| Overview | Early Life | Abduction | Search | Aftermath | Return | Background Information | Credits |
Samantha Ann Mulder is a fictional character in The X-Files television series. She was the daughter of William and Teena Mulder and sister of Fox Mulder. — (Conduit, The Blessing Way, Kitsunegari).
Her disappearance during Fox' childhood is the primary motivation behind his work on the X-Files and discovering the truth behind the existence of extraterrestrial life on Earth. — (Pilot, Conduit, Paper Hearts)
Early Life[]
Samantha was born on January 22, 1964 in Chilmark, Massachusetts. Her father, William Mulder, was a top level State Department official, and her mother, Teena Mulder, was a homemaker. Her brother, Fox, was four years older than her. By the time she was eight and her brother was twelve, Samantha's family was living together at 2790 Vine Street, Chilmark. — (Conduit, Little Green Men)
Samantha enjoyed watching Western movies — (Little Green Men). She also liked to play Stratego with her brother. — (Little Green Men, Colony)
Samantha dressed as a fairy in a home movie.
Samantha dressed up as a fairy for a home movie of her with her brother and mother. — (Dreamland II)
In her youth, she posed for a photograph taken at a swimming pool. For another photo in which she posed at a swimming pool, she was accompanied by her brother — (Conduit)
Similar photos were images - three of which were black-and-white and another was color - of the children in different poses — (Sleepless)
Samantha was also photographed alone, looking away from camera wearing a frilly purple dress and holding a flower — (Miracle Man). In another photograph, she was pictured on a metal climbing frame. — (Little Green Men).
Abduction[]
When the Syndicate formed in 1973 to work with the aliens, the aliens decided to take a family member from each main Syndicate family as "collateral". William Mulder discussed it with his wife Teena, but she was unable to make a choice. William later chose Fox, but that decision was superseded by the Cigarette Smoking Man who forced them to choose Samantha instead. — (Paper Clip, Demons)
- Many of the flashbacks seen in "Demons" were delusions of Fox Mulder, and the Cigarette Smoking Man may not have actually been involved in the choice, as he disputes involvement in "One Son".
On November 27, 1973, Samantha was eight and her brother was twelve. At 8:53 pm that evening, Samantha was playing a losing game of Stratego against her brother, while both children were lying on the floor of their family living room and their parents were visiting the Galbrands. Samantha had been permitted by their parents to watch a Western movie but they had left her brother in charge. Immediately after Samantha's brother captured one of her Stratego pieces, the two children began arguing about the television, with Samantha demanding to watch the Western movie even though her brother insisted that a news report regarding the Watergate scandal remain on the television as he was waiting for The Magician to start at 9:00 pm. She changed the channel but her brother reset it. In frustration, Samantha screamed for effect at her brother, who assertively reiterated that he would be watching The Magician and then started to walk away from both her and the television.
Samantha Mulder's abduction
When the lights and television in their living room suddenly lost power, Samantha looked at her brother as he accusingly told her that a fuse had blown. She fearfully cried out his name when an eerie hum, electrical and engine-like, began outside and objects in the room, including the Stratego pieces, started to shudder. They both looked towards the window, where strange, strobing red, orange and blue lights began to flash and fill the room. While Samantha's brother was distracted by the sight of a seemingly alien figure that appeared through a doorway that opened, she was apparently lifted off her feet and enveloped by a tube of yellow light that continued to levitate her still body in mid-air, turned face upwards, as it slowly carried her through the window without breaking the glass and up into the sky where she entered into an alien spacecraft, never to be seen again.
Samantha's abduction in 1973.
Her brother tried to obtain a gun from a hidden case in the room, while she was floating through the air, but, despite his best efforts, he could not save his sister and, having earlier told her to "get out of [his] life" during their heated argument, he was left calling after her, moments before a white light engulfed the area. — (Little Green Men).
Following this incident, Samantha was cloned several times. — (End Game)
No notes, phone calls or evidence of anything was found, at this time. There were no facts to confirm and nothing to offer any hope. The fact that she could not be found ultimately tore the Mulder family apart and no-one would talk about her disappearance — (Pilot). Additionally, Samantha's mother subsequently had many sleepless nights. — (Colony)
After her abduction, a huge investigation was organized in an attempt to find Samantha, using William Mulder's contacts in Washington. The investigation even went as far as to involve the Treasury Department. The search was called off by the Cigarette Smoking Man. — (Closure)
Search[]
Mulder's Quest[]
Early Effect and Efforts[]
When he was still a boy, Fox Mulder had a ritual of closing his eyes before he walked into his room because he thought that, maybe one day when he opened them, his little sister would be there, simply lying in bed, like nothing had ever happened. — (Conduit)
An X-File about Samantha's disappearance, initiated by her brother.
Mulder personally initiated an X-File about his sister's disappearance, labeled X-40253, and the file included the photograph of Samantha at a public swimming pool. — (Conduit)
He came to believe that the unidentified force which had abducted his sister was extraterrestrial beings, but he could neither explain nor prove the experience and had only vague memories of it. Mulder built a fragile faith on these memories and, in 1994, he claimed the belief had "sustained" him, fueling a lifelong quest for truths and answers that were as elusive as the memory itself." — (Colony)
In his research, Mulder worked very closely with Doctor Heitz Werber, who took him through deep regression hypnosis — (Pilot). In 1989, sessions were conducted on June 14 and 16, as well as on July 21, with the audio of each session being recorded — (Conduit) Mulder was apparently able to go into his own repressed memories to the night Samantha had disappeared. He could seemingly recall a strange bright light outside his house, and an odd presence in the room before him appeared and stood only a few feet away. And in that moment he had been suddenly paralyzed, unable to respond to his sister's calls for help — (Pilot)
On June 16, Mulder apparently recalled that his eyes were open but it was as if he was frozen in time. Despite his little sister's screams and cries, he was unable to assist her, as he was not able to physically move or leave the spot he was stuck in. He recalls hearing a voice in his head of some unknown being telepathically saying that Samantha was not to be seriously harmed, and would even one day be returned. This is something he wanted to believe as it gave him hope. He forever clung on to this hope of finding his missing little sister or discovering her ultimate fate. — (Conduit)
In March 1992, Mulder told his new FBI partner, Special Agent Dana Scully, about his sister's disappearance and his attempts, assisted by Dr. Werber, to recall the night she had suddenly vanished. Amongst other details, he told Scully that his sister had simply disappeared out of her bed, one night, never to be seen again. — (Pilot)
Aftermath[]
Direct Influence on Cases[]
In 1993, twenty-one years after Samantha had disappeared, Section Chief Scott Blevins questioned Scully about whether Samantha's disappearance might be involved in Mulder's reasoning for recently petitioning the FBI to permit himself and Scully to investigate the disappearance of Ruby Morris, a recent incident that had been reported in the media as an abduction. Blevins presented Scully with the X-file that Mulder had opened about his sister's disappearance. When the Section Chief then asked Scully if Mulder had shared with her any details about the incident, Scully recalled that Mulder had claimed to have been in the room when it had occurred. She also revealed to Blevins that Mulder had told her about his memories of the bright light outside the living rooms' window as well as some mysterious presence in that stood in the doorway.
After Scully became convinced that their role in the search for Ruby Morris had come to an end while working on the case with Mulder, he refused to abandon the investigation, as he walked down a street, but Scully, following close behind him, urged him to stop running after his sister, advising him that his determination concerning their current investigation would not bring his sister back. Although he momentarily stopped in his steps, Mulder continued working on the case with Scully, not only ignoring her advice but also convincing her to remain with the investigation, and later told her about his childhood ritual of closing his eyes before entering his room. Shortly thereafter, Ruby Morris was returned.
Following the agents' departure from the case, Scully reviewed the audio recordings of Mulder's regression hypnosis therapy as well as the X-file he had opened. He, meanwhile, sat on a pew in St. Mary's Cathedral, gazing at the photograph of himself with his long-lost sister, together at a swimming pool, and began to cry. — (Conduit)
While the agents were investigating the possibility that healer Samuel Hartley had murdered several people who had come to him to be healed in 1994, Samuel was apparently able to recognize, when the agents questioned him in the aftermath of a bar brawl he had started, that Mulder had an old pain regarding a brother or sister, a pain that had never been healed. Despite Scully doubting Samuel's demonstration of his supposed powers, he continued to announce his findings that Mulder's sibling had been a sister whom he had lost, when he was quite young, because someone had taken her away. Additionally, Samuel claimed he could see strangers and a bright light. He suggested that Mulder should have come to him earlier, claiming there was a chance he could have healed the FBI agent's pain. Mulder was extremely interested in these claims but, as Sheriff Maurice Daniels prepared to take the healer into custody, Samuel told Mulder that he could no longer help the FBI agent because his gift was gone.
After Samuel advised Mulder to be open to signs from God as the healer was being led away and, on the next day, Samuel was tried in a courthouse that was suddenly swarmed by grasshoppers, Scully asked Mulder whether Samuel's claims about his sister were connected to the reason he now believed that the swarm had somehow been caused by the healer. Mulder did not directly answer Scully's question but instead tried to persuade her of his theory that Samuel was a genuine psychic healer.
A vision of Samantha that appeared to her brother in 1994.
When the agents were later interviewing Reverend Calvin Hartley (Samuel's father) at his residence, Mulder thought he saw his sister as a little girl, standing outside Reverend Hartley's abode, as the reverend invited him and Scully to attend that night's Miracle Ministry (the regular ceremony at which Samuel supposedly healed the event's participants). Ignoring the invite and excusing himself from the meeting, Mulder raced outside but found that neither his sister nor any other girls were there. He noticed Samuel gazing out of a window in his father's house and told Scully of his vision but kept his description of the little girl to a minimum.
The agents did indeed attend that night's Miracle Ministry and, as Samuel was being introduced to the audience of participants, Mulder again believed he saw his sister. He left his seat in the audience and tried to search for the girl in the crowd but was once more unable to locate her. When Scully later questioned him about who he had been pursuing, he told her that he had thought he saw someone he knew. Without Mulder revealing any more details to her, Scully made a comment that implied she believed he was being fooled by Samuel. She reminded Mulder that Samuel had mentioned his sister in the bar and asked him if it was his sister that he kept thinking he was seeing. Mulder responded by indirectly confirming that he believed he had seen his sister on two occasions. After Scully suggested that a possible reason for his visions was that he simply wanted to see his sister, Mulder defensively replied that he was not delusional but Scully advised him not to discount the power of suggestion as a cause for his visions.
A similar vision of Samantha that appeared to her brother while he was at Miracle Ministry.
Following Samuel's death, later that night, and the discovery that Leonard Vance was the true murderer, Mulder packed away his belongings from his motel room, including a framed photograph of Samantha in her youth. The third and final vision of his sister appeared to him moments after he concluded that reported visions of Samuel, following the healer's death, were due to people looking so hard for miracles that they possibly made themselves see what they wanted to see. On this occasion, Mulder seemingly saw a reflection of his sister in the door window of his and Scully's car. He immediately whirled to look behind him but again found that his sister was not there and he left, moments later, in the car with Scully. — (Miracle Man)
After the X-Files Closed[]
Following the closure of the X-Files in 1994 and after Mulder was assigned a desk in the Bullpen Hallway of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, he displayed, in a picture frame on his desk, the photograph of his sister on a climbing frame. The picture frame and the image it contained were turned down on the desk by Agent Scully, when Mulder was not present, as a secret means of communicating to him that she wanted to speak privately with him. When they consequently then met covertly, Scully cited his sister's abduction as one of the few beliefs he had held onto since the closure of the X-Files but he revealed he had begun to wonder if even that had ever happened. Shortly thereafter, he awoke abruptly from a nightmare in which he apparently recalled all that he had actually witnessed of his sister's abduction.
While Mulder subsequently traveled to the Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Scully searched for him, unsuccessfully trying the name "Samantha" as a possible password for Mulder's home computer. He, having been sent to Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory to determine whether extraterrestrial contact had been made, recorded himself admitting to Scully, amongst other details, that his life had so far been about the need to see "her" again, indirectly referring to his sister. He believed that extraterrestrials visited the area, moments later, and, when Scully later came for him, he claimed to her that the aliens had been the same ones who had taken "her", again implying a reference to his sister. — (Little Green Men)
Fox Mulder sitting beside a cabinet bearing photographs of himself and Samantha in their youth.
By the time Mulder first encountered Agent Alex Krycek later that year, the set of photographs of himself with his sister, consisting of three black-and-white pictures and one color image, had been affixed to a cabinet next to his desk. — (Sleepless)
Shortly after being taken hostage by self-proclaimed multiple abductee Duane Barry, Mulder admitted to his captor that his own sister had gone through the same ordeal as Barry had been through. Barry, however, was aware that Mulder was an FBI agent and was skeptical of him. Once Mulder gained his captor's trust, Barry asked how old Mulder's sister had been when she had been taken. Mulder answered the question truthfully and Barry claimed that, during his abduction experiences, he had seen young girls being tested on by their abductors, who had hurt them even though Barry had told the girls not to cry. — (Duane Barry)
Return[]
False Family Reunification[]
In 1995, twenty-two years after Samantha's disappearance, a clone of Samantha (who claimed to be her) contacted Samantha's father, William, who then began to gather Samantha's brother and mother at his own home. William Mulder initially announced the news to Samantha's brother, Fox, merely as a "family emergency" and, once Fox Mulder had arrived on William Mulder's porch, William continued to provide vague clues of the issue at hand, noting that Samantha's mother, Teena, needed time and that the occasion was a "difficult time". William Mulder also cryptically stated to Fox Mulder, "The certainty becomes a comfort that allows you to move on. We bury our memories so deep, after all that has been destroyed, never expecting." Moments later, William Mulder announced that the woman, who Fox Mulder could barely see as she talked to his mother inside, was actually his sister.
When Teena Mulder was alone with Fox, she questioned whether the woman was indeed Samantha, to which Fox answered that he could not see who else their visitor might be. The mysterious woman seemed to have Samantha's memories, as she asked her brother (when they later met on the porch) if it was too late to play a game of Stratego and referred to their father as "dad", being of the opinion that he had unable to think of what to say to her. According to the female visitor, she had been nine or ten when she had been returned without any memory, before being placed with a family who had raised her as a daughter. Apparently, she had known that her adoptive parents were not her real family but had forgotten Fox Mulder and his parents. Supposedly, several years prior to her current visit, the woman had begun to experience a troublesome condition that had been diagnosed as "free-floating anxiety" and had been unable to find anything to alleviate or cure the condition, until she had undergone a course of regression hypnosis that had caused her to experience an onslaught of memories concerning abductions and tests she had apparently undergone.
The woman then revealed that the man she referred to as her adoptive father was one of many identical doctors, a group of clones recently encountered by Mulder and Scully while the clones had been avoiding a dangerous Alien Bounty Hunter who intended to hunt and kill each one — (Colony). The mysterious woman alerted Mulder to the reality of the situation — (Colony, End Game). After they discovered that Scully had been kidnapped by the bounty hunter, Mulder questioned his companion why, if she was indeed his sister, she had returned after twenty-two years. She claimed to have explained her reasoning for doing so, but he argued that she hadn't told him enough, influencing her to reveal more about the situation between the clones and the bounty hunter. When Mulder doubted her story moments later, she tried to persuade him to trust her, repeating that she was his sister. He introduced her as such to Assistant Director Walter Skinner, moments after Skinner arrived at Mulder's apartment.
A negotiation with the bounty hunter was arranged in which Mulder would trade the woman for Scully at the Old Memorial Bridge in Bethesda, Maryland. Again referring to the woman as Samantha, Mulder warned her to be careful - when they were alone together, moments prior to the trade taking place - and later called her name after she struggled to free herself from the bounty hunter's grip. The trade did not go according to Mulder's plan, however, and both the woman as well as her captor fell off the bridge, into the icy cold water below. Even though it was unlikely that she had survived, Mulder let Scully know, on the following morning, that he still refused to give up hope of his sister's survival. — (End Game)
Her Return[]
Evidence of Samantha's return.
Many of the abductees, including Cassandra Spender and Samantha, were mysteriously returned by the aliens soon after their abduction. Syndicate personnel placed Samantha in the care of the Cigarette Smoking Man at April Air Force Base along with his son, Jeffrey. The Syndicate would perform hybrid tests on her and other abductees in order to create a vaccine to fight the aliens. She kept a diary of these events.
In 1979, after years of abuse and tests at the hands of her "father", Samantha ran away from the Air Force base. She was picked up by Patrolman J. Poole and Detective J. Floyd soon after, and taken to Dominic Savio Memorial Hospital. She was signed in by Nurse Arbutus Ray, who shortly after had a vision of a murdered Samantha. Samantha Mulder was taken, by starlight, from her room that very night. When the Syndicate showed up to take her into custody, she had already gone. — (Closure)
After Her Death[]
In 1989, Fox Mulder was struck with a specialized gas that caused him to see vivid hallucinations. This brought back repressed memories of his sister's abduction. — (Unusual Suspects)
Soon after, he saw Dr. Heitz Werber and went through regression hypnosis to retrieve all of the memories. — (Pilot)
In 1992, one of Fox Mulder's first acts upon being assigned to the X-Files was to open a case on Samantha — (Conduit). Fox believed that if the existence of aliens was proven, then that would invariably confirm his sister's abduction. — (Gethsemane)
Mulder talks with a clone from the Samantha Series.
On an X-File in 1994, Fox repeatedly saw visions of Samantha while investigating Samuel Hartley for the supposed homicide of Lucy Kelly. Whether this was Hartley psychically placing the image in Fox's head, Fox being slightly delusional, or the ghost of Samantha attempting to contact Fox through Hartley is unknown. — (Miracle Man)
In 1995, one of Samantha's adult clones visited William and Teena Mulder in an attempt to lure Fox into killing an Alien Bounty Hunter. She died trying to kill the Bounty Hunter. Soon after, Fox discovered the colony of Samantha clones in which she was a member, but was unable to destroy the Bounty Hunter. — (Colony, End Game)
Later that year, Fox underwent hypnosis to learn of his past lives. Under hypnosis, Fox believed that during the Holocaust his soul was in the body of a Jewish woman. He believed that Samantha's soul was in the body of the Jewish woman's son. — (The Field Where I Died)
During an investigation into the murders of John Lee Roche, Fox began to believe that it was Roche, and not aliens who had abducted his sister, and that Roche had killed her. Despite the fact that Roche had visited the Mulder home before, Fox found that Samantha was not one of Roche's victims. — (Paper Hearts)
In 1997, the Cigarette Smoking Man brought a woman, possibly another clone of Samantha's, to meet with Fox Mulder. The woman claimed that she was Samantha, and told Fox that she didn't want to be reunited with their mother. She left, never to contact Fox again. — (Redux II)
In 1999, while undergoing hybridization tests, Fox imagined that the Cigarette Smoking Man was Samantha's father and she lived a block away in a perfect suburban neighborhood. — (The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati)
In 2000, Teena Mulder committed suicide. This occurred while Fox was investigating the disappearance of Amber Lynn LaPierre. Over the course of his investigation, he was told by Kathy Lee Tencate that his sister was a "walk-in". — (Sein Und Zeit)
Fox Mulder reunited with Samantha's spirit in 2000.
Fox once again began investigating his sister's disappearance. With the help of Harold Piller, Fox discovered the events of 1979 and his sister's apparent death at Dominic Savio Memorial Hospital. — (Closure)
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A photograph of Samantha in her brother's home office, in 2008.
In 2008, Fox Mulder kept a photo of his beloved sister in his office while working on his own personal projects. — (The X-Files: I Want to Believe)
Background Information[]
Background Check[]
Samantha Mulder was portrayed as a child by Brianne Benitz, Vanessa Morley, Ashlyn Rose, and Mimi Paley, and as an adult by Megan Leitch.
In a scene from the script of The X-Files Movie but edited from the final version of the film, Fox Mulder walks away from Doctor Alvin Kurtzweil during their first meeting before Kurtzweil, who has just mentioned the Project that he and Mulder's father, William, were involved in, states, "Oh, come on. Don't pretend you don't know about the Project... Your sister was taken because of it."
In a later scene from the script of the movie, the Well-Manicured Man, after revealing to Fox Mulder that an alien virus will turn humans into extraterrestrials when an alien race colonizes the planet, explains why William Mulder chose to sacrifice his own daughter, Samantha, by revealing, "The only true survivors of the viral holocaust will be those immune to it: those vaccinated against it and human/alien hybrids. Your father arranged for your sister's abduction. He allowed her to be taken to an alien hybrid program, so that she would survive. As a clone."
These two scenes constitute an earlier explanation for Samantha's disappearance than the one given in the final version of The X-Files series.
Inconsistencies[]
- The X-File in Conduit gives Samantha's middle initial as "T," however the Syndicate's file seen in Paper Clip gives her middle name as "Ann."
- Also, Samantha's birthdate is given in Conduit as January 22, 1964, but the Syndicate file seen in Paper Clip gives her birthdate as November 21, 1965. She is often referred to as "8 years old" when she disappeared, which would place her birth between November 28, 1964 and November 27, 1965.
- The episode Closure implies that Samantha disappeared after the events of 1979, and was never seen until 2000. This is directly contradicted by Jeffrey Spender's statement in "The Truth" that she died in 1987. It was later revealed that this was a mistake on actor Chris Owens part, and the line was corrected in subsequent broadcasts.
- Despite her death, it was often stated by many people, including the Alien Bounty Hunter (in 1995, Colony) and Cassandra Spender (in 1999, Two Fathers), that Samantha was still alive, despite the fact that there was no established reason for them to lie.
Credits[]
+ Season 1
- - Conduit (1993) ... (photographs)
- - Miracle Man (1994) ... (hallucinations and photo)
+ Season 2
- - Little Green Men (1994) ... (flashback and photo)
- - Sleepless (1994) ... (photos)
- - Colony (1995) ... (clone)
- - End Game (1995) ... (clones)
+ Season 3
- - The Blessing Way (1995) ... (photos)
+ Season 4
- - Herrenvolk (1996) ... (clones)
- - Paper Hearts (1996) ... (hallucinations)
- - Memento Mori (1997) ... (clones)
- - Demons (1997) ... (hallucinations)
+ Season 5
+ Movie
- - The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) ... (photos)
+ Season 6
- - Dreamland II (1998) ... (home movie)
- - Tithonus (1999) ... (photo)
+ Season 7
- - The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati (1999) ... (hallucinations)
- - Sein Und Zeit (2000) ... (ghost and photos)
- - Closure (2000) ... (walk-in)
- - En Ami (2000) ... (photo)
+ Season 8
- - Three Words (2001) ... (photo)
+ Season 9
- - William (2002) ... (photo)
- - The Truth (2002) ... (archive footage of flashback, clones and walk-in)
+ Movie
- - The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008) ... (photo)
+Season 10
- - My Struggle (2016) ... (photograph)
Additional References[]
- TXF:
- "Pilot"
- "Duane Barry"
- "Paper Clip"
- "Oubliette"
- "Talitha Cumi"
- "Home"
- "The Field Where I Died"
- "Gethsemane"
- "Kitsunegari"
- "Patient X"
- "The Red and the Black"
- "Two Fathers"
- "One Son"
- "Biogenesis"
- "Requiem"
- "Within"
- "DeadAlive"
| Members of the Mulder Family | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| William Mulder • Teena Mulder • Samantha Mulder • Fox Mulder • William Scully III | ||||