The Truth is Out There: "The X-Files" Ended 10 Years Ago & Predicts the End of the World

It's been 10 years since the small screen bid adieu to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, the FBI agents who investigated paranormal activity on the FOX hit, The X-Files. The sci-fi show premiered on September 10, 1983 and aired its final episode on May 19, 2002. When the series ended, it was the longest-running sci-fi series in American television history, an honor that Smallville now holds.

In the series finale, "The Truth," Mulder accesses classified documents about the final colonization of the planet (the end of the world), which will occur on December 22, 2012. Mulder kills the man who discovers he's seen the information and is then held in a military prison. Scully and others break him out and the star-crossed lovers escape to New Mexico, where The Smoking Man helps sheds some light on the coming invasion. Mulder and Scully settle in for the night in a motel room in Roswell, New Mexico, where the episode concludes with the couple locked in embrace.

X-Files creator Chris Carter wrote the final episode, which he discusses in his 2010 Archive interview:

X-Files writer/Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan on The X-Files series finale:

There have been rumors of a third X-Files movie (the first two were in 1998 and 2008), perhaps to be released in December 2012? I want to believe.

For more info, check out our X-Files show page.