“Provenance” is episode nine of season nine of The X-Files.
Two agents of the US Border Patrol are sitting in a car on the U.S./Canadian border in Burke County, North Dakota, at night when they spot a man crossing with a motorbike. They pursue him and the biker ends up flying off the top of a rise. The bike explodes on impact and the injured driver has papers flying from his backpack. Rubbings with the same symbols seen on the UFO in “The Sixth Extinction”.
Scully arrives at Kersh’s office to see him and is told they are waiting. ‘They’ including Kersh, Skinner, Follmer and others. Follmer says they want to ask Scully some routine questions. Kersh hands her copies of the rubbings and asks if she knows what they are. Their behaviour causes Scully to ask if she’s under suspicion. Apparently, Skinner told Kersh Scully could identify the rubbings, because she once worked on the X-files. She suggesting asking someone who works on the X-files. Kersh is less confrontational than Follmer and Scully says she’ll be happy to cooperate but wishes that they’d tell her who or what they are investigating.
Scully heads to find Doggett and Reyes and asks if Follmer has been looking through the files. She pulls out her own rubbings, explaining where they came from, and that this morning in Kersh’s office she saw the same rubbings where she was asked by senior staff to identify it for them, explaining where they said they got them. She told them nothing and Reyes asks what Scully isn’t telling them. They’re powerful. Not just marks but words. Powerful words. If the FBI is keeping the investigation a secret, they have sensed the power as well.
Doggett arrives at the scene of the incident, now flooded with FBI, and is pointed to the agent in charge. Which is Follmer. They dance around the subject and Doggett asks why they are looking for a dead man. And if they have a body. Follmer says they will and it’s nothing to do with Doggett or the X-files. The body is not a body, but an injured man who is currently hiding. And he has a scrap of inscribed metal.
Scully arrives at Reyes’ where Reyes has the rubbings spread out on the floor. Reyes wants to talk about the rubbings mean; scriptures from religions around the world. Science too. And Scully wrote in her report that the words are a million years old. Reyes knows that Scully became more open minded, but does she know what she’s saying? If true, they are not just words but the word of God on an alien spacecraft. Scully says it puts everything mankind believes into question. Does Scully believe? She refused to, but now believes there may be answers out there about her son. She was meant to find them. But why is the FBI keeping it a secret?
Doggett confronts Skinner as Skinner leaves his office; Skinner has been dodging Doggett and Reyes’ calls. Skinner says this isn’t an X-file. Doggett says the dead man isn’t dead. Why is Skinner keeping things quiet? Because he knows things Doggett doesn’t and it’s for his own good.
In Alberta, Canada, a team of people are working under a large tent at a cross between an excavation and an archaeological dig. They are unearthing another spacecraft. Meanwhile, Doggett goes into Skinner’s office and searches it, finding the rubbings.
Doggett gets Reyes out of bed. He has a file on the person who crossed the border. Special Agent Robert Comer (Neal McDonough). Reyes knows him. Comer was working deep undercover for the last six months at a nutty UFO cult. Doggett also shows Reyes the rubbings. Did Skinner give them to him? It’s sort of a loan. Doggett has already called Scully.
Comer has got a lot better from the crash very quickly. The rubbings that they’ve found show that there’s a second ship out there; the nutty UFO cult isn’t so nutty. Skinner does have his reasons for not telling Scully the whole truth.
The story continues in the next episode, “Providence”.