For me, the heart of what made”The X-Files” so enthralling was the ever-expanding mythology and complicated connections from the beginning to end. Starting with little more than the seemingly crazed obsession of Mulder that aliens were out and there was a government conspiracy around it, the show began to reveal more and more layers of this mystery—pulling us in to believe along with him, turning those established beliefs on their head, and toying with questions of trust, reliability, and deniability along the way.
By the end of the original series, we were left with a picture of two sets of related aliens as well as a litany of government and para-government programs that in some ways tie together into one big history and in others are competing narratives. The recent series drew this even further. Here are my takes on these larger than life aspects of alien biology and government secrets.