1.20 "Darkness Falls" Trivia Quiz

Answer: A similar event had happened in 1934.

Mulder showed Scully a photo of the current group of thirty missing lumberjacks, calling them "rugged, manly men in the full bloom of their manhood". He said they had disappeared without a trace and that the Federal Forest Service and the logging company had asked for the FBI's help on the case.

When Scully asked why Mulder thought it was an X-File, he showed her a photo of a group of lumberjacks who had disappeared in the same area in 1934.

Answer: Bigfoot

After Mulder explained why he wanted the case investigated as an X-File, Scully asked him, "And you suspect what? Bigfoot?" Mulder replied, "Not likely. That's a lot of flannel to be choking down, even for Bigfoot". Mulder then told her that investigating the case would be a "nice trip to the forest".

When they later arrived at the campsite and found that the vehicles and radio had been sabotaged, Scully commented that "it definitely wasn't Bigfoot".

Answer: The truck's tires blew out from spikes on the road.

Mulder and Scully started out on the four mile drive to the logging camp with Larry Moore from the Federal Forest Service and Steve Humphreys, the security manager for the logging company. While they were driving, Humphreys explained that the reason the lumberjacks were working so far into the forest was that most of the forest nearby was protected.

He believed that Eco-terrorists were responsible for the disappearance as they had been trying to disrupt the logging operation. Just as he said that, the truck hit spikes that had been placed on the road, ruining two of the tires. Since they couldn't replace both tires, they had to hike to the campsite. Larry Moore was played by Jason Beghe, a long-time friend of David Duchovny, and Steve Humphreys was played by Tom O'Rourke whose long career included recurring roles on "Guiding Light" and four of the "Law and Order" series.

Answer: A large cocoon

When they arrived at the site, they found that the vehicles and the generator had been sabotaged with rice put inside the fuel tanks. So while Steve Humphreys worked on getting the generator running, the rest of them searched the surrounding forest for the missing men. Mulder spotted the cocoon up in the trees, and they rigged a pulley system to get Scully close enough to cut it down.

As she started to cut it, she noticed human fingers extending from the cocoon. When they got it on the ground and opened it, they found a body that had been drained of fluids and was nearly mummified.

Answer: Cutting down old growth trees

While Steve Humphreys was working on the generator, he heard a noise in the cabin and found Spinney scrounging for food. The others returned while Humphreys was holding Spinney at gunpoint. Spinney explained that his group was camped two valleys over and that their jeep battery was dead, so he had been sent to obtain one from the loggers' campsite.

He told them that the loggers had been cutting old wood trees that had been marked with an orange "X" by the Forest Service to protect them. Humphreys became angry and wanted Spinney arrested for the murder of the loggers which Spinney denied.

He suspected that the lumberjacks had died from the same thing that killed one of his colleagues. He described it as something that descended from the sky after dark and said that "darkness is our enemy". Spinney was played by Titus Welliver, "The Man in Black" on "Lost".

Answer: In a tree ring core sample

On the first evening at the cabin, they had seen a couple of bugs get zapped by the bug light, but since the swarming insects were "afraid of the light", it may not have been them. The next day, Doug Spinney showed Mulder, Scully, Moore and Humphreys one of the old trees that Spinney said had been chopped down by the lumberjacks. Humphreys claimed that the Eco-terrorists could have marked the tree with the orange "x" after it had been felled, but Moore told Humphreys that wasn't the case because the tree was easily over 500 years old. Mulder noticed that the tree had an unusual inner greenish-yellow ring, of which Moore took a core sample to study. Meanwhile, Humphreys had grown impatient with Moore for not arresting Spinney, so he stormed off to go use the radio in Moore's truck to call for help. Back at the cabin, Moore, Mulder and Scully examined the sample from the tree ring and could see the insects moving about. Moore said it looked like a wood mite of some sort that he hadn't seen before. Scully noted that the insects appeared to be hatching, and Spiney told them that it was right after that tree was cut down that his colleague died and the loggers disappeared.

Answer: The insects killed him in the truck.

Humphreys had arrived back at the truck while it was still daylight but he didn't have the keys, and it was dark by the time he hot-wired the truck to get it started. He saw the insects as they started to descend and tried to drive off but crashed into a rock.

The insects then entered the truck through the vents. He tried to escape through the door, but it was jammed against the rock, so he was trapped in the truck with the insects. When Mulder, Scully and Moore later found his body, his face was pressed against the window with a look of horror upon it.

Answer: Mulder let him return to his campsite.

That morning, Spinney got up early and tried to escape, taking the rest of the gasoline with him. Mulder caught him while he was trying to remove a battery from one of the vehicles. Spinney explained that he had to save his friends and that he would return with his jeep the next morning to pick Mulder, Scully and Moore up. Mulder decided to trust him, to the disbelief of Scully; she was irritated that he made the decision without consulting the rest of them, especially since Moore informed them that there was only a quarter of a tank of gasoline left in the generator.

Answer: A tire

It was more than a day's hike out of the forest, so they decided to try to repair the truck which had two bad tires. Moore had one spare and a patch kit in his truck, so Mulder suggested they take one of the tires from the cabin that was in better shape than the ones on Moore's truck and try to patch it.

Then they could hopefully "limp down the mountain". When they arrived at the truck, they found Humphreys' cocooned body in it. Then Spinney arrived in his jeep as he had promised to rescue them. He told them that his friends were dead and that he had radioed for help.

While they were driving, Spinney hit one of the Eco-terrorist spikes on the road, blowing out his tires, and when he got out of the jeep to check the tire, he was attacked by the insects.

Answer: Quarantine facility

After the insects attacked Spinney, they entered the jeep through the vents and attacked Mulder, Scully and Moore. A hazmat team found them encased in cocoons but still alive the next morning. The team took them to a nearby "High Containment facility" where they were kept in quarantine for "undiagnosed infection or exposure to unknown vectors". Mulder was in better shape than the other two and was able to talk with the doctor who told him that they had inhaled a chemical that was the same enzyme found in bioluminescent insects. Scully was still unconscious and the doctor said that she would have died if she had "two or three more hours of exposure".

He also told Mulder that the government was going to use controlled burns and pesticides to eradicate the insects.