News

Downtown cameo is an X-Files mystery

The 500 block of North Main Street had a split-second cameo in an 'X-Files' episode.

By Bill Moss, Published: February 4, 2018

A split-second image of downtown Hendersonville in a recent episode of the “X-Files” was as mystifying to local viewers as the science-fiction show’s unanswered questions involving the supernatural.

Mary Garrison and her husband, Dr. Bill Garrison, fans of the show, were watching the Jan. 10 episode when they caught a very quick glimpse of what looked like Hendersonville’s Main Street. Bill backed up the DVR and stopped it on the image. Sure enough, there was the east side of the 500 block of North Main, the Skyland Hotel and the rest of the buildings easily recognizable. (Season 11, episode 2, at 17:36.)

The mystery is why?

Mary Garrison said nothing about the plot involved a small town with a nice Main Street, nor was Hendersonville ever mentioned. There is a subplot, though, that connects to the area.

“X-Files” fans Amy and Dan Wojcik, of Spartan Photo Center in Spartanburg, spotted a road sign for Greenville and Spartanburg in the final episode of season 10 and had their suspicions confirmed in the opening episode of season 11, when agent Dana Scully reveals that the Cigarette Smoking Man, the show’s longtime villain, lives in Spartanburg. A story in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal reported on the Wojciks’ decision to have some fun, posting a map of Spartanburg County and inviting the show’s fans to guess where the Cigarette Smoking Man lives.

Mary Garrison speculates that an X-Files writer must have some connection to the South Carolina Upstate or Hendersonville. Stay tuned, sci-fi fans. Maybe we’ll see a true-life episode: “Zombie Tourists Cross Against the Light.”