WEBVTT - INTERVIEW 5: Glen Morgan 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:04.760 Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart three D 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:17.799 audio for full exposure listen with Headphiles. In November, I 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:21.720 spoke with Glenn Morgan. Glenn is a prolific screenwriter and 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:26.440 producer involved in writing and producing, among many many others, 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:31.360 the Lord television show, the Twilight Zone reboot, and, most 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:35.720 notably for Strange Arrivals, The X Files. I talked to 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.160 Glenn about the genesis of the show, how episodes were written, 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:46.080 and much more. Why don't you start by introducing yourself. 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.199 I'm Glenn Morgan, was one of the exact producers of 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:53.800 The X Files and the M one two for and 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:58.120 then the Last Time And how did you you know, 0:00:58.160 --> 0:00:59.960 how did you become involved in The X Files? How 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:04.000 did that start? Well? I worked with my partner Jim Loong, 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.880 who are high school buddies from alcohol in California. Um, 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:13.520 we're probably many people have been abducted, and um, we 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.680 were gonna go on some other show, a romantic comedy 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.080 that was the hit pilot of that season. And Peter Roth, 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.200 who was the head of Fox TV, had said, you know, 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.200 he had he had helped us out a lot when 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.240 we worked on twenty one Jump Street at Stephen Kettle 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.480 and he was like, you gotta watch his pilot. I 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:33.720 demand that you watch his pilot, and so kind of 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.720 sort of career politics. We go, well, we'll watch this 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.600 pilot the X Files and tell Peter thanks for thinking 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:41.479 of us, but we're gonna go do this other hot show. 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.320 And Jim and I watch Exiles pilot and we're like, 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.960 whoa and I want to do this show. And everybody 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.320 said we were insane because we left the other show, 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:56.360 and um, but it was just something that I really liked, 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:58.280 and we met Chris and we hit it off. And 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.800 we're all coming from the same place from which I 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.880 expect we're about to talk about. So, so were you 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.480 interested in in sort of the paranormal and and UFO 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:13.320 stuff before working on the show. I was really not 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.520 trying to make this about me, but I think that 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:20.200 in what we're talking about, I feel I come from 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.880 a place where probably a lot of Americans or representative 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:28.840 the kind of mil America. I grew up in Syracuse, 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.280 New York, which is upstate New York. I grew up 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.440 in Manlis. Oh okay, well I was there till it 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:40.320 was fifteen. And you know that this digressing. But I've 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.760 read that they call that it's like a highway. It's 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:49.000 a mile swath from Albany wide three hud a mile 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:53.360 long from Albany to you know, basically not Buffalo. Yeah, 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:57.360 and there you had like the Shakers, the Fox Sisters, 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:02.440 the Mormon uh Origins kind of, and so there's a 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:07.240 lot of that haunted places. And my family, my great 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.200 grandparents were mediums and all that, so there was always 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:12.560 like having seances and stuff. My brother and I are 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:17.040 like watching TV, but we're familiar with that. I was 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:21.520 always interested in that. I you know, I can't remember 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.160 if I knew about the Hills before um, Sharings to 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:28.720 the Gods. I almost had Food of the Gods, just 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.200 a great movie. But Charings to the Gods, it was 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:36.360 like reading all that, you know, and I was into that. 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.320 And as a kid whose family was doing that, there 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:44.400 was no skeptics, so I just like bought into it totally. 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.680 All that stuff, I just bought into it, and um, 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:53.120 it has always been interesting. However as a kid too, 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:57.640 my great love was you know, Nasa Apollo while they 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.120 asked your nots and so the true science of that, 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:05.360 and I felt that they both merged the goal to 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.400 go to the moon, to go to space, the poetry 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:12.720 of that match the wonder of what else is out 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:19.480 there and that kind of you know, UFO paranormal area, 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.280 they have something in common. And then you know, going 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:27.159 getting older, you know it's an horror movie and everything. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:31.000 But just like just life changing was Close Encounters, which 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.760 is like the greatest thing I went to when it 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:35.880 came out, you know, as I was just starting to drive, 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.200 and my dad was like, don't you go to that movie. 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.200 You can't go drive on the freeway to see that movie. 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.039 And I did. I was driving home on the freeway. 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.720 My dad was exted me Mike busted, that's how much 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:49.800 I needed to see that movie for the second time, 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:56.840 and so all that stuff. I just loved it. Um Now, 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.159 when I get older and you start getting introduced to 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.960 some skepticism, and certainly working on the X Files, the 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:09.560 need to be Scully is the first time that I 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.920 started looking at what's the other side of this story? 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.240 Because you always had to have Mauler's explanation, you have 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:20.960 to have Scullies explanation, and many times you'd have to 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:25.080 have an explanation was down the middle. So it was 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.039 the X Files and having to write for Scully that 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.960 I started getting a little more ground, a little more skeptical. 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.400 So I hope that makes sense that I think that's 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:35.719 where it comes from. But I think you can see 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.320 this sort of mirrors what was going on a lot 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.960 with the culture. I was taking look at some suffarious 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:43.960 people have written and it's like the Monster of the 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:49.839 Week episodes and then their Mythology episodes. So was the mythology? 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:52.640 Was that thought of as being sort of a multi 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.520 seasoned thing to start off with? How how what was 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.120 the genesis of that? Like the pilot was UFO and 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.880 the second episode is UFO, and I think it introduced 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.400 the deep throat, deep background and the conspiracy part of it, 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:12.120 and the network being the network, they're a big goal 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.440 was modern Scully should help people, you know, every week 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.240 they should help people, which is like as lame as 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:21.600 it gainst. And but also they did not want UFO 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:26.600 every week? What else could it be? And so sitting down, um, 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.239 the first year was Chris jim and I, Howard Gordon, 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:35.160 Alex Gonza who went on to do Homeland, and Marilyn 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.680 Osborne was there as a sort of junior writer, and 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:39.359 we would get together in the room and go what 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:43.839 can we do? And I think Alex and Howard became 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.880 more comfortable with doing sort of weird science and you know, 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:53.120 I just I grew up on universal monsters, and you know, 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.279 I love monster movies, and so Jim and I fell 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.680 into that not all the time, but for the most part. 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:02.719 And so if you look at it the first year, 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:04.560 there wasn't a lot of mythology. I think on the 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:10.720 twenty two episodes five maybe it wasn't a conscious thing. 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.560 And first it really wasn't a couple of things. What 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:21.640 happened was and January of the first season, Jillian became pregnant, 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.080 and so she was going to have her baby in September, 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:27.800 and so there was like, well, she wasn't gonna be 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.640 able to work on the first few episodes that we 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.000 were filming for a year two, and so we all 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:39.640 came up with like Scully's gonna disappear, and that really 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:44.400 began the mythology, the need to tell multiple stories near 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:48.560 the end of the first year. So I don't believe 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.600 my memory is not that we set out to go 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:56.280 from the beginning, We're gonna be this groundbreaking serialized because 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:01.360 that wasn't around then. A little bit maybe, but um, 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:05.440 we never set out to be the serialized show. There 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:10.080 was necessity due to Julian's Julian's pregnancy that we sort 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.000 of shaped it in the end of the first year 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.000 to go into her disappearing for the first few episodes 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.240 in the second year. So can you talk a little 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:22.520 bit about about the mythology through story you know that 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:26.080 was established by Chris. You know that Maulder's sister had 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:31.200 been abducted, and what the background was with Maulder, you know, 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.840 And I think those are things that you you have 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.640 and when you're selling a pilot, especially back in those days, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:42.520 it's just kind of red meat for executives. And and 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:44.560 then you get in the room. Nowadays you have to 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.600 have the whole show figured out for five years. Back then, 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.240 you gave a piece of paper and this is what 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.920 six episodes we could do, and they okay. So it 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:55.960 just becomes a process of sitting down and go on, 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:01.400 what can it be? Um, who's you know? Well, we're 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:05.920 gonna introduce a government conspiracy deep background. So you bring 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:10.880 a deep throat and you bring up more UFO stuff. 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.960 Say I'm struggling here, because that stuff doesn't kick into 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.480 gear really until the end of the year one, year two, 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.720 where the beginning of year two we did this episode 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:24.320 Little Green Men, I think shows his sister's abduction. Right, 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.080 So it wasn't really if you look at that series, 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.280 it wasn't until again necessity brought it up and it 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.520 really kicks into gear in the second year. Okay, and 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.840 so you just go, well, what happens we do we 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.800 bring Maler's mother back to we is she alive? And 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:43.240 she didn't? You know, it's just like a bunch of 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.480 writers getting together trying to figure it out. But again, 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:51.439 for the most part, nowadays they'll talk about a writer's room. 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:53.440 We didn't have that. You know. We would come in 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.200 and go, hey, I got an idea, what if there's 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.040 a stretchy serial killer of the crawls to the event, 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:01.880 Oh oh, all right, you do that. You know, we 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:06.040 weren't really sitting in a writer's room working things out together. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.400 We're very much a team. Nowadays, you would say, okay, 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:14.720 episode one, we talked about mauler sister. Episode six, we're 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:21.160 gonna show that she's abducted. Now, I guess skipping forward 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.000 and you know, how is she gonna be abducted? I 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:31.800 think we start with a lot of what the accepted 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:37.000 myth wise that it was at night, that there was 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:44.560 a bright light you know, um, you know it's it's 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:50.080 real monster movie stuff, really the mythology, and then you go, well, 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.520 people know what it is by now because of the 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:55.400 Hills story that you know that was a movie the 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.480 week right, I think with James Earl Jones and the 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.880 closing owners is like so huge everybody knew, you know, 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:07.000 the the Barry being abducted is just one of the 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.520 great scenes and sham and what can we do different? 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.800 You know? And you had read some things where people 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:20.200 had been taken out their window or um, so well 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:22.439 let's do that, or let's make something up. How can 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:26.480 we make it fresh? And I think actually that's where 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.880 the damage to the mythology, because you made stuff up 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.720 because you needed to have something different for a TV 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:39.440 show that makes sense? Yeah, yeah, was there you know, 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:45.080 were you reading like UFO books or or doing other 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:49.960 kinds of research into you know cases, Oh I had 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.640 I had done that. I knew the Hill books. Your 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:59.880 first season brought back a lot of childhood memories. Um 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:04.600 of reading the book, not being abducted, just to make 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.920 that clear. But what happened. What I didn't know was 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:15.280 the community of uthology and so, and we didn't have 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.480 the Internet like we do now. I think it was 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:23.080 all and you know, but I still when I wrote scripts, 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:24.600 I had to write stuff down and go to the 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.240 Beverly Hills Library and or U C l A and 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.600 look it up. It wasn't like when I'm writing I 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.800 just pull up Google or so. I was not aware 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:35.600 of that. I became aware of it. I went to 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:41.440 a UFO show L A X with Marilyn Osborne on 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:43.720 the show, and it was just like, blew my mind 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.120 what was going on there? Um, you know, the lectures, 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:54.360 the level of what the Hill experience had turned into 0:12:55.679 --> 0:13:00.000 basically have you know communication, you know, we're in community 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.079 ation with being storm everywhere it was it was WOA 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.280 was is way beyond what I thought. I remember there 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:10.760 was a table and they'd have like color coded papers 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:18.199 and this was abductions. This was and I don't know, 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.720 this is State Orange with space Shuttle Green was abductions. 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:26.280 Was like an entire conference table of different pieces of 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:30.400 paper with conspiracy and all kinds of stuff for every 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.320 topic you can imagine. And the three guys behind there. 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.120 One guy had a suit, one guy was kind of 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.480 slobby guy with a rock and roll shirt, and another 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.480 guy he just kind of somewhere in between. There was 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.800 exactly alone gunman, which you know, becomes part of the myth. 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:50.439 There exactly the guy, the guy with a suit. There's 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:52.440 all these people around him. He's like, give me. He's 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:54.720 he's lecturing people. He said, give me, give me a 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.520 twenty dollar bill. We're while watching he's like. This guy 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:00.720 gives the guy his toy dollar bill out of his 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:02.719 bucket and he holds it up to the light and 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.480 he goes, look at that magnetic strip. And I think 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.319 none of us knew about him, this magnetic strip in 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.040 a twenty dollar bill. And everybody's like, oh, this is 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.920 how a track you through the airport. This is how 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:15.280 they do. This is how do you do that? Man? 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.680 He rips it, He rips the guy's twenty and pulls 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:20.560 the strip out. You know, the guy's bummed out because 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.520 this twenty dollar bill he's gone. But all of us 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.600 are like whoa. And so that was just mind blowing 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:35.000 to me what an industry was out there, and so 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.760 I just like started taking from that, and Jim and 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.880 Howard and Chris and everybody became introduced to that. I 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:47.080 would go to like a hotel and motel out in 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:52.200 Burbank and I sat there for presentation on UFO ideas 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:53.840 and stuff, and I gotta say a lot of it 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.720 I felt was just too far out from what we 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:01.800 were doing. We're there s secific things that you ended 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:07.200 up served going deeper on, uh as, you know, research 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:11.600 or inspiration or whatever for the X Files. I think 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:13.080 a lot of I think that would be a lot 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:17.520 would be Chris because as the creator and exact producer 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:24.000 of the show, people would reach out to him and 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.720 he might get some info on stuff, or he might 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:32.400 interview people that we're deeper into these things than my 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:37.680 I like to research by sitting amongst all this stuff 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:42.800 and watching it, you know, just like observing what's going on. 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.880 I would get um a publication every Monday. It was 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.080 called Science News. It was really a pamphlet no more 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:55.720 than ten pages of findings in the world of science. 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.520 That week there might be a bigger article and just 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.960 like go through and so for example, one week I 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.480 saw they had an article that I think they've broken 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.720 the record for drilling into the Greenland ice core. I 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.400 don't know, want to remember a mile or whatever. And 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:18.080 they pulled out this stuff that had not seen the 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.160 light of day for two fifty thousand years. You know 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:25.040 that had just happened. That was a fact. And then 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:29.920 I go, well, what could be in there? What could 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:34.040 be in that two? It's like, okay, it's a creepy show. 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:38.920 What's creepy? Like? I find worms, creepy worms, snakes, they 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:42.360 don't have arms, they have too many arms, like a millipede. 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:44.000 Forget it. I don't want to near me. And so 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.400 I'm like, okay, oh, there's these worms. And then without 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:52.000 two D year's evolution, what would that do to us? 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.400 And then that part I would make up. I don't 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:57.160 remember what it was. It gets into your brain and 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.440 makes you paranoid or some stuff like that. So that's 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.920 how you make the next while. You take that science 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.719 truth and another truth and you try to fit them 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:14.119 together by making stuff up. Inevitably, people would go I 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:17.120 read about worms and make it crazy, and I'd say, no, no, 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:19.919 I made that up, and think, oh no, no, no, 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.000 I read that in the natro Geographic. I'm like, I 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:26.080 know you didn't because I made it up. It isn't 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.080 even a thing. It lodged in my head. I just 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.480 flat out made it up. And it always fascinated me 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:36.560 how often people would say not I read about the 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:45.360 ice core from Greenland, or the evolutionary traits of these worms. 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.360 I heard about the stuff you made up, and it's true. 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:55.120 And so when I look at these abduction myths where 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:59.119 some of the conspiracy theories are floating around, now you 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:05.919 can see where are there's bullshit that our people are believing. 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.840 And in fact, there's an X files where a deep 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:15.640 throat specifically says a lie is the best delivered sandwich 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:17.920 between two truths, and I just you know that. I 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.479 you know, um, I'm sure I didn't make that up, 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.240 but that's to me. I always thought the best way 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:29.200 to go about the mythology. So if you know that 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.200 aliens come at night, and you might take some other 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.359 scientific fact the position of the moon or something, then 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.120 make something up. That's that's how you did it. That's 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.520 how I went about it. And I see that approach 0:18:42.440 --> 0:19:04.000 and other myths contemporary. That's really interesting. Your your point 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:06.600 about people coming up to you and saying that they've 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:11.119 read about stuff that you've made up. Um and it 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.200 it reminds me a little bit of a Season one 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:18.200 talking to Elizabeth Loftus where she was talking about experiments 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:23.000 that she did where you know, just by mentioning something 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:28.239 to somebody, they incorporate that into their memory so if 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.240 they talk to them again. I saw. I don't think 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.240 it was one that she did, but there was a 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:39.720 special on PBS where they interview college kids and they 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.119 and they would bring up this incident. I think it 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:47.159 was something about like you got, you know, arrested at 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.720 the mall or something, and and they'd be like, no, 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:52.680 you know, no we did. She's like, oh yeah, and 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:54.919 then they kind of give some details and that the 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.760 college kids would say now, but then when they talk 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:00.600 to them, you know, six months eight or and would 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.720 bring it up. I guess it wasn't It wasn't quite 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.040 getting arrested. It wasn't like that big, but it was 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:10.280 it was some like you know, you spilled you spilled 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:12.560 a drink on a police officer or something. It was something. 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:14.919 It was something like that. And then when the when 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.439 they talked to them again, the the a certain percentage 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:20.480 of the college students would talk about that episode it 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:24.240 actually happened, right, so it didn't It didn't even take much. 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:26.879 You don't have to really convince people. You can just 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:31.000 sort of tell them and then they kind of internalized it. 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:35.879 It becomes, you know, part of their their lived memory 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.919 without actually having experienced it. And I think it becomes 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.440 you're absolutely right. And there's been some good My brother 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.240 did it an excellent X Files in the last season. 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:50.160 It was called the Lost Start of Forehead Sweat, which 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.159 is all about memory and a lot of them Indela 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.600 effect and and I know, you know glad Well had 0:20:55.640 --> 0:21:03.800 that thing on visionist history about memory, and um, I 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:13.440 think with the bulk of information particles, with the Internet, 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:20.080 with crossing cable news, with Twitter, you just get particles 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:22.680 and they all get jammed together, and I think, like, Babe, 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.320 weeks later you're like, oh, yeah, I know I heard something. 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:30.280 It's just a mess. It's just really colliding and we've 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:35.480 lost the ability to go and what's your source or no, 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:40.080 that was debunked. Here's how it was debunked. And you 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.000 know a lot of the skeptics are debunkers become like 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.600 the party poopers because going back prior to my writing 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.560 for the X Files, if you were saying the hills 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:52.320 you know saw the ski lift, don't you just don't 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:56.600 want to believe it, you know kind of thing. But 0:21:56.760 --> 0:21:58.760 it may be a thing we were never taught, you know, 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.120 I don't know. I think that's the that's the big 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.880 problem is that we're not coming from a rational How 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:11.359 do you think about the X Files as sort of 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:15.440 a cultural influence or or or the X Files lasting 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:19.560 cultural influence and and how people think about things, Because 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:26.119 I do feel like more than of shows, like I 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:32.000 think the X Files, um, you know, can can kind 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.880 of change the way you look at things that are 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:42.600 happening around you. Um, And I think and part of it, 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:45.880 I think it's a conspiracy stuff, But I think there's 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:53.840 also you know that the interactions between Molder and Scully 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:57.800 I think kind of model a way of thinking about 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.199 about things in some ways that I think affects the 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:06.359 way people. Uh, I mean I wish it would affect 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:08.480 them more, but but affects the way people sort of 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:12.520 evaluate things. Um. Have you have you thought about that 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:17.040 at all? Have you have you experienced moments where where 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:23.320 that's become sort of clear? Um, that's that's I think 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.639 it's beyond all of us that worked on that show. 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:31.119 You know, I text a lot with David Coomny, and 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:33.919 that's like, we're still trying to figure it out in 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:36.600 a lot of ways. You know, we're the last to 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:39.080 be able to figure it out because you weren't trying 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:44.080 to be this thing. You're just let's be cool, you know. 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:47.480 But for me, there's a couple of things that would answer. 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:53.840 I think the most brilliant thing that Chris did was 0:23:54.400 --> 0:24:03.680 I want to believe, even you know, Carl Sagan, very rational, 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:08.879 science based, I think you'd want to believe there's other life, 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:15.440 And so that answers both sides of the coin. Everybody 0:24:15.920 --> 0:24:19.919 wants to believe, and they can find the answer of 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:23.119 what special relativity is out what's the next whereas in 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:25.200 all that, you know, there's the other dimensions and all 0:24:25.200 --> 0:24:28.720 that stuff. And so if you're that was the brilliance 0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:30.600 and why this show could be so popular because it 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:34.919 appeals to everybody. I think everybody wants to believe. My 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:41.399 feeling about the whole you know, it's it's twofold for me. 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:46.639 One I grew up, you know, Love and the Monster 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:52.000 Moise and Psycho and The Exorcists, and Alan Bicola, paranoid 0:24:52.080 --> 0:24:57.560 movies of Clute and all the President's Men, Parallax View 0:24:57.640 --> 0:25:02.000 and certainly Close Encounters, and so all those came before us. 0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:04.320 You know, It's like you can say, oh Nex sounds great, 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:08.200 you have it. All those Twilight Zone, oh Man, all 0:25:08.200 --> 0:25:14.359 came before us. So when Doug Hudgson, who played Eugene 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:17.720 Tunes in the first season, who's the notorious serial killer, 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:22.840 and Dougs not too far off from that character, he 0:25:22.920 --> 0:25:26.560 said that he was in a like a department store 0:25:26.600 --> 0:25:31.399 bathroom in New York City and he was washing his 0:25:31.520 --> 0:25:34.480 hands and he looked over and there was a dad 0:25:34.520 --> 0:25:36.920 and a little kid, and the little kid was just 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:43.320 locked in on Doug. And when they're going out, the 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:45.600 kid grabbed the father and goes, hey, dad, it's the 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:48.920 creepy guy. And the dad looked at him and they 0:25:48.960 --> 0:25:52.399 both just leave. And so I feel like, okay, for 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:56.119 all those Hitchcocks and Spielberg's that got me. I you know, 0:25:56.520 --> 0:26:02.440 that was you know, playing forward. However, the second thing 0:26:02.520 --> 0:26:06.080 is more disturbing that if we played any part in 0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:13.720 the proliferation of this conspiracy stuff, I'd have great regrets 0:26:15.080 --> 0:26:18.359 because I think it's like ridiculously out of hand. You know, 0:26:18.440 --> 0:26:24.439 when we're doing that show, it was primarily for entertainment. 0:26:25.760 --> 0:26:30.919 You know that town. You know, there had been conspiracies, 0:26:30.920 --> 0:26:36.760 it's a skegeek experiments and Watergate, I guess, But for 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:39.160