There’s someone in the house still, and Mulder gives pursuit. He manages to catch the man, who has a satchel, who is Japanese and doesn’t seem to speak English.
At a local police station, according to Scully, either they can’t locate an interpreter, or the interpreter they located couldn’t interpret the instructions and got lost. Then Skinner arrives. The man they caught – their murder suspect – is apparently Kazuo Sakurai, a high-ranking diplomat with the Japanese embassy. They have to release him.
Scully is not convinced and asks if Mulder is really going to drop it. No. He remembered a piece of evidence from the crime scene that he forgot to turn in – the satchel. Inside are satellite photos, showing a ship, plus as list of the members of the Mutual UFO Network in the area, one ringed. Mulder is going to head back to DC like a good boy but wants Scully to stay.
Where Mulder is heading is to see the Lone Gunmen. The ship is the Talapus and the photos were probably taken using German optics on a satellite built with American technology owned by the Japanese and launched from South America. It was a salvage ship operating out of San Diego that was looking for a Japanese sub that went down in World War II and was rumoured to be carrying gold bullion. Only the Talapus didn’t return to San Diego; it went to the US Naval base at Newport News.
Kazuo Sakurai exits the Japanese embassy in DC and enters a limo. Only to be killed in the back of it.
Scully goes to the house of the UFO network member, but she’s not there. The woman who is calls another, because they recognise Scully. She’s one. One of them. The second woman, Penny, calls someone and tells them to get the group together. The man who was murdered was also a member of their chapter. Has Scully had an unexplained event in her life in the last year, missing time she can’t account for? That would be a yes.
Mulder is at the US Coast Guard base in Newport News. They went out to examine the Talapus, but were called off by the DEA. The Coast Guard officer doesn’t really know what happened, but he will get some records for Mulder.
A group of women are now with Scully. They say that they have all been taken many times. To the bright white place. Which gives Scully a flashback. Their memories are taken but start to seep back. Has Scully considered regression hypnosis?
Mulder, despite saying he would wait, is gone when the Coast Guard officer returns. He’s actually on the docks, looking at ships. Mulder boards and breaks into the bridge of one, and finds something with the Talapus name on it. The Talapus was supposed to have put back out to sea. Then armed men appear, seemingly unhappy that there is someone on the ship.
Scully is getting rather upset at what the UFO group is telling her. This doesn’t really improve. Mr. X reappears for the first time since Mulder lost patience with him in “Soft Light”. And the story continues in the next episode, “731”.