The X-Files

The X-Files was a television programme on Earth, about FBI agents who investigated alien and paranormal events.

An older version of Peri Brown living in 2009 Los Angeles once falsely posed as a secret agent to her younger self, claiming to work for an agency known as "the X-Files." When she tried the ruse on the Fifth Doctor, with whom her younger self was travelling, the Doctor replied that while he had enjoyed the programme, it was never as good after David Duchovny left. (CC: Peri and the Piscon Paradox)

Among a long list of actions the Xlanthi considered to be a violation of the law and punishable by a brutal death was "fancying Scully out of The X-Files." (BNA: Beige Planet Mars)

Behind the scenes

 * While recording the DVD commentary for Spearhead from Space, Nicholas Courtney was amused by the fact that visible on a shelf behind the Brigadier's desk was a binder labelled "X" - in other words, "the X file."


 * Gary Russell has cited The X-Files as a major source of inspiration for the novel The Scales of Injustice. The novel's Pale Man echoes the programme's Cigarette Smoking Man.


 * The short story Housewarming features Sarah Jane Smith asking Mike Yates, who has invited her to investigate a haunted house, why he didn't call "Fox and Dana" instead.