A large portion of the action in this episode occurs in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. I must say, Jorge Concepcion seems to speak Spanish with a decidedly non-Puerto Rican accent. Then again, there is no reason to assume Jorge is Puerto Rican. It is just the most likely conclusion.

At first viewing, I really disliked this episode. It was difficult to mesh later conspiracy eps with the information in this episode. Then I realized that there's not necessarily any connection between the aliens in this ep and the rest of the mythology. This ep had one point: to show us Mulder's depression and then renewal. I really appreciated the fact that the creators didn't solve everything off-camera during the break, e.g., the season opener shows us that, hey, guess what? During the summer they reopened the X-Files and it's business as usual! The 2nd season showed us a natural progression: Mulder, after weeks of being off the X-Files, has lost faith and zeal. This ep does nothing to reopen the X-Files, but at least his faith is restored.

Okay, couple of nits:

- Not only is the observatory locked, mulder also says nothing has been disturbed (probably from the dust patterns etc.). How does sen. mathieson then get the print he shows mulder? Is there another printer at another location?

- If sen. mathieson thinks there's a danger of being overheard, why does he send the print to mulders computer instead of giving it to him? (Answer: otherwise scully wouldn't know where to go, since for some unexplained reason, the observatory also prints its coordinates on top of the page, instead of the name.

- If there is no power at the observatory, how do these machines run? Is there some backup-generator, which is totally silent, and still works without fault after some years of no service?

- Phil already remarked on it, but shouldn't mulder know how easy tapes are de-magnetized and take some of the prints?

- When jose runs off into the jungle and dies, his arm is stretched out when mulder finds him. How? I thought rigor mortis takes some time to set in. And jose doesn't look frozen. (would be hard in a tropical jungle).

- Mulder wants to believe in aliens, to meet them (cosmic handshake), learn about samantha,... yet when it looks as if aliens are approaching, he barricades himself in and starts shooting!! Strange way of meeting people.

- Obvioulsy mulder hasn't seen the Star trek movies (although, according to a flashback in a later ep., he watched TOS), otherwise he would comment on how unlikely it is that the voyager probes survive 4 1/2 billion years in the future to carry earth civilazation after earth is burnt up. (wouldn't humans have found a way to leave earth before that happens? Esp. looking at the speed of technological advances, and when humans have some billions of years to start building ships?)
Apart from trigger-happy klingons who might blow up the probe, what about meteors or other space debris smashing a hole into it, a star/planet drawing it close after the fuels burned out etc.

Because trigger-happy Klingons didn't shoot Voyager, they shot Pioneer 10.

Of course, Voyager 6 had its own problems.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled X-Files discussion.

I can't recognize the probes by sight, I just remember the image from the probe with the image of naked man and woman-plate on it trundling through space and then being shot up. Since they showed pictures at the beginning and mentioned a message plate in this prologue, I thought it was one of these probes being shot up. If it was pioneer 10 - my wrong.

Hence the smiley face ().

Constanze: "If sen. mathieson thinks there's a danger of being overheard, why does he send the print to mulders computer instead of giving it to him? (Answer: otherwise scully wouldn't know where to go, since for some unexplained reason, the observatory also prints its coordinates on top of the page, instead of the name."

It didn't print the observatory's coordinates, it listed galactic coordinates. The professor that Scully talked with said it came from one of a number of possible observatories around the world. Thats why Scully was looking at flight manifests, trying to see if she spotted a name she could like to Mulder. This led her to Puerto Rico.

"Like" should be "link" in that last post, sorry.

Jesse: It was difficult to mesh later conspiracy eps with the information in this episode. Then I realized that there's not necessarily any connection between the aliens in this ep and the rest of the mythology. This ep had one point: to show us Mulder's depression and then renewal.
I was going to question how this ep falls into the whole mythology, but then I read your post and it became quite clear. Thank you Jesse and great post!

constanze: When jose runs off into the jungle and dies, his arm is stretched out when mulder finds him. How? I thought rigor mortis takes some time to set in. And jose doesn't look frozen.
Mulder comments on this during his 'observations' of the body, while he's still clothed as Phil rightly notes. Also during this observation Mulder claims that there are no puncture wounds but how could he conclude that in a dark room whole Jorge still has all of his clothes on? I would say that most of what Fox says during this scene is just speculation instead of actual observation.

constanze: Mulder wants to believe in aliens [...] yet when it looks as if aliens are approaching, he barricades himself in and starts shooting!!
Well, he wasn't technically shooting, his gun wasn't working I think he was just afraid and reliving Samantha's abduction, trying to avoid the same fate as he saw it. I didn't care for that scene because of how the aliens were able to gracefully open the deadbolt and door yet semi-violently move that piece of equipment out of the way.

Mulder gets a new sidearm in this ep. He started with a Beretta, then switched to a Glock partway through S1, now he has a Sig Sauer. Those soldiers who show up near the end once again were not very uniformed in their weapons. Two of the guns were not even issued to any military or police force in either of the Americas.