Hollywood Hysteria Is ‘The X-Files’ Creating Paranoia Or Just Reflecting A National Trend?

It could be an “X-Files” episode.

A talented young writer who grew up mesmerized by “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” develops his own scary TV show based on the creepy experiences of FBI agents assigned to investigate alien abductions and other weird occurrences.

First embraced by only a cadre of sci-fi fans, the show soon zooms in popularity, spawning a legion of knock-off shows and the inevitable onslaught of merchandise.

But some worry the show has had a much bigger impact on popular culture. They fear the show has, nearly single-handedly, triggered a wave of paranormal paranoia and government conspiracy theories that make the hysteria surrounding Orson Welles’ 1938 “The War of the Worlds” broadcast seem silly.

And, like an “X-Files” episode, the conclusion of this story is vague. Did the writer whip up the panic? Or are there really secret government dossiers about the paranormal that explain the unexplainable?

The answer? Tune in next week . . .

Since “The X-Files” debuted on Fox television three years ago, there has been a steady increase in interest in the paranormal - in UFOs and extraterrestrials, ghosts and goblins, weird disappearances and appearances.

That interest has not gone unnoticed in Hollywood, where there are no less than 25 TV new shows brewing that deal with “X-Files”-ish topics or just plain weird stuff.

There are coast-to-coast radio shows that take nothing but calls from people who have experienced the paranormal. There are made-for-TV specials on alien autopsies. There are computer networks dedicated to discussing UFOs. There are support groups for those who claim to have been kidnapped by extraterrestrials.

Skeptics who think most of these quasi-legitimate examinations of the paranormal amount to a bunch of hooey say America is gripped by post-Cold War, pre-end-of-the-millennium madness in which the new big fear is the unknown.

And those skeptics point a finger at “X-Files” creator Chris Carter for catering to the paranoid and furthering their fears.

“We’re very disturbed about this,” says Paul Kurtz, chairman and founder of the Buffalo, N.Y.-based Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, which publishes the magazine Skeptical Inquirer.

“These shows are blurring the line between science fiction and science. A lot of people believe this stuff. It’s whipped up hysteria.”

Of course, Carter says he is less the leader of a movement than a clever producer who took the pulse of the country and found it already racing.

“I never anticipated both the U.S. and international response to the show. How could anyone?” he said in a phone call from Toronto, where he is working on his own “X-Files” clone, a new show for Fox titled “Millennium.”

“The business I’m in is the business of failure,” hesaid. “When a show hits, and hits like this, it’s one in a million, and that’s not an exaggeration. It’s been an enormous surprise for me.”

Carter defends the show by saying such paranoia has long existed and that “The X-Files” merely tapped into it. In fact, he got the idea for the show reading research by Harvard University psychiatrist John Mack, who believes alien abductions are real.

“I read that John Mack’s statistics show that millions of people have been abducted by aliens. That was interesting to me, and I saw (the show) as an entree into that world.”

A February episode of the PBS show “Nova” that plumbed the puzzle of people who claim to have been kidnapped by UFOs traced the phenomenon back to 1961 - 22 years before “The X-Files.”

But “Nova” producer Denise Dilanni says the more such topics are dramatized on televison, the more such stories become embedded in modern American belief systems.

“We make the point that culture can have an impact on mythology,” Dilanni says.

“Nova” tracked the frequency of abduction reports to the frequency with which the topic is portrayed in the media and found a correlation. It also noted that the aliens described by alleged kidnap victims invariably mirror images of aliens in books and movies, including “E.T.”

Even Carter is dismayed at some of the shows that explore claims of the paranormal in a quasi-documentary fashion. Programs such as “Sightings” and “Unsolved Mysteries” purport to tell real stories through the use of dramatic re-enactments, much like “America’s Most Wanted.” Carter finds these shows too “tabloidy.”

“There’s so much tabloid material on the subject now that it actually has trivialized it,” he says. “Most of the shows that have dealt with it haven’t done it in a dramatic way.”

Kurtz finds the quasi-documentaries downright dangerous.

“Now, if (science fiction) is done as a spoof or as fun and people knew that, I wouldn’t object because fiction is important. But they are quasi-documentaries.

“Even ‘The X-Files.’ People think there are real files. They have an eerie sense that it could be true. It’s corroding the American intellect.”

Carter, while admitting that there is no “hard evidence” to suggest that the Earth has been visited by beings from other worlds, says he believes that the government is capable of withholding information about such important matters.

He doesn’t think, however, that the show’s allusions to institutional conspiracies are fostering paranoia. They are merely reflecting it.

“Paranoia is rampant, anyway,” Carter says. “I have a certain amount of it myself. The buzz phrase, ‘Trust no one,’ is part of my personal philosophy. I was a child of the Watergate era, so I have a very keen sense of the abuse of power and a distrust of authority.”

Art Bell knows something of that paranoia. Bell is the host of “Dreamland,” a nationally syndicated radio show that delves into the paranormal. Night after night, Bell takes calls from people who claim to have been abducted by UFOs.

Bell began broadcasting “Dreamland” in 1993 (the year “The X-Files” debuted) at a Las Vegas, Nev., radio station near his home in Pahrump, Nev. It has been wildly successful.

Bell now discusses space and conspiracies with an estimated audience of 10 million who tune in on 255 stations coast to coast. (In the Inland Northwest, KGA-AM, 1510 on the dial, airs the show at 11 Sunday nights.)

Like Carter, Bell doesn’t think his show or anything on TV has stirred fears of the freaky occurrences. He attributes the growing interest in the paranormal to people searching for answers to global problems - the Ebola virus, the hole in the ozone layer - that seem unconquerable.

“I think there are a lot changes going on in our country and on our planet that people have no explanation for,” Bell says. “I review the news every day on my program. I notice a quickening of social, political, economic and geo-ecological events. Events are accelerating at an exponential rate and people are looking for alternative explanations for this.”

MEMO: These 2 sidebars appeared with the story: 1. CHECK YOUR DATA ON ‘THE X-FILES’ Here is “The X-Files” trivia test for the truly addicted: 1. What does Scully wear around her neck? 2. What was Mulder doing when his sister was abducted? 3. When did Scully and Mulder first meet? 4. Who is Cancer Man? 5. What is the name of Scully and Mulder’s supervisor? 6. Who spoke the words “trust no one”? 7. What is the number of Scully’s own “X-File,” created when she disappeared? (See answers in box below.) Los Angeles Daily News

2. QUIZ ANSWERS Answers to ‘X-Files’ quiz above: 1. A gold cross. 2. Playing the board game Stratego. 3. March 12, 1992. 4. A mysterious government figure who works against Scully and Mulder. 5. Walter S. Skinner. 6. Deep Throat, Mulder’s resourceful government contact who died in the first season. 7. X73317.