In a migrant workers’ shantytown in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Eladio Buente flirts
with pretty Maria Dorantes while his brother Soledad watches jealously. Flakita, a nosy
neighbor, bemoans the age-old story: “Two brothers. One woman. Trouble.” Suddenly, three
ear-splitting booms come from the sky, followed by a painfully bright flash, and a brief but
torrential downpour of hot yellow rain. In its aftermath, Flakita discovers the mutilated
corpses of Maria and one of her goats, their faces partially eaten away. Eladio is missing.
Mulder and Scully investigate the deaths. According to Mulder, the strange occurrences
preceding Maria’s death are called Fortean events, “An unusual or highly infrequent
meteorological phenomenon…Fortean events have been linked to alien encounters, and
cattle mutilations…” Scully greets Mulder’s information with her usual skepticism. She can’t
tell much from the goat’s corpse, and Maria’s body is at the morgue.
According to Flakita, Maria was killed by El Chupacabra–the Goatsucker)–a gray hairless
creature out of Puerto Rican folk tales with a small body, large head and bulging black eyes.
Scully notes the amazing similarity between the descriptions of El Chupacabra and a gray
alien. Soledad angrily refutes Flakita’s story. He accuses his brother, Eladio, of killing Maria
out of jealousy. This lover’s triangle convinces Scully that Eladio is the killer, until she
examines Maria’s remains. The state of Maria’s corpse shocks even Scully. It’s hardly
visible beneath mounds of greenish fungal growth. Meanwhile, Mulder locates Eladio with
the help of Conrad Lozano, a cynical Immigration agent. Eladio is in INS custody, segregated
from fearful prisoners who think he’s El Chupacabra. Eladio denies killing Maria, claiming
something or someone unknown mutilated Maria during the yellow rain. Mulder believes
Eladio did not kill Maria, and Scully must agree. Scully’s autopsy of the body revealed that
Maria succumbed to a massive fungal infection–no one, she says, could deliberately do
such a thing.
Eladio escapes from INS custody, and the agents discover the driver of the INS
deportation bus dead from a different fungal infection. Mulder thinks there may be a
connection between the fungi and the missing immigrant. Lozano and Mulder track Eladio to
a construction site where he has found work, but the vengeful Soledad is also on Eladio’s
trail. Both brothers escape before Lozano and Mulder can take them into custody. The site’s
foreman is dead, his body ravaged by a myriad of fungi. Scully calls Mulder and warns him
against touching or inhaling the lethal lichen. A mycology professor has isolated an enzyme
that acts as a catalyst, accelerating fungal growth. If it escapes into the environment, there
could be a biological hazard of frightening proportions.
Scully believes that Eladio is inadvertently responsible for deaths by spreading the
enzyme which he somehow is carrying. Mulder now thinks the Fortean events could have
been caused by something falling from space…which would mean the enzyme is alien.
Scully,on the verge of losing patience with Mulder’s theories, just wants to find the man who
seems to be spreading it.
Now quite ill, Eladio begs his cousin Gabrielle for help. She reluctantly agrees to lend
him money. Flakita, the village gossip, warns the agents that Soledad is planning to kill
Eladio. Eladio eludes them again, but Lozano arrests Soledad.
When Eladio sees his own face for the first time, he can’t believe the horror of it. He no
longer looks human–Eladio has indeed transformed into El Chupacabra. Gabrielle tells
Scully and Mulder that Eladio has run away to Mexico. But Mulder realizes it’s a lie.
Speeding on their way, he alerts a hazmat team to meet them at the shantytown…where it all
began. Where the two brothers will finally settle their dispute over Maria.
What really happened that night? According to Flakita, Lozano brings Soledad to the
camp, and orders Eladio to face his brother like a man. But Eladio is no longer a man…he is
El Chupacabra. Flakita hides as gray aliens– whom she calls Chupacabras–descend on the
village. They kill Lozano, and take Soledad up in the sky with them.
Gabrielle weaves another tale. Lozano orders Eladio to face Soledad. In the horror of
realizing his brother is El Chupacabra, Soledad can’t shoot. He and Lozano struggle over the
gun, and Lozano takes a bullet. The two brothers, now both Chupacabras, run away to
Mexico.
The story Mulder and Scully report to Skinner isn’t much clearer. All they know is that by
the time they got to the camp, both the brothers were gone. Lozano was dead…brought down
by two bullets and the fungus. And Los Chupacabras? The Buente brothers, their faces
luridly disfigured, may have hitchhiked off into the Mexican night.
THE X-FILES “EL MUNDO GIRA” #4X11
Original Air Date: 01/12/97
CAST:
DAVID DUCHOVNY as Special Agent Fox Mulder
GILLIAN ANDERSON as Special Agent Dana Scully
GUEST CAST:
MITCH PILEGGI as Assistant Director Skinner
RUBEN BLADES as Conrad Lozano
RAYMOND CRUZ as Eladio Buente
PAMELA DIAZ as Maria Dorantes
JOSE YENQUE as Soledad Buente
LILLIAN HURST as Flakita
SUSAN BAIN as the County Coroner
ROBERT THURSTON as Dr. Larry Steen
SIMI as Gabrielle Buente
TINA AMAYO as the older shanty woman
MIKE KOPSA as Rick Culver
WRITTEN BY:
JOHN SHIBAN
DIRECTED BY:
TUCKER GATES
