episode by Steve DeJarnett
summary by Pellinor
Internal dating: No date given but probably February 1995. It all depends on what date you acept for "Colony" and how long you think Mulder was in hospital at the end of "End Game."
Fairfield, Idaho. Late night janitors feel the earth shake and watch in horror as the glass shatters and cars are thrown around outside by an invisible force. Later, road workers see the same force, and one of them is thrown through the air and killed.
The next day, an elephant suddenly appears in the fog � in the middle of the road 43 miles away. It collapses, dying.
Mulder and Scully talk to the janitors, noting that the security camera didn't see anything either. Scully thinks it's a sonic boom, but Mulder says sonic booms don't plant elephant sized footprints in the middle of workmen's chests. To Scully's amusement, he thinks the damage was caused by an invisible elephant. Ed Meecham from the local zoo then drives up and tells them more about the escaped elephant. She died of exhaustion, but he has no idea how she escaped as the door was unlocked. He suggests they talk to Willa Ambrose, the new boss of the zoo. "She's supposed to be the reigning authority," he says, clearly jealous.
Mulder and Scully talk to Willa Ambrose, who says she knows no more than they do about how the elephant escaped or what caused the damage. (We find out that this is an FBI matter as the road worker was an federal employee) Only herself an Meecham had keys to the cage. Scully comments on how small the cages were and Ambrose agrees, saying she was brought in to make the zoo more humane. Meecham opposed her methods, and is himself embroiled in a battle with the Wild Again Organisation.
Kyl Lang, a member of the WAO, says he supports liberating animals from captivity, but would never do anything to endanger an animal, as the escaped elephant was endangered. He shows them a video of elephants being ill-treated by Meecham, and says Ambrose means well but is preoccupied in a law suit about the return to the wild of a gorilla she raised like a child. "All animals should run free," he says, leading Scully to believe they are the prime suspects, rationalising away all reports of the invisible nature of the force that devastated the cars and killed the workman. Needless to say, Mulder is not convinced, but Scully thinks they will try to liberate another animal tat night. She stays to keep an eye on the WAO, while Mulder goes to "talk to the animals."
The "animals" turn out to be the Lone Gunmen, with whom he teleconferences. "Beam me up, Scotty," Frohike jokes. Langly isn't there, having a "philosophical objection to having his image bounced off a satellite." Mulder asks about Fairfield, and they say it's near a major UFO hotspot. No animal at the zoo has carried a pregnancy to term. Mulder's phone then rings. "If that's the lovely Agent Sully," Frohike says. "Let her know I've been working out. I'm buff."
Scully follows a WAO member to the zoo, climbing over the fence after him. Meecham apprehends her, but the WAO man goes on alone, filing a tiger with a night-vision camera. Suddenly all the animals start bellowing and there is a flash of light. As the camera carries on filming, the man is savaged to death by an invisible force that sounds and scratches like a tiger.
Scully goes with the police to challenge Kyle Lang, who denies all knowledge of the incident. "That guy really pisses me off," she snaps to Mulder, afterwards. Mulder says he's looked at the film and found out the man was attacked by an invisible force.
Willa Ambrose also denies all knowledge, but agrees to let them see her gorilla, Sophie, who's withdrawn and depressed. "Light. Afraid," she has been signing in American sign language, of which she's been taught 600 words. She has also been drawing crude pictures, which Ambrose says express her desire for a baby.
Scully and Ambrose climb inside the carcass of the dead elephant and perform an autopsy. They find out the elephant had definitely been pregnant, although Ambrose says she had never been allowed to mate. Mulder thinks they'll find the same thing when the tiger returns.
Some workers at a construction site hear a tiger roaring and get trapped by it in the building. The police rush to the scene. Despite Ambrose's orders to the contrary, Meecham finds the animal first and shoots it as it leaps at her.
The zoo is closed to the public as funding is withdrawn due to the recent incidents.
Mulder suggests to Ambrose that the animals have been artificially inseminated elsewhere. "What do you know about alien abduction?" he asks, and she laughs. "You're kidding me?" she asks, but can tell by his face that he's not. Mulder thinks the animals are being taken, having their embryos harvested, then are returned, though a mistake is being made with the space-time continuum and they are being returned in the wrong place. "Maybe they want Noah's ark," he says, suggesting they want to preserve the animals we are making extinct. "I think that's about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," she says, but he suggests she asks Sophie. He thinks she's pregnant, and knows they will come to take her baby away.
Ambrose signs to Sophie, asking about her baby. "Light. Afraid," she signs again. "Baby go flying in light."
Ambrose is served with a court order telling her to release Sophie into protective custody. Desperate to keep her, she visits Kyle Lang, clearly an old acquaintance. Lang disapproves of her keeping Sophie in captivity and says it's only right she's returned to the wild.
All the animals are being shipped out to other zoos. Sophie, in a tiny windowless cage, lashes out in terror, signing that she loves Ambrose.
Lang comes to see Ambrose. Peering at Sophie's empty cage, he's suddenly thrown across the room and crushed to death by a stack of falling crates.
Mulder and Scully confront Ambrose with their discovery that she and Lang were together when they found Sophie, but she refuses to tell the truth about her plea to Lang for help. "Why don't you ask Agent Mulder?" Ambrose says sarcastically to Scully, saying that no doubt it was alien abduction. Outside, Mulder says he still believes it's alien abduction, but in this case thinks Ambrose was the one who killed Lang, since she's showing no sign of being heartbroken about Sophie's disappearance. He thinks she knows where Sophie is, and booby-trapped the cage with a stack of crates to get rid of Lang.
Mulder goes back to the zoo and sees Meecham leaving. He follows him to a warehouse.
Scully visits Ambrose and tells her Lang was hit with a cattle prod - i.e. murdered. She accuses Ambrose of murdering him, but she says it was an accident. Meecham was helping her smuggle Sophie away and Lang interrupted.
Mulder confronts Meecham, who says he's only doing what Ambrose paid her to do. He takes him to see Sophie, who's wildly rushing round the room and throwing herself against the door. Mulder goes in, but Meecham, who promised to tranquillise Sophie as soon as they're inside, rushes out and locks the door. Mulder is attacked Sophie. Dazed, he watches as a bright light envelopes Sophie, who signs to him as she disappears.
Scully finds Mulder unconscious in the room the next morning, but he wakes up and rushes to talk to Ambrose. He passes on Sophie's signed message, which she says meant "Man save man."
Sophie is found several miles away, having been hit by a car and killed.
Ambrose and Meecham are charged with man-slaughter, but Mulder wonders if the greatest crime in the mass extinction of animals, and whether, if man doesn't save man, mankind will eventually also depend for its survival on the intervention of some alien race.