Jose Chung's From Outer Space

"Jose Chung's From Outer Space"
The X-Files episode
Agent Dana Scully reading the titular book. The cover is a parody of Whitley Strieber's Communion.
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 20
Directed by	Rob Bowman
Written by	Darin Morgan
Production code	3X20
Original air date	April 12, 1996
Running time	44 minutes
Guest appearance(s)
Charles Nelson Reilly as Jose Chung William Lucking as Roky Crikenson Daniel Quinn as Jack Schaefer Sarah Sawatsky as Chrissy Giorgio Jason Gaffne as Harold Lamb Alex Diakun as Dr. Fingers Larry Musser as Detective Manners Jaap Broeker as The Stupendous Yappi Allan Zinyk as Blaine Faulkner Michael Dobson as Sergeant Hynek Mina E Mina as Dr. Hand Jesse Ventura as Man in Black 1 Alex Trebek as Man in Black 2
Episode chronology
← Previous "Hell Money" Next → "Avatar"
List of season 3 episodes List of The X-Files episodes

"Jose Chung's From Outer Space" is the 20th episode of the third season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States on April 12, 1996, on Fox. It was written by Darin Morgan and directed by Rob Bowman. "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.5, being watched by 16.08 million people in its initial broadcast, and also received praise from critics.

The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. In this episode, Mulder and Scully hear, and promptly investigate, a story about an alien abduction of two teenagers. Each witness provides a different version of the same facts. Within the episode, a thriller novelist, Jose Chung, writes a book about the incident.

The episode is a stand-alone episode, like most episodes of The X-Files, and follows the normal Monster-of-the-Week pattern of the show but features more humor than typical via manipulation of point of view, leading to multiple re-tellings of certain events with varying degrees of unreliable narrators.

A teenage couple in Klass County, Washington, are returning from a date one evening when their car suddenly stops, they see a UFO, and are captured by a pair of grey aliens. However, the aliens are themselves soon confronted by a giant third alien from another race. Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is interviewed about the case by famed author Jose Chung (Charles Nelson Reilly), who is researching a book he is writing about alien abductions and the UFO phenomenon. Scully notes that the girl, Chrissy, was found with all her clothes inside out, appearing to be the victim of date rape. Her date, Harold, is brought in by the police. He claims that he did not rape Chrissy, but that they were both abducted by aliens. The foul-mouthed local detective, Manners (whose profanity is humorously replaced with words such as "bleep" and "blank"), does not believe Harold's story, but Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) has Chrissy undergo hypnosis, in which she describes being on a spaceship surrounded by aliens. Harold claims to have encountered a cigarette-smoking grey alien on the ship who kept repeating, "This is not happening." Mulder is convinced that Chrissy and Harold were abducted by aliens, but Scully thinks it is more plausible that the two teenagers simply had consensual sex and are struggling to deal with the emotional aftermath.