Fans of Chris Carter’s sci-fi drama series, The X-Files, have theorized that FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully is immortal. Portrayed by Gillian Anderson, Scully has undergone a multitude of traumatic, bizarre, and life altering events throughout the series’ impressive eleven season run. While the probability of Scully's immortality seems slim, it is actually quite possible. In fact, Chris Carter himself went on to comment on the matter, which served to further perpetuate the possibility that the character is immortal.
When season 1, episode 1, “Pilot”, premiered in 1993, Scully was introduced as fellow FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder’s (David Duchovny) partner. The two are given the cases categorized as the “x-files”, which are unsolved cases involving elements of the paranormal, supernatural, extraterrestrial, and more. Throughout its entirety, Scully is placed in harmful situations in order to assist Mulder in the discovery of the truth. Except in season 3, episode 4, “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”, it is revealed that she may not ever be in such a dangerous situation that her life would be at risk.
In the episode, Scully asks the psychic, Clyde Bruckman, how she will die. He responds simply with, “You won’t”. Initially, fans believed this to be a situational statement, that the current situation happening in “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” could not result in her end. As the series progressed, the theory that she may actually be immortal became more and more plausible.
Theory: Special Agent Scully Is Immortal
There are numerous episodes in The X-Files that elude to Scully's immortality, the first of which being “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”. The theory goes beyond that and proposes that Scully became immortal during the events of season 6, episode 10, “Tithonus”. She is informed by the 149-year-old immortal, Fellig, that he will live forever because, when he saw the grim reaper, he looked away. By the end of the episode, Scully turns her head from the bringer of death; if Fellig's theory and logic are accurate, doing this would make her immortal. In season 6, episode 14, “Monday”, Scully is stuck in a loop where each time she dies, she has to restart the day. The theory suggests that the loop only exists because she is immortal; as her death cannot happen, the clock resets every time she dies.
There are countless references to Scully's immortality in the show, but none make the case better than the words of The X-Files' creator, Chris Carter. In 2014, Carter stated on a Reddit AMA that Scully is, in fact, immortal. Writer Darin Morgan, on the other hand, asserts that she is not. This is due to the fact that he wrote “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”, and his intentions behind the psychic's line were not to establish that Scully was immortal. Instead, it was a creative choice that transformed into a theory and eventually became canon. When Chris Carter states a fact about any character in The X-Files, it is often taken as truth. After Carter explicitly told fans that Scully was immortal, it solidified the theory as fact written into her character, and is now considered canon.