9×09 Provenance

Border police chase a man on a motorcycle as he illegally crosses into North Dakota from Canada. As the man comes to the edge of a cliff, he continues into the ravine. The motorcycle crashes at the bottom, bursting into a ball of flames. The man lies unconscious on the ground. Next to him, several pieces of folded paper fall out of his backpack. On the paper are symbols that resemble the ones Mulder and Scully found on a spaceship in “Biogenesis” (6X22).

At the FBI, Scully is summoned to Kersh’;s office, where she is met by Kersh, Skinner, Follmer and an unidentified man standing silently in the corner with a toothpick in his mouth. Kersh shows her the paper from the motorcyclist’;s bag and asks if she recognizes it. Although she knows exactly what it is, Scully is hesitant to answer for fear that she is under suspicion. She storms into the X-files office and asks Doggett and Reyes whether Follmer had been in their files. Scully pulls out a case folder from two years ago, showing them a rubbing she took from the hull of a spacecraft. The symbols in the rubbing are like the ones in the evidence bag in Kersh’;s office. Although she did not tell the senior staff about her old case, she wonders if the FBI is fully aware of the power that these symbols represent.

Doggett goes to the crime scene in North Dakota, finding that Follmer is already there, leading the investigation. He admits that the body of the motorcyclist has not been recovered. While revealing nothing else, Follmer warns Doggett not to get involved in the case. Unseen, the motorcyclist crawls out from a nearby hiding place. His exposed skin is blistered and burned, and he struggles to move. He grabs from his jacket pocket a metallic object that has the symbols on it. His burns begin to miraculously heal.

In her apartment, Reyes pieces together the rubbings from the old case file. She asks Scully what she had interpreted in the symbols. Carbon dating of the fossils on the ship proved that it was millions of years old, but Scully found the text to contain religious passages and scientific equations. This would put into question everything in which mankind believes. Although she refused to accept this at first, Scully is now under the impression that she was meant to find these rubbings. It may contain answers about William’;s existence. However, she does not know what the FBI wants with these rubbings and why they are keeping it a secret from her. Later that night, Doggett waits for Skinner outside his office. He questions why the A.D. has been avoiding him and Reyes. Skinner refuses to say anything, telling Doggett it is for his own good that he doesn’;t know. After Skinner leaves, Doggett breaks into the A.D.’;s office. Rummaging through his boss’; desk, Doggett finds the evidence bag with the rubbing from the spaceship. He brings it to Reyes, with the news that the missing motorcyclist is actually an FBI agent named Robert Comer who was working undercover on a UFO cult in Canada. Scully leaves William with her mother to meet with the agents at Reyes’; apartment. Doggett fills her in on Comer’;s disappearance and the FBI’;s conclusion that he may have gone crazy. They are under the impression that Comer started to follow the UFO cult himself. Reyes comes to the conclusion that the FBI doesn’;t even know about Scully’;s case files because the rubbings from Comer’;s backpack do not match the two-year old rubbings from the ship. The UFO cult may have uncovered a second spaceship.

Under a large tent in a deserted field in Alberta, Canada, a group of people excavate something out of the ground. What they are carefully digging up is a full-sized spaceship. The mysterious symbols are on its hull. At a rest stop in Maryland, Comer hijacks a moving van and heads towards the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. The next morning, Comer is waiting inside Scully’;s apartment. He attacks Mrs. Scully when she comes in with William. Scully returns home to find her mother on the ground. Scully battles Comer, but he locks her out of William’;s room. As he is about to suffocate the baby with a pillow, Scully finds her pistol and shoots Comer in the chest. Doggett and Reyes rush over, and Scully asks Reyes to take her mother and son to safety. Scully demands answers from the bleeding Comer. Before he loses consciousness, Comer manages to tell her, “Your son has to die.” The EMTs arrive and take Comer to the hospital. Scully notices that the man’;s jacket is still in William’;s room. In the pocket is a metallic piece of the spaceship with the symbols on it.

On a Calgary street, a woman in an overcoat picks up the morning newspaper with a headline about Comer’;s injury in a shooting. The overcoat woman drives out to the tent in the field and shows the newspaper to another man. “He can expose all of this,” she tells him. “He’;s got proof he can show them.” They nod in solemn agreement about what they must do.

Scully is once again called in to appear before the senior FBI staff. This time, Doggett accompanies her. She refuses to give them any information until they provide her with some answers. Kersh explains that Comer was sent to infiltrate the cult based on a series of threats against Mulder. Before the FBI lost contact with Comer, he sent out a communication that Mulder was already dead. Unfortunately, they can not confirm the validity of his information. Scully goes home, and Reyes brings William back to her. When she hears a rattling noise, Scully puts William into his crib, and she and Reyes go into her bedroom. A drawer in her bureau is somehow shaking. Inside it is the piece of the spacecraft from Comer’;s jacket. Scully slowly opens the drawer, and the object flies across her apartment and into William’;s room. It slices through the wood bars of the crib and comes to a halt, hovering right over William’;s head. Scully is stunned as William calmly watches the piece rotate silently in mid-air above him.

Reyes calls Doggett to Scully’;s apartment and tries to describe to him the strange events she just witnessed. The baby has some connection to this object. Although Doggett may not believe in extraterrestrials, she and Scully fear that the cult is willing to kill for their belief in alien life. Scully comes down with William and they get into her car. Doggett, however, notices a car parked on the street with the overcoat woman inside. He becomes suspicious, and tells Reyes that he will follow them in his car. Reyes pulls away, and Doggett approaches the parked car. Despite his drawn weapon and orders to stop, the overcoat woman drives directly at Doggett. He fires at her windshield, and she plows right into him, sending him over the car and onto the street. The overcoat woman speeds away as Doggett lies unconscious. Reyes drives Scully’;s car into an alley where the Lone Gunmen are waiting in their van. Scully gives William to them for safekeeping, and when she and Reyes return to her apartment, there are police cars and ambulances outside. Reyes runs to Doggett’;s side. Scully gets back in the car to find William. Meanwhile, the overcoat woman ambushes the Gunmen’;s van and fires at their tires. They crash into a pole. The woman opens the van door and forces Byers to hand over the baby.

“PROVENANCE”
#9ABX09
Original Air Date: 03/03/02

Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Kim Manners

Starring:
GILLIAN ANDERSON as Special Agent Dana Scully
ROBERT PATRICK as Special Agent John Doggett
ANNABETH GISH as Special Agent Monica Reyes
MITCH PILEGGI as A.D. Walter Skinner

Also Starring:
James Pickens, Jr. as Deputy Director Kersh
Cary Elwes as A.D. Brad Follmer
Bruce Harwood as Byers
Tom Braidwood as Frohike
Dean Haglund as Langly
Sheila Larken as Margaret Scully
Neal McDonough as Motorcycle Man/Comer
Denis Forest as Lone Man
McNally Sagal as Overcoat Woman
James Parks as Agent Terry Sullivan
Alan Dale as Toothpick Man
Joe Colligan as Driver Agent
Brian Catalano as Passenger Agent
Randy Hall as U-Haul Driver
James Riker as Baby William
Travis Riker as Baby William
Laura Leigh Hughs as Kersh’;s Assistant