Granted, the similarities between my life and the X-files only goes so far. My life has no gun battles and not much high drama, but really bizarre coincidences are always happening to me as I pursue paranormal entities, and even learn how to communicate with them. At times those same paranormal entities, and maybe agents of ‘the government’ seem overly interested in my X-files-like life. Not to overstate the parallels. I have no smokin’ hot sidekick like Gillian Anderson’s character, Agent Dana Scully.
The best I can do in the ‘investigative partner department’ is an occasional alliance with some homely dude like Guy Edwards or Cliff Barackman. I don’t carry a gun or a badge. No car chases. Only a couple arrests, but lots and lots of conversations with police and government agents. I don’t look anything like David Duchovny. (More like the “House” character played by Hugh Laurie, or maybe Christopher Lloyd in ‘Back to the Future’.) Still, every time I tuned in to the X-files, the parallels were so legion that it bugged me.
I couldn’t stand to watch it. David Duchovny’s character, Fox Mulder, even used some of the same pet phrases that I am given to use. Fox Mulder once used the line, “Ever seen a UFO in these parts?” I love walking into a country bar and breaking the ice with someone at the bar with the line, “Ever see a bigfoot in these parts?” “The truth is out there,” is one of Fox Mulder’s pet phrases. My favorite saying is “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Not exactly the same, I know, but still.
The Fox Mulder and Dana Scully characters did investigate the connection between the sasquatch and the ETs like I did. It was not critcally acclaimed but they did do a bigfoot episode. I have not seen it. Nor do I want to. My life is a bigfoot episode. Actually, my life is is more of a hybrid combination of Animal Planet’s ‘Finding Bigfoot’ and Fox’s ‘X-files’. I spent fifteen years investigating bigfoot reports off-and-on before the show Finding Bigfoot ever aired.
When it did appear, it was also so disturbingly similar to my life I couldn’t stand to watch it. Have spent so much time hanging out with Matt Moneymaker, Cilff Barackman, and Bobo, I noticed they also used some of my sayings and phrases. “I don’t mind other guys going paranormal with their bigfoot research.” Cliff is given to say. “That means I don’t have to.” Another one: “I don’t chase bigfoot, anymore. I let bigfoot find me.” It’s weird when you hear your own words coming out of the TV’s speakers.
Eventually, my pursuit of the bigfoot phenomenon widened to include the entire paranormal realm. That’s when my life really went ‘X-files’. I didn’t let it bother me. Indeed, I realize that, if paranormal stuff makes a popular TV show, I should start writing some memoirs, that is, the ‘X-files’ elements in my own life story. So, I got busy and wrote what eventually became my latest book, Edges of Science. Now, it is done and published, and each of the the eleven chapters is essentially a real life episode of X-files from my own life.
At one point I was writing a chapter about the paranormal mysteries inherent in the enigmatic Anasazi culture. I took a break from my writing and turned on the TV. I flipped to an X-files rerun. To my amazement, Agent Mulder was journeying to the Anasazi ruins of New Mexico in hopes of verifying his suspicion that the extraterrestrials were hiding out right here on earth. I shut off the TV. “Oh great,” I thought. “Now Chris Carter has hacked into my hard drive.”
I guess I don’t care, anymore. I finally finished writing Edges of Science. It reads like a full season of X-files episodes. My view agrees perfectly with that of Agent Fox Mulder. The ETs are dug in to enclaves that are scattered throughout the earth. David Duchovny’s character, Fox Mulder is right. Gillian Anderson’s character, Agent Scully, the sexy skeptic, is wrong. Sexy, but wrong.
I should send Chris Carter a copy of Edges of Science, but it seems like he already has one. Most of my chapters mirror episodes of his iconic science fiction series. There’s only one difference, and it’s a big difference: Chris Carter’s X-file TV show is all fake. It’s great science fiction but it’s still fiction.
Edges of Science, on the other hand, is fact. Every word of it actually happened to me.
The pace is a little slower in real life. What Chris Carter portrays in an hour unfolds in my life in something like a year. So, in about fifteen years I lived about a full season of X-files episodes. Which is why I cannot watch X-files and why I cannot watch ‘Finding Bigfoot’ very much, either. For me, it’s all too real. I watch TV to escape my life, not to relive it. Maybe I’ll watch some ‘House’ reruns instead.