An X-Files Director Demonstrated Real Paranormal Abilities

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 20 seconds ago

The X-Files became a pop culture phenomenon in the ‘90s by posing a very provocative question to incredulous audiences: what if paranormal phenomena were real and the government had been trying to cover up the existence of these events for decades? Of course, the secret sauce was that Mulder was the fanatical believer and Scully was the cynical skeptic, and their interactions constantly had audiences questioning what had really happened in episodes featuring aliens, monsters, and all things that go bump in the night. But in one classic episode, the unthinkable happened: a director seemingly demonstrated his own paranormal abilities in front of the entire cast and crew!

The episode in question is “War of the Coprophages,” which featured a small town getting terrorized by cockroaches that may or may not be highly advanced alien robots. Episode director Kim Manners had trouble filming this episode because the live roaches on the set would scurry in random directions rather than going were supposed to go. That’s when Manners did something deliciously demented: he put his head into the roach bucket and told the critters what to do as if he were giving instructions to his actors.

Giving New Meaning To “Papa Roach”

Obviously, he just did this as a joke, which helps to illustrate how much these cockroaches’ assorted antics had him at his wits’ end. They were ruining take after take, so he decided to blow off steam with a movie guaranteed to make everyone on set laugh. Needless to say, nobody expected the mindless cockroaches to actually listen to anything the man had to say.

To everyone’s surprise, however, that’s exactly what they did! Manners stuck his head in the roach bucket to give them their marching orders after these little guys ruined countless takes. After he gave them specific instructions, though, the roaches did exactly what he told them to do, and they were able to complete the scene in the very next take.

Paranormal Or Freaky Coincidence?

In its own weird way, this event served as a mirror of The X-Files itself; after all, the show was always about forcing viewers to question whether some paranormal event had really happened or whether there was a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation. After the roaches seemingly listened to Kim Manners’ instructions, those who witnessed what had happened had to determine for themselves whether the director had suddenly developed the kind of paranormal abilities that Fox Mulder would investigate. Or it could just be a coincidence that the erratic cockroaches finally ran in the exact right direction after they were told what to do.

Scully would tell us that it’s far likelier for this to be a coincidence than for a random television director to suddenly develop a paranormal ability (in this case, the ability to get roaches to do his bidding). However, I’ve always been fond of a certain underrated Mulder quote: “If coincidences are just coincidences, why do they feel so contrived?” Regarding whether or not the late, great X-Files director suddenly developed the power to control roaches, my answer can be summed up by the iconic poster on this spooky FBI Agent’s office wall.

“I want to believe.”