The X-Files (1993–…): Season 4, Episode 17 - Tempus Fugit - full transcript

Here you are, Mr Rebhun. Another scotch and soda.
The only way to fly.
I used to be just like you. Used to hate flying.
The moment I got on the plane,
I'd grip those armrests like my teeth were being drilled.
But, statistically, you could fly every day...
..for the next 26,000 years before you'd have an accident.
Do you believe that?
Ooh, baby! Settle down.
What the hell is this?
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
- Happy birthday, dear Dana - Agent Scully
Happy birthday to you
I didn't know it was your birthday, Scully.
Mulder, you have never remembered my birthday in the four years I've known you.
That's how I like to celebrate 'em, every four years. It's like dog years that way.
- Dog years? Thank you. - You're welcome.
Oh, I got something for you.
You've got to be kidding me.
- Something that reminded me of you. - An alien implant?
Two, actually. I made 'em into earrings.
"Apollo 11".
Read the back.
"Commemorating Apollo 11 and the mission to the moon. July, 1969."
- I'm touched. - It's, urn...
Excuse me, are you Scully and Mulder?
Promise me this isn't gonna be embarrassing.
My name is Sharon Grafia. I was asked to find you if something happened.
Excuse me?
You have no reason to believe me,
but my brother said you'd understand what to do.
- About what? - If he didn't make it.
- Excuse me. Who are you talking about? - Max. Max Fennig.
He was on his way here to deliver something that made him fear for his life.
Something he said the government would kill for.
But his plane, it went down two hours ago.
What we know right now is that the plane designated as Flight 549...
..lost radio contact tonight at 1900 hours EDT,...
..and subsequently crashed into a wooded area...
..approximately 30 miles from Albany, New York.
Local law enforcement and EMTs have been on the scene for just under two hours,...
..but initial reports are they've found no survivors...
..of the 134 passengers and crew listed on the manifest.
I wish we had more information about the crash site,...
..but darkness and the terrain will make it slow going until morning.
We have a tape of the last radio exchange before 549 went down.
But I wanna stress the need to keep everything you know within the Go Team...
..so that all information to the press comes from the MC.
- You cued up, John? - Ready.
Copy, Tower. Please advise. Do you see a need to adjust?
Negative. Steady air speed of two-niner-six knots.
Maintain heading one-zero-zero at two-niner thousand feet.
Go ahead, 549.
What the hell is this?
549, do you read?
We've got something, some intercept.
My God! My God!
Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
And that's all she wrote.
Controllers tried to raise 549 on all frequencies but the pilots did not respond.
We've got an FAA charter leaving in an hour.
Excuse me. I'm Agent Mulder with the FBI.
Is there any indication or suspicion that Flight 549 may have been forced down?
- Forced down? - The pilot said "intercept" on the recording.
We have no data to support that. No confirmation of other aircraft in the area.
- Unless you have something. - No. But a passenger...
..was well-known to our government as an alien abductee.
- An alien abductee? - A man named Max Fennig.
A multiple-abduction victim, known as a repeater.
Hold on. Can I have some quiet?
He predicted the accident.
The plane may have been forced down.
- Forced down by who, or what? - I'm hesitant to speculate.
- Mulder, your name's Mulder? - Yes, sir.
I've been doing this for 18 years. I thought I'd heard everything.
I'm looking through the manifest and there was no one named Max Fennig.
There may be people who want to cover up this evidence.
Agent Mulder, is this an official FBI position?
No, sir.
What you're suggesting trivializes this tragedy...
..and casts these people and the work they do in a light you'd be advised to avoid.
We all share the same goal here - to find out what caused that plane to crash.
And if any of the capable people in this room...
..find Dr Spock's phaser or any green alien goo,...
..we'll be sure to give you all the credit.
All right, then.
You sure know how to make a girl feel special on her birthday.
Have you ever seen anything like this?
Where's the plane?
They think it hit the ground at over 300 miles an hour on a vertical descent.
Meteorological data is being analyzed,...
..and so far they are attributing the crash to weather phenomenon -
..to a rapid depressurisation caused by something called a wind rotor...
..coming off the Adirondacks.
But not to Max Fennig.
Even if he was on this flight, he'd be in a hundred pieces.
They'll be lucky if they can ID half the bodies they find.
He was on this flight. I'm sure of that.
Well, say we do find him. What's that gonna prove?
I don't know.
Maybe that one man's life was worth sacrificing 133 others.
Is that a hand?
- Is that a watch? - Yeah.
What does it read?
- 8.01. - So does this one.
What are they listing as the time of the crash?
Uh, 7.52 p.m.
- Nine minutes' difference. - Gotta be a mistake.
Nine minutes, Scully.
Do you remember the last time you were missing nine minutes?
No one reported the plane on radar.
They're estimating until they recover the data recorder.
Yeah, something just occurred to me.
What?
- I don't think we'll find Max Fennig. - You were certain he was on this flight.
I doubt he finished the flight with the other passengers.
Hey! Get me a medic over here!
This man's alive! This man's alive! Get me a medic over here! Somebody!
We need an airlift to a burn unit! This man needs oxygen and a saline IV!
Sir, can you hear me?
Sir?
I've got what you asked for.
- All of those are from Max? - Every letter he ever wrote me.
You said to bring everything I had.
We believe there are things you haven't told us.
- We need to know everything. - About what?
About Max - where he's been, where he's traveled.
What it was he was carrying on that flight.
- Did you find Max? - No.
But we found a passenger with severe burns, severe cellular damage.
Burns that suggest the victim was exposed to a high level of radiation.
- Something Max was carrying? - We need to know what that was.
If you're withholding any information, there could be severe consequences.
Mulder?
Man's name was Larold Rebhun. The manifest has him in seat 13D,...
..which is the aisle seat right here. My guess is that Max Fennig was in 13F, window seat.
The manifest had a passenger in that seat...
Paul Gidney - an alias Max used in his letters when he went underground.
He used another alias to get a job at the Rocky Flats Environmental Energy Site...
..where they store weapons-grade plutonium.
Do you think Max was carrying plutonium?
The burns on that passenger's face were deep-tissue radiation burns.
I don't know how else he might have gotten them.
- What'd Max be doing with that? - I don't know.
He wrote maybe a thousand letters describing his abductions,...
..but in January he started making vague references to a theft.
Now, it seems to me that he started to get the idea...
..that he'd come on to something that was very dangerous.
So what caused this crash?
If he was carrying fissile plutonium and it became exposed in the cabin,...
..it very conceivably could have caused the crash.
You wanna know what I think, Scully?
I'm gonna tell you.
I think Max was abducted, sucked right out of this door at 29,000 feet.
The burns are a result of that abduction.
All the evidence will point to this, but will be dismissed because of its unthinkability.
The crash of Flight 549 will go unsolved unless we prove it.
When Max is returned, he'll tell us the same story unless someone gets to him first.
Mulder, Max is returned. I found out a few minutes ago.
They found his body a short way from the wreckage earlier today.
You're positive?
Traveling under the name Paul Gidney, seat 13F,...
..with the same burns as his seat-mate.
Still no explanation for this crash.
..to make a determination as to whether there was an explosion....
..pre-impact or as we can see...
The data only points to an explosion after the aircraft...
Did you make a positive ID on Max Fennig?
They've located the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder.
And?
The IIC is saying that there was a complete systems malfunction on the plane.
So still no explanation for what brought it down.
Not yet, but they are looking at the emergency exit door.
And while they cannot explain the radiation,
they are not ready to attribute it as the cause.
Not able to, or not willing to?
- Why can't you just accept the facts? - There are no facts.
What they're gonna report, they're the opposite of facts. An ignorance of the facts.
Claimed steadfastly, ignorance becomes as acceptable as the truth.
What would you like them to report?
That there is not one wristwatch on any of the bodies. They've been stolen.
- These men are covering evidence? - These men? No.
These men are trained to identify moving parts,...
..to reconstruct them in the past and arrive at the present.
But they can't do that because somebody has stolen the past.
Nine minutes of it that became a lifetime for those passengers and now for their families.
Someone has to find out what happened in those nine minutes.
Somehow, we've got to get that back.
Louis Frish?
Yes, sir. CO said you were coming out with some questions.
Agent Mulder. This is Agent Scully.
If you're here about the crash, I already told the NTSB guys what I know.
- They were already out here? - Yes, ma'am. Night of the crash.
Were you in the tower that night?
Yes, sir. Me and Sergeant Armando Gonzales.
- Did Flight 549 show up on your radar? - Yes, sir.
- Did you establish radio contact? - No, sir.
We wouldn't contact an airliner unless it came into military airspace.
- Would there be a record of 549 in the log? - Yes, sir. I know it by heart.
At 19.52 Flight 549 dropped from an altitude of 29,000 feet.
About 45 seconds later, we got an altitude reading of triple-X.
I've never seen anything like it. Hope to never again.
Then what did you do?
We called 549 and got no response. Then we called ATC in Albany.
- What was their response? - We just gave them the information.
Is there something else you're looking for?
About nine minutes.
We've been traveling a long way.
The initial report said there was no radar confirmation of the crash.
That must have come after our briefing.
What did you tell them?
What I was supposed to say.
Somebody's gonna figure out what's goin' on.
I don't ask. I don't know.
I don't wanna know.
If they find out the truth, you think anybody's gonna take the heat for us?
I'm not the only liar here.
If they come back to talk to me, I'm tellin' the truth.
I'm not gonna have no blood on me.
Then you make me the liar.
- Did they find her? - No, ma'am.
- We need answers. The place is a mess. - We'll do our best, ma'am.
- Hey, you're gonna have to take care of this. - Excuse me?
The room you rented for the woman? She trashed it and split.
- Sharon Grafia? - It was under your name.
Look at this! I don't know what kind of game she was playin' in here.
She blew the door right out of the jamb.
I doubt insurance will cover it.
Does your policy cover the acts of extraterrestrials?
- We'll take care of it. - Gmm.
Hit me with your best shot. What do you think happened?
I haven't a clue.
It looks like this place fell from 29,000 feet.
- You think Max's sister... - Was abducted, just like Max.
Maybe it runs in the family.
What happened here?
You're the experts. Bring your team down and work it out.
- They're hands are full. - Producing inconclusive evidence.
I've come to tell you we've found some evidence.
- About what caused the crash? - Possibly.
- But I'm not ready to announce it. - Why not?
I'm afraid I'd sound as crazy as you.
Is there someplace I can show you these? Someplace with a door?
These lines you see here are fatigue cracks, caused by cyclic stress on the fuselage.
- From what? - Wear and tear.
Most commercial planes have 30,000-hours flight time.
Except 549 was a new plane. 549 had no wear and tear.
- Then what caused that? - I can't tell you.
But I can tell you this.
The way these cracks radiate
looks like the door's been shaken and blown outward,...
..straight off its frame. Thanks to you, we knew what to look for.
What you're describing is physically impossible.
In normal operation, it could never happen. Not this way.
But it did.
Hey, man, how ya doin'?
Sorry about before. It's, uh - I was way out of line.
I just...
I've just been letting this thing get to me, I guess.
Hey, Gonzales?
- Did you find him, Sergeant? - He's not up there.
35,000 feet. It's negligible. Nothing to be concerned about.
Copy, Tower. Please advise. Do you see a need to adjust?
Negative, 549. Steady air speed at two-niner-six knots.
Maintain heading one-zero-zero at two-niner thousand feet.
Go ahead, 549.
What the hell is this?
549, do you read?
We got something - some intercept.
My God! My God!
Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
Scully.
I just realized something. The air traffic controller, I've heard him before.
We’ve been up for 36 hours. Can it wait?
No, I know. I just need you to come over and listen to this now.
I'm on my way.
Don't scream. Just listen to me.
Listen to me.
I'm the man responsible. I'm the one that caused that plane crash.
Uh, give me a second.
You said you had someone with some information?
This is Louis Frish. Sergeant Frish.
He's the air traffic controller on the recording
you played for us the other night.
That was from Albany Control Center.
It was the voice of a civilian air traffic controller.
No, sir.
There seems to be a discrepancy. What you've been led to believe...
..was built on a lie Sgt Frish was asked to perpetuate.
Along with Sgt Gonzales, who is now dead.
I was ordered to lie about what happened to Flight 549.
- By whom? - My CO.
Flight 549 appeared on my radar at 1900 hours.
We were asked to give its coordinates at 15-second intervals.
About two minutes past 30 degrees north,...
..we saw a second aircraft enter 549's airspace in an intercept pattern.
It shadowed 549 for another ten minutes...
..before we were asked to give new coordinates.
A few seconds later, there was an explosion and 549 disappeared from my radar screen.
I don't believe this man.
There's no forensic detail to support it.
No sign of an explosion, no flashing, no residues, no oxidation, nothing.
I'm telling you what I saw. We shot down a civilian jet, knowingly and willingly.
I'll tell you something. I have a responsibility to the truth.
So do we.
This man can't testify to this story, not without evidence.
- The military's covering up that evidence. - The story makes no sense.
Unless the aircraft that was fired on never appeared on his radar.
A third, unidentified aircraft engaged the civilian jet,
which the sergeant never saw.
A stealth aircraft?
Shot down by the intercept aircraft, which may have caused the crash of Flight 549,...
..which means the cause of this crash is out there somewhere at a second crash site.
- Somebody would've spotted it. - They didn't know about it.
Except the military. His life is in danger because he can put the pieces together.
Then somebody has to get him someplace safe.
If there's a second crash site,...
..let's find it.
Mulder.
Hold on.
Mulder?
- Louis, help me. - Don't take your foot off the gas.
- Is he gonna see us? - No. We gotta get under it.
We're not gonna make it.
Somebody help me!
Please!
Who's there?
Oh, don't... don't let them take me again!
Louis!
Louis! I wanna ask you something.
This is where Flight 549 went down.
There's been no substantiation of a second crash site?
Right.
What if that's because that second aircraft never fell to the ground?
It came down somewhere around here.
- In Great Sacandaga lake? - Yeah.
Traveling north to south, 15 degrees.
It's a shallower descent. Yeah, that's very possible.
Possible?
Are you OK taking Sergeant Frish back to DC?
- By myself? - Yeah.
- You just let me know what's going on. - As soon as I know.
- I saw the sign. Are you Bearfeld? - Yeah.
I stopped by your place. Nobody was home.
Who are you?
Fox Mulder. I'm with the FBI.
You to do with what's going on out there?
What's going on out there?
Some kind of search-and-rescue operation or some damn thing. I don't know.
Where?
Out over Democrat Point.
Some kind of hovering lights, just there and then gone.
Can you show me?
No, no, no. I need you to take me there.
- I'm just gonna get some things. - Where then?
I'm gonna ask for some kind of protective arrangement.
I need to talk to my agent in charge to get a feel for how to go on this,...
..but I think you're gonna want to talk to the right people.
- Do you think I'll be prosecuted? - For what?
I gave the coordinates.
You didn't bring that plane down, Louis.
I lied. I misled a federal investigator. I misled you.
134 people, Sergeant Gonzales - they're all dead.
- It wasn't your fault. - But I'm gonna have to live with it.
I watched that plane fall out of the sky.
It was just a dot on the screen, just a set of numbers.
The wreckage - I can't get that out of my mind.
How those people died.
How easy it is to lie. Just to say it was a dot on the screen.
Until you see it.
Look, I can't tell you how to feel, Louis.
But I can tell you that I will do everything I can...
..to make sure you tell your story to somebody who will do the right thing.
Yeah. Thank you.
Do you think it's safe to make a phone call?
I'd like to tell my girlfriend that I'm... whatever.
Yeah. Um,...
..just tell her you're OK.
Over there.
- How deep is it here? - Fifty. Sixty, maybe.
Have you worked at this depth before?
Not exactly.
What exactly is your experience?
Once I, uh, I got a quarter off of the deep end at the Y pool.
Last call, folks.
- Cocktail? - No. No, thanks.
We're being met by a federal marshal. You'll end up sleepin' in somebody's office.
You wanna drink? You need a drink. Yes.
- There you are. - Yeah. Thank you.
- Hey! Birthday girl! - Agent Pendrell. How ya doing?
I have something for you. Where've you been?
- I've been, uh, gone. - Oh. Uh, can I buy you a drink?
No, you know, it's OK. I'm with somebody.
Oh.
Let me buy him a drink too.
- No. You know what? It's OK. - No. I insist.
- Bartender? Bartender? - Yeah?
Set me up with a couple of birthday-girl drinks here.
Get down!
You've gotta keep breathing, Pendrell.
Do you hear me?
I made this!