Abductions * Aliens * Bees * Black Cancer * Clones * Consortium * Hybrids * Implants * Flying Saucers * Master Plan * Secret Experiments
The first kind of alien are the well know by the popular mythology as little green men or as E.B.E's (Extraterrestrial Biological Entities). They have a human shaped form, with head, big dark eyes, thin body and extremities. Actually, as Mulder explained in Squeeze (episode 1#02) their skin color is grey, so I will refer to them as greys.
As a rule, we never see them clearly; they seem timid, in a kind of way, they prefer to stay in their crafts and they stay far from humans while they're on Earth. We caught a little glimpse of them in Mulder's remembrance of her sister's abduction and later, at the satellite tracking station of Arecibo in Little Green Men , (episode 2#01) and at the mining virginian complex in Operation Paperclip (episode 3#02)
Greys don't seem clearly evil, if we accept the experiments performed on abducted humans as cientific curiosity. Sometimes they appear in the abductions, and around the abductees while performing tests on them, as they did in Duane Barry (episode 2#05) They are not very appreciated by the Consortium (also know as the Syndicate), which has orders to bring down their crafts, and capturate them to be exterminated, following a secret ONU resolution (as explained by Deep Throat in E.B.E (episode 1#16) and Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking-Man (episode 4#07). The clearest example of this resolution can be seen in Tempus Fugit (episode 4#17), but also in the mentioned Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking-Man (episode 4#07) and in Piper Maru (episode 3#15).
The recovered crafts are used to study its technology to apply it in experimental military crafts and weapons as in Deep Throat (episode 1#01) and Fallen Angel (episode 1#09) ; if any body is recovered, it is used too as a study subject, or a test subject as in Nisei , (episode 3#09). The sistems of extermination change, from a shoot in Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking-Man , (episode 4#07) to axphysia in The Blessing Way (episode 3#01)
We've also seen three autopsies of this creatures in the Pilot episode, Nisei (episode 3#09) and Gethsemane (episode 4#24), and a lot of corpses buried under the red sands of New Mexico in Anasazi (episode 2X25)
The second kind of aliens are what we may call "entities". They have no visible body, even they can be noticed sometimes as an aparition as in Space (episode 1#08) or thanks to a infrared system in Fallen Angel (episode 1#09). Some of them can posses a human an control its will, as the one of Space or the one which appeared in Piper Maru (episode 3#15). The last one needed a phisical vehicle to jump from one host to another, in this case, petrol from a crashed Mustang P-51; a vehicle which gives it a very similar look to the Black cancer. But they are not the same (check the Black Cancer point for a detailled comparison).
And the third kind of aliens are the most similar to us. We don't know if they adopt this form to make them invisible among earhtlings, as they have the ability of changing their shape and face at will, instantly cloning any human being. We witnessed this in Colony (episode 2#16) and Talitha Cumi (episode 3#24). Their blood is toxic and of a light green tone, and they can't be killed unless you stab them with an stiletto in the base of the neck. They also have a surprising healing power showed in Talitha Cumi (episode 3#24)and in its second parter Herrenvolk (episode 4#01). In this group are included the Alien Bounty Hunter and Jeremiah Smith from Talitha Cumi. While the first works for the Syndicate eliminating disidents from the Master Plan, the second one has abjured of his implication in that plan, what decided his elimination. In this group we may also include the faceless aliens who made their apparition during season five Patient X (episode 5#13) and The Red and the Black (episode 5#14). The seem to be a disident group who is actint militarly against the extraterrestrial dirigents of the Master Plan. They are against the colonisation, so they burn alive former abductees who have small implants on their necks. They burn them because they are, supposedly, the door aliens will use as an entry to our world. These aliens carry the Black Cancer inside, so they've erased they eyes, mouth, nose and ears to prevent the patogen go out of them and infect people.
There is a separated group within this kind. They appear as groups of clones, who seem to have been living among us since long time ago; most of them also abjure from the Master Plan which they were originally in. Some of them are doing secret experiments with human-alien hybridation as seen in Colony (episode 2#16), while others are trying to obtain a cure for their "biological" mothers (former abductees), as the ones we met in Memento Mori (episode 4#14). The simpliest conclusion is that they are not really aliens, but human-alien hybrids; they keep the green toxic blood, and they must be killed with the base of the neck-stab, but they don't have the ability of changing their shape, and they can't heal.
As an apendix to this particular stake, we must still name the amish-like supposed aliens of Gender Bender. Nothing to do with the rest, they have a human form, they can change their sex at will, they produce a massive number of pheromones, a detail which makes them irresistible to humans, but a close relationship with them is deadly. They abandoned our planet at the end of the ep, anyway.
Did they?
But the similarities end here. The substance shows inteligence and will, and it controls the host in order to find what it wants. When it jumps to another host, the only trace left of its presence is a fine pelicule of oil covering the former host, but no body harms. Another big difference of this substance with the Black Cancer is that it's highly radioactive. It can cause irreparable radioactive burnings to humans while not harming the host's body. This ability is reflected in an intense shine of the body it controls.
And then we have the properly called Black Cancer. Its premiere in the X-Files mythology is recent; its first appearance is located at Tunguska (episode 4#17) and its second parter, Terma (episode 4#18). In these eps we learn that the black cancer has been hiding in the tunguska rock (a meteorite which fell to earth at the beginign of the century) till the first fragments of the meteorite were recovered, and russians discovered the patogen hiding in the rock's heart. After the terrible discovering, russians begin a frantic career to find a cure, while carefully hiding their efforts to americans. The efforts of the Consortium for getting one of the fragments to help them in their own research (as it's evident they know the pathogen, even when we do not know how) will start a subtle web of treachery while scientifics in both blocks speed to get the vaccine first.
So, the Black Cancer is not an intelligent and willed entity as the Substance was; its behavior corresponds to a virulent pathogen agent. The effects of the Black Cancer are absolute paralisis of the body, a phisical state similar to the coma, and the growing of a strange black organism around the epineal glandula. Its transmision way its similar to the Substance's: it goes inside the body through the eyes, nose and mouth, but in the form of oily worms. If the host dies, the worms leave the body and stay over his face. No traces of radioactivity around this pathogen, for which the russians have actually a working vaccine which saves Mulder life after being exposed t o it in Tunguska (episode 4#17). The Black Cancer makes its reaparition right into the fifth season, in the two parter Patient X (episode 5#13) and its second parter, The red and the black (episode 5#14). From a witness of a abductees mass burning at Kazajistan, Krycek discovers that the Master Plan has set on an alien civil war. And he pretends to exchange the witness, infected with the black cancer to prevent his kidnapping, to the Consortium in exange of all their investigation around the alien virus, not before stealing a sample of the russian vaccine for himself. In this ep we find the confirmation that the russian vaccine works, and we know that Marita Covarrubias is really one of Mulder's allies, as she risks her life to take the young boy to him, only to became infected herself. We also discover that the cancer is an important part of the Master Plan which would be probably used as a weapon against any human resistence. Obviously, the existence of a vaccine opens the door to a possibly succesful resistence, an a logical alliance with the anti-colonisation alien forces. The Consortium begins to break, ones opting for going on with the Plan with the only hope to save their lives, and others willing to organise a resistence. A curious remark is that here the Black Cancer changes its shape from the oily worms to a similar thick oily liquid as seen in Piper Maru (episode 3#15) and Apocrypha (episode 3#16). The spooky detail of the "faceless" aliens responsibles of the mass burnings Patient X (episode 5#13) and its second parter, The red and the black (episode 5#14) , is probably due to its will of preventing the cancer to go outside them and infect humans.
The Black Cancer is back an into the big screen in
Fight the Future. In the movie we learn three important things about it. First, that it has been here long before the Tunguska rock crashed against the earth, since the very begining of Humanity. Second, that in the origin it was a biological entity for whom the cancer was its basic vital force. Unlike the creatures, the cancer does not disappear when the alien dies, but gets under the earth and remains there till a human host arrives. Third, that an inverse mutation has just taken place; the cancer not only infects the host, but uses it to feed a new creature, that eventually kills the host. After this hideous discovering, the Consortium realises that they have been mislead ; that all their work to create a perfect domination weapon for the aliens (the bees carriying black cancer infected corn pollen) it's an undercover not for a colonisation, but for an absolute new origin of the species that includes the extermination of the Humanity. The vaccine, which must be administered before 72 hours since the infection to work, remains the only hope for the Humanity to fight a gloomy future.
But their first apparition as active characters begins with Colony (episode 2#14) and its second parter End Game (episode 2#15). In these two episodes, a group of identical abortist doctors, who result to be human-alien hybrids reproduced in serie, are tracked down by the Alien Bounty Hunter, also in its first apparition. Mulder's lost sister, Samantha, also reappears, only for Mulder to discover that she is another cloned hybrid with his sister look. As she explains to Mulder, a group of aliens began to investigate long ago about creating an hybrid race. They worked in abortist clinics to have acces to the basic materials for their work. With time, they created a colony of clones all along the country. But the experiments were not approved by the alien race, who considered them as a degeneration of their race; so the orders now are destroying the colony.
The next clones apparition demanded a long wait, but it finally arrived in the third's seasons finale, Talitha Cumi (episode 3#24) and the fourht's season premiere, Herrenvolk (episode 4#01). In these episodes, the clones reappear in a doble way. Scully discovers that a man with a miraculous capacity to heal has clones all over the country; all them working in the Social Security sistem, and working in vaste listing of genetic data of the population. Jeremiah Smith, an alien who has abjured from the Master Plan, shows Mulder a farm worked by many pairs of cloned children. The girls are cloned versions of Mulder's sisters, reproduced on the age she was abduced.
Before going on, the differences between these clones are many. The clones appeared in Colony (episode 2#14) and in End Game (episode 2#15) were alien-human hybrids, and then cloned. The ones appearing in Talitha Cumi (episode 3#24) and Herrenvolk (episode 4#01) are, we can suspect, alien clones. The difference between the firsts and these ones are that aliens have the ability to heal any wound or illness, and also the ability of instantly cloning any human being; while the hybrids don't have these abilities, and only share with aliens a toxic green blood, and that only can be killed stabbing them on the base of the neck. After this operation, the body quickly disintegrates.
The last word of the clones in the mythology arch was said in fouth's season
Memento Mori (episode 4#14). Desesperately searching a cure for Scully's cancer, Mulder stumbles upon a group of clones who were in relation with the MUFON group of abductees. These clones, probably an adult version of the little boys who worked the farm in the season premiere, are also investigating to find a cure to the illness which has conduced almost all their "mothers" to death. Obviously, they are only hybrids, so they don't posess the ability to heal. As Kraig tells Mulder, all these women were under a high radiation treatment while abuced, used to get from them genentic material to create the clones. After that, they are abandoned to die by the government. As an appendix, in the Center of Investigations Lombard, Mulder sees an identical clone producing laboratory as the one seen in
The Erlenmeyer Flask (episode 1#24).
