"Well, one of them was a five-year-old, so that's probably about as believable as a sighting of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," he says dryly. "The others are more credible, if you ask me. You're looking at close to a million acres of trees in the Allegheny Mountains; there's a lot of room for large mammals to hide, and some of the terrain is rough going.

"Of course, it's almost all second-growth forest, stuff that was planted after loggers came through the first time. But the key word there is almost - and once their land was rewilded, the Sasquatch population would have room to grow again." Explaining these things makes it almost - almost - feel like old times. Scully won't believe a word of it, but that doesn't matter; the fact that she listens anyway is what he loves about her. Forcing him to construct good, scientific arguments is her superpower. It animates him beyond here's my ex, here's her mail, at least she isn't engaged to anyone.