SCULLY: Come on, Mulder, don't you see what they're doing?
They're wasting our time. They're sending us on some kind of a wild goose chase.
MULDER: Chicken chase.
MULDER: Well, most legends don't leave behind 12-foot burn marks.
(hands her a photo of a field with a large burned circle) That photo
was taken by state police in the field where the woman claims to
have seen foxfire.
SCULLY: This could have been made by anything-- a bonfire.
MULDER: I thought so too. Until I remembered this. (crosses to TV)
It's a documentary I saw when I was in college about an insane asylum.
Gave me nightmares.
SCULLY: I didn't think anything gave you nightmares, Mulder.
MULDER: Well I was young.
SHERIFF ARENS: Sir, foxfire's nothing more than a ghost story
about swamp gas.
MULDER: (learns that chicken feed contains ground up chicken meat) Chickens eat chickens?
SCULLY: Victims of Creutzfeldt-Jacob [syndrome, like Paula Gray] suffer from
progressive dementia, severe seizures...
MULDER: Is it fatal?
SCULLY: This girl would have been dead in months.
MULDER: Except that Paula Gray was no girl. This is her personnel
file, Scully. Check it out. It says here that Paula Gray was born in
1948, which means that this woman-- Chaco’s granddaughter--
was 47 years old.
SCULLY: There’s got to be some kind of a mistake.
MULDER: Let's find out. Her birth certificate should be on file at
the Seth County courthouse. Who knows, Scully? This could be
even *more* interesting than foxfire.
SCULLY: I just came up with a sick
theory, Mulder.
MULDER: Ooh, I’m listening!
SCULLY: You saw the feed grinders at the plant. What if somebody
put George Kearns’s body in there? Creutzfeldt-Jacob is a prion
disease which means it could have been passed on to the chickens
and in turn anyone who consumed them.
MULDER: So anyone eating chickens out of Dudley would be at risk?
SCULLY: It's possible. You know, sometimes in England they'll
incinerate cattle to keep them from passing mad cow disease on to
people.
MULDER: Yeah, but chickens from Dudley are shipped all over the
country. If what you’re saying were true, we'd be seeing an epidemic
not just a few local cases.
MULDER: Sheriff Arens? What's wrong with this water [in the creek]?
SHERIFF ARENS: Runoff from the plant. Chicken litter, mostly.
Some blood and parts from the birds.
MULDER: Was this river searched after George Kearns disappeared?
SHERIFF ARENS: Talk about a needle in a haystack.
MULDER: Well, I’d like it dragged as soon as possible.
SHERIFF ARENS: (surprised) Why would you want to do that?
MULDER: To see what's in there.
MULDER: Scully, I think the good people of Dudley have been eating
more than just chicken.
SCULLY: You think these people were eaten?
MULDER: Look at these bones. They've been polished at both
ends suggesting they were boiled in a pot. Anthropologists have
used similar evidence to prove cannibalism among the Anasazi tribe
of New Mexico.
SCULLY: Well, then Paula Gray may have contracted Creutzfeldt-Jacob
by eating George Kearns.
MULDER: That could begin to explain her youthful appearance.
SCULLY: What are you talking about?
MULDER: Some cannibalistic rituals are enacted with a belief
that they can prolong life.
SCULLY: Cannibalism is one thing but increasing longevity by eating
human flesh...
MULDER: Think about it, Scully. From vampirism to Catholicism,
whether literally or symbolically, the reward for eating flesh is eternal life.
I don’t claim to know how it works, but we both saw Paula Gray.
