The X-Files Exposed

"After my husband and I moved into our new house, I felt there were spirits there with us. It was really creepy. It felt like there was someone attached to me. We were told by a Native American that we lived near an Indian burial ground. He said there had been a plague years ago that wiped many of them out. There were a lot of souls in unrest. He came to the house and performed this ritual called smudging in which herbs are burned so as to purify the space. It was amazing. Afterward, it was like the house got lighter. Whatever we felt had been there was gone." -- Gillian Anderson

Sounding very much like Scully describing Mulder, Anderson admits, "We have our ups and downs. At times it's difficult. We both tend to be quite moody, but underneath I think we care about each other." They are both coy about whether they ever considered dating, but Anderson will allow that Duchovny is "like catnip" to women. When told this later, Duchovny, soon to be featured in a Playgirl interview, norts. "Just call me David Ducatnip," he says. "I wish I had the life people think I have."

Unlike Mulder and Scully, who seem to have virtually no personal lives, Duchovny and Anderson found mates soon after the show's debut. Duchovny's L.A.-based girlfriend, actress Perrey Reeves, played a beautiful vampire who spends the night with Mulder in the episode titled "3." Anderson married Errol Clyde Klotz, 33, a freelance art director on the show, four months after meeting him and gave birth in September. "It was intense, everyone was mad at me," says Anderson of her pregnancy. "It was pretty ballsy of me, after getting such a big break. I was afraid they were going to recast."

Instead, Anderson's absence from the show led to one of its most compelling stories -- last year's two-parter in which it seems that Scully is abducted by aliens. Anderson returned to work 10 days after giving birth by cesarean section. "It was tough," she says, "but now I have a beautiful baby daughter."

"I was in Ocean City, Maryland, in 1987. I looked up and saw something that looked like a plane. I looked away for a second and it was gone. It was low and big. I couldn't believe my eyes. I just glanced away for a second and when I looked back it was gone." -- David Duchovny

Duchovny, having morphed back into Mulder, is again in front of the cameras. His "sister" (soon to be revealed as an impostor with four clones) is warning him about an alien bounty hunter. Just a few feet away, behind the set's fake back wall, a member of the production team speaks in low, confidential tones.

This person, who does not want to be identified, talks guardedly about what she says was her own abduction by aliens late last year. "They took us up in their ship," she says. "It's hazy, it's hard to remember, like a dream. They spoke, but it seemed like everything happened telepathically. I do remember they had three fingers."

Duchovny, between scenes, pops out again and listens to the conversation skeptically. On the other side of the wall, the sign above Mulder's desk reads, "I want to believe." You do too. But then you remember the rule:

Trust no one.