“This Is Not Happening” is episode fourteen of season eight of The X-Files.
Night in Helena, Montana, and Richie Szalay, seen in “Requiem”, is chasing a UFO, taking photos and speaking into a Dictaphone. He gets out of the car and tries to take a photo, but the light disappears over a rise. On the other side, a UFO settles and then disappears, so it seems to have gone when Richie tops the rise. Richie is annoyed, then sees someone in the field below. He calls out to them, but they run off. Richie sets off after them, but trips over a naked person on the ground.
Scully arrives at the office; Doggett called her in saying there was something urgent. He thinks it is important, and has passed it on to Skinner, and wants Skinner to tell Scully.
Skinner is telling his secretary that Scully will be flying with them, then escorts Doggett and Scully into his office when they arrive. He mentions Richie, who Scully and Mulder met. Scully asks if this has something to do with Mulder. Doggett replies they’re trying to say it might. It’s explained what Richie was doing. He didn’t find an alien, but found a woman. Theresa Hoese. The mother abducted the night before Mulder was returned last night and is hanging onto life by a thread.
At St. Jean Hospital in Helena, all three are greeted by Dr Desai. He says that Theresa is in no condition to be seen. She’s circling the drain. In 12 years, he’s never seen this level of mistreatment. Desai escorts them to see Theresa, asking them to promise to do whatever it takes to get the person responsible. By rights, she shouldn’t even be alive. It’s almost as if someone was experimenting on her. The doctor describes what was done. Scully asks if a foreign object showed up in the X-rays. It didn’t. A local cop arrives and gives something to Doggett. It seems they have a suspect.
They arrive at where Richie is staying. Richie explains he’s been following the news after his buddy Gary was abducted. Doggett asks about the alien that Richie claimed to have seen. A shoe casting showed they were wearing size 9 1/2 Nikes. Doggett doesn’t think aliens were Nikes.
Outside, Scully speaks to Doggett. Doggett doesn’t believe in aliens. He believes they’ve got hope, not a break. And that Scully is afraid that they will find Mulder. That night, Scully has a nightmare about Mulder and goes to see Skinner.
Jeremiah Smith enters the hospital. He speaks to the nurse, but has changed to look like Dr Desai. He wants to transfer Theresa. He’s also wearing Nikes. Scully is woken the next day by the phone where she’s told what happened. And asks where Doggett is.
Scully and Skinner drive out and find Doggett. Doggett hasn’t found Theresa, but has called in another agent, Monica Reyes. She has a masters in religious studies specialising in ritualistic crime. Scully doesn’t seem impressed. Reyes suggests that a cult is involved. A UFO cult.
Doggett agrees with Reyes, but Scully doesn’t think Reyes agrees with him. And Dr Desai was in two places at once. Doggett says if she’s going to say there’s another alien bounty hunter, this is where they part company. Scully tells him to enjoy his new company.
Elsewhere, a man asks Smith how Theresa is. Smith says they were almost too late. And heals her.
Reyes, it turns out, is far more willing to believe in odd things than Doggett is. Though she says they never found any evidence of true Satanism during their investigations; Scully suggests they have a talk.
The story continues in the next episode, “Deadalive”.