Recently we’ve seen the return of one of the most popular TV shows of the 1990s, The X-Files, scratching that conspiratorial itch for millions of fans (who probably are more interested in Mulder and Scully getting it on than the truth value of the UFO theories the show so hysterically presents).
So it’s a good a time as any to resurrect this chestnut that dates from the early to mid-Bush years, a spoof of The X-Files called The X-Tinct Files purporting to uncover the hidden truths scientists are too fixed in their ways/arrogant/brainwashed to countenance, mainly that history does not stretch millions of years back and that dinosaurs lived a short time ago, alongside human beings.
The clip only lasts a couple of minutes, essentially recapitulating in isolation the big climactic scene of any number of X-Files episodes in which a sheaf of hidden dossiers suddenly cracks the case wide open, leaving no doubt that Scully and Mulder are on the right track and well, tune in next time!
In the clip, “Agent Moler” illicitly enters the “Office of Paleontology” (location undisclosed) accompanied by his partner, who is named “Agent Scaly” because—I kid you not—he is a walking, talking triceratops who resembles a potential mascot for the Toronto basketball franchise and spends the episode trying to get Moler to buy into the creationism (even though in the real show, Mulder’s the true believer and Scully the skeptic who constantly gets won over).
Where did this come from? The answer is the Answers in Genesis ministry, which oversees the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The Creation Museum has a staffer named Buddy Davis, who is a singer-songwriter as well as the sculptor responsible for many of the museum’s dinosaurs. Davis started a series of programs called the “Creation Adventure Team,” an entertaining series of documentaries using fictive elements. One episode was called “A Jurassic Ark Mystery,” which you can still buy at the museum’s online shop. The X-Tinct Files bit dates from 2003, I think.
As Cincinnati Magazine wrote in June 2005, “Davis and the team pore over the ‘X-Tinct Files’ (complete with a Fox Mulder-esque character), and look at the world through ‘BR glasses’—BR stands for ‘Biblical Reality’—which is the only way to learn the truth about the universe.”
In a way, it’s a perfect fit, not far at all from what The X-Files itself presented, if you think about it.
Here’s “The X-Tinct Files,” followed by a longer segment of the “Creation Adventure Team” (go to that one to see the “BR glasses” in action):
via Christian Nightmares / Everything Is Terrible!
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Remember this too dumb to be true Creationist ‘science quiz’: Snopes says it’s real!
The most bored teenagers in America watch bogus Creationism vs. Evolution speech