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The X-Files follows the careers and personal lives of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder ( David Duchovny ) and Dana Scully ( Gillian Anderson ).

Mulder is a talented profiler, and a firm believer in the supernatural.

He is also adamant about the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life and their continual presence on Earth.

This set of beliefs has earned him the nickname " Spooky " and an assignment to a little-known department that deals with unsolved cases, known as the X-Files.

His belief in the paranormal springs from the abduction of his sister Samantha Mulder by extraterrestrials when Mulder was 12.

His sister's abduction is a driving force in Mulder's career throughout most of the series.

Because of this, as well as the more nebulous desires for vindication and the revelation of truths kept hidden by human authorities, Mulder struggles to maintain objectivity in his investigations.

Agent Scully is a foil for Mulder in this regard.

As a medical doctor and natural skeptic, Scully is frequently able to approach the X-Files with complete detachment even when Mulder, despite his considerable training, is not.

She is initially assigned to the X-Files to debunk Mulder's theories, supplying logical, scientific explanations for the apparently unexplainable phenomena the cases involve.

Although she is frequently able to offer scientific alternatives to Mulder's deductions, she is rarely able to refute them completely and, over the course of the series, becomes increasingly dissatisfied with her own ability to contextualize the X-Files in a scientific way.