Almost a decade-and-a-half since the last series, Mulder and Scully are reopening The X-Files on Channel 5. First, Keeley Bolger catches up with Nick Pope, a former ‘real-life’ Mulder, to discuss our endless fascination with the unexplained

BACK when The X-Files started in 1993, the internet was in its infancy, and FBI special agents Mulder and Scully forged ahead with their paranormal investigations by poring over old documents.

But 14 years since the last series, Mulder, played by David Duchovny, who believes in extraterrestrial life, and sceptical doctor Dana Scully, played by Gillian Anderson, are back – but times have changed, and there's now a host of new ways to uncover the truth behind paranormal activity.

In the opening episode of the six-part run – which will also see the return of Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner and William B. Davis as Mulder's nemesis the 'Smoking Man' – the duo reunite to work on a case brought to them by a popular conspiracy theory web TV host, who believes he's uncovered a significant government conspiracy.

One of the longest-running sci-fi series in small-screen history, The X-Files scooped five Golden Globes and 15 Emmy awards during its heyday, not to mention a spin-off series, and even a reference in Catatonia's 1998 hit Mulder And Scully.

But how authentic are the cases the twosome delve into? Here, Nick Pope – who used to investigate UFOs and other mysteries for the Ministry of Defence – discusses The X-Files and some of the cases he worked on...

Pope worked in various postings within the MOD for 21 years and looked into UFOs between 1991 and 1994 – it wasn't long before people were comparing him to Mulder.

"Colleagues would occasionally whistle the [X-Files] theme tune as I would walk past," he recalls with a laugh.

"I was known as Nick 'Spooky' Pope, so I did pick up not only the nickname Spooky [like Mulder], but also that same kind of reputation, that this job in the Ministry was always regarded as a slightly odd thing that someone did. Many colleagues thought it was a waste of time and money, but many more were absolutely fascinated and were always trying to pull me aside in the canteen and say, 'Nick, what's going on? Is any of this real?'"

Once people at work knew what he did, he was inundated with anecdotes and enquiries. Although the team's remit "didn't really go wider than UFOs", they would still find themselves dealing with "other stuff", like sightings of ghosts on military bases.

"Some members of the MOD, police that would do patrols, and some of the guards in the MOD main building itself on Whitehall, would take me aside and say, 'Look, some of us have seen strange things down here'," recalls the 50-year-old.

Although a sceptic, Pope admits his beliefs were sometimes tested. "This is going to sound a little conspiratorial because in one sense when I joined, I started that job as a Scully, and probably did end up more of a Mulder."

Of the some 200-300 cases he looked into every year, "most" turned out to be "misidentifications or hoaxes".

"But now and then, we did come across cases that would make us scratch our heads, raise our eyebrows and say, 'Wait a minute, maybe there is a little bit more here than just aircraft light and weather balloons'," says Pope, who often appears on TV programmes to discuss the unexplained.

One of the most memorable cases Pope worked on involved a "wave of sightings up and down the country" in March 1993, and among the witnesses was an officer who'd worked in the Air Force for eight years.

"One air force officer described a huge triangular shaped craft flying very low over the base," he explains. "He said this thing was the size of a jumbo jet, but almost completely silent, apart from a low frequency humming sound. [It flew] maybe 200ft above the ground, and then from a very slow speed, accelerated away into the horizon. The only real explanation that could possibly have fit would be some sort of secret prototype spy plane or drone. We checked of course, and we drew a complete blank, and even now, you know, 23 years on, we've got nothing that can do that."

The idea of extraterrestrial life is central to The X-Files. Does Pope think there's life out there?

"Yeah, I'm sure there is," he says. "I mean, unless we thought there was something unique, miraculous even, about Earth, there'd be life elsewhere. We're just an ordinary, small rocky planet, orbiting a fairly common type of star, so life out there? Absolutely – and maybe we're getting quite close to finding the fingerprints of that life, you know, the evidence.

"I don't know... I've seen no smoking gun," adds Pope, "but as I often used to say at the MOD, the believers only have to be right once."

  • The X-Files, Channel 5, Monday, 9pm