Purity [Black Oil, Black Cancer]
At the beginning was Purity.
It can be encountered in many forms.
1) Its life force is the Black Oil, a sentient liquid that can use a being as a host and take control of it. It can generate flashes of radioactivity and survive it; it is very hard to exterminate it. The hosting organism taken over by the Black Oil does not remain conscious, it is dominated by the Black Oil and is part of Purity. The Black Oil isn’t a simple fluid waiting for a host or to become a grey. The Black Oil is the alien, it can think and is responsible for nearly all the alien activity we have seen. It can be brought down to a single strain of DNA, in which case it’s called a virus; its appearance of black fluid can be attributed to the virus bathing inside hydrocarbons, and it can use similar fluids like battery oil as a means to spread and move. Bringing the virus analogy further, a being that is a host is infected by the Black Oil and another being that cannot be used as a host is immune to the Black Oil.
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2) The Black Oil can also trigger the development of an alien entity inside the body of the host. This entity gestates and hatches killing its host. It is a tall, monstrous creature with Black Oil running in its veins.
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3) Once this ‘creature alien’ grows and feeds, it sheds its skin to become a small grey humanoid alien. The Black Oil still remains the thinking center, and it gathers in the head of the grey. In the rest of the grey’s body flows a green fluid toxic to humans that holds the Black Oil virus inside it; this fluid is not sentient and is akin to human blood. The greys are the social form of the Black Oil, the form in which this sentient being can build a civilization. The greys do not know diseases and communicate with each other through telepathy.
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4) At this stage, the greys can reproduce sexually, which implicates pregnancy and embryonic development.
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Purity developed a great technology and with space travel became a considerable force in the Galaxy. Purity developed highly automated ships that can rebuild themselves when they are damaged; intelligent force fields and invisibility fields; nanotechnology tracking devices; healing fields; and many other things that would only appear as magic to a human eye.
Purity is very old, even older than terrestrial life itself. It has been theorized that natural evolution of Purity was progressively bringing it closer to extinction. Then, Purity made up a plan majestic in size and time span. Throughout the Galaxy, it would create life or help its development on different planets and guide the evolution of life through billions of years until a being suitable for gestation would appear. Until then, Purity would be in stasis, waiting. Purity would then take over this being, gestate and effectively create an entirely new population of greys: a colonization, or a blossoming renaissance. On Earth, this host being would be the human race. After billions of years of evolution and space-faring, Purity’s force was dried down; by having a planet in which Purity could gather strength again and be reinvigorated would be a safe bet for prolonged survival of the race.
Shapeshifters and Faceless Rebels
Purity created the race of the Shapeshifters, using its own genome as a blueprint. The Shapeshifters physically resemble humans, they can be infected by Purity, but they can change the shape of their bodies to some degree and heal themselves and others (using the palm of their hands). A green substance flows in their veins, extremely similar to the greys’ only that it doesn’t carry the Black Oil virus in it, which means the Shapeshifters are not immune to the Black Oil. The race of the Shapeshifters was developed and developed itself on a planet that belongs to the constellation of Cassiopeia. When the time was ripe, Purity colonized the planet of the Shapeshifters, exterminating most of them. Those who survived created a resistance movement, leading a guerilla war against Purity. They mutilated themselves so as not to be infected by Purity, and were called the Faceless Rebels.
 A Shapeshifter is a host more resistant than a human. To infiltrate Earth, Purity used Shapeshifter hosts. Purity performed genetic tests on the Shapeshifters; one of these was cloned and his clones were
infected by Purity: these Purity-controlled Shapeshifters are the Alien Bounty Hunters. The original non-infected Shapeshifter that was cloned escaped, freeing some of his non-infected clones with him. They joined the Rebels, with the original one as their leader.
Terrestrial Biogenesis and the Colonization project
 Some 3.7 billion years ago, Purity arrived on a still barren Earth and created life using much of the primordial soup material already present, but also genetic material of the Black Oil itself. Purity left, though some of it lay dormant underground, in oil deposits or underground caves or outpost ships. For billions of years, the technology Purity left behind orchestrated terrestrial evolution, influencing natural evolution and triggering massive extinctions that made way to new species.
All this led to the premeditated creation of mankind, further using genetic material of Purity and that of terrestrial organisms. Large parts of the alien DNA were embedded in the human DNA and were turned off; these would serve as guidelines for the creation of a full alien organism when the Black Oil virus would infect the host. Humanity’s cultural evolution was encouraged by Purity’s technology, to which mankind owes the sacred texts of great religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam); ‘miracles’ were performed to support these religions, like Moses’ plagues, or healings and resurrections.
 Humans thrived and filled the Earth, according to Purity’s plan. Any humans that became infected by the Black Oil when they would discover an underground deposit were taken to a large craft, buried under the Antarctic ice, that would later be known as Base 1. There, they were put in stasis, slowing down the gestation process of the grey alien until a reawakening when the colonization would come. The date for colonization was set to December 22, 2012 AD.
The Anasazi American Indians adopted Purity’s writing and language. Because of the great knowledge the Anasazi attained of Purity, they were abducted and hunted down to be exterminated. Knowledge of Purity’s writing still survives today among the Navajo Indians.
Tunguska and Black Cancer
The same biogenesis effort had been attempted on Mars: Purity had brought life to a planet that at the time seemed promising. But life there did not thrive and Mars eventually became a desert planet; the only living thing that survived there was Black Oil, hidden underground like on Earth.
 In 1908, in Siberia, a meteorite fell and devastated the landscape. The meteorite was in fact Martian rock, expelled in space by some random cosmic event. Inside the rock was Black Oil; it was very weakened by the shock of crashing on Earth — so much so that when it entered a human host, it did not actively take control of it but barely put the host into a coma. This Black Oil was unable to move the body of the host or to trigger a gestation; for this reason, the Russians who found it called Purity “Black Cancer”.
The Russians saw the military potential of a virus-like organism that induced coma: it could be used as a very effective biological weapon. Eventually, it came to the hands of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who used it against US troops in the Gulf War (1989-1991). In this way, samples of the Black Cancer came to the hands of the american government.
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Hi,
I have a question regarding the Shapeshifters. You wrote: “Purity created the race of the Shapeshifters, using its own genome as a blueprint. The Shapeshifters physically resemble humans, they can be infected by Purity, but they can change the shape of their bodies to some degree and heal themselves and others.” Also you wrote: “The Shapeshifters’ affiliation with Purity also explains why alien/human hybrids resemble Shapeshifters so much: the hybridization process in humans expresses genes that are already part of the Shapeshifters’ normal makeup, genes that originally come from Purity.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but you are saying that Shapeshifters true form is human like: “The Shapeshifters physically resemble humans” but they also can change their appearance and become Grey, for example.
But there is a little inconsistency. In the episode “The Unnatural” Alien Bounty Hunter demands that Exley revert to his true form before his execution. And in that scene we see the TRUE form of Alien Bounty Hunter as he shapeshifts into Grey. He even said himself that this is his true form. Before that scene Exley also said to Arthur that Grey Alien is also his TRUE form.
So, I’m confused here. You say that Shapeshifters true form is human like. But in the episode “The Unnatural” Alien Bounty Hunter said that Grey Alien is his true form.
Where is the Truth then?
Yes, there was a lot of debate surrounding “The Unnatural”. It does look in this episode as if the true form of shapeshifters is the grey alien, however there is no other example in the series where this happens. There are many theories, and there are several ways to look at it:
– trying to reconcile it intra-diegetically: the Alien Bounty Hunter and, quite possibly, Exley, are not “just” shapeshifter aliens, but shapeshifters infected with the Black Oil. They shapeshifter under the Black Oil is not in control of its body. They are controlled by the Black Oil, think like it, and for all intents and purposes they are the same thing as a grey alien only in a different body. So when the ABH asks Exley to show his true form, that’s the form Exley takes.
– trying to reconcile it with the unreliable narrator: “The Unnatural” is a fairy tale where, a bit like Pinocchio, an alien wishes so hard to be a real human that it really happens. There’s no scientific way to explain why he would have a fully human body with human blood at the end. So everything in that story is quite unreliable and maybe just allegorical.
– trying to reconcile it extra-diegetically: “The Unnatural” was written by David Duchovny, not by Chris Carter. It’s not really part of the mythology, it’s a side story that does not necessarily follow the same rules. At that time, Duchovny was tired of how fans obsessed with the details of the mythology, so it’s not weird that he would not spend too much time trying to reconcile his story idea with the show’s complex mythology. Carter did approve the script, but then see above.
Wow, thank you for your broad response. I saw it only today and it really make my day. Very interesting points and takes about X-Files mythology. You or your team, that created this site are very intelegabile on the subject. I am trying myself to learn more about the series and sometimes it is really hard to tie everything together. To learn more about the series I even bought comics, novels and magazines with behind the scenes commentary from the creators and actors. I also have The X-Files: The Official Collection (3 book series)
Vol. 1: The Agents, The Bureau and the Syndicate
Vol. 2: Little Green Men – Monsters & Villains
Vol. 3: Conspiracy Theory, The Truth, Secrets & Lies
I really like exploring the lore behind the series and this site is really great assistent in it. Thank you very much for creating such platform.
Right now I want to order myself (Monsters of the Week The Complete Critical Companion to The X-Files). A very important book for any X-Files fan, perhaps you also have one.
By the way, I noticed that in (Section 4 : The hidden agendas 1996-2000, Behind the Iron Curtain) in the Sources section there is writen: unshot Krycek episode… How do you know there’s an unfilmed Krycek episode? Maybe there is some behind the scenes or articles where it is mentioned?
Oh, I still have so much questions but I was wondering, is there any discord chats or some other chats about the X-Files where fans can ask questions?
Thank you!
These 3 volumes series are collections of articles from the official magazine that was coming out at the time. Some article transcripts are available here on this site, in the interviews section: http://www.eatthecorn.com/category/interviews-official-magazine-us/
You won’t learn much new with the “Monsters of the Week” book, it is mostly episode by episode reviews by two professional critics. The 6 volumes of the official guides are good sources, although most of the information they contain can be found online by now. Darren Mooney’s book is a good recent reference work, on the behind the scenes aspects.
The unmade Krycek episode…yes, this is a big regret of mine that they never managed to make one. When making seasons 7 and 8, the writers often mentioned that they wanted to do more with Krycek and Marita Covarrubias, but it ended up not happening, partly because one actor or the other were not available, filming other projects. Frank Spotnitz said that in particular, and Nick Lea mentioned they were preparing an episode in a recent interview: https://www.eatthecorn.com/2020/06/30/social-media-archive-2020-part-2/
Then, in 2004, the “Resist or Serve” video game that came out had both Krycek and Covarrubias, in Russia, so perhaps the video game reused some story ideas from the unmade episode. I hope to write an article about it not too long in the future.
As far as I’m aware, reddit is the most active place to discuss TXF right now!