The episode opens with a deputy sheriff encountering the crash scene of a UFO near Townsend, Wisconsin, what he believes to be just forest wire. He responds accordingly by asking for a fire screw dispatch to the scene. He gets out of the car to investigate. At the same time the US Space Surveillance Center in Colorado detects the activity and, upon analyzing the data, establish the crashed aircraft to be unidentified due to its nature of manoeuvre prior to the crash. In charge of the military reclamation's division is Colonel Calvin Henderson. Upon the technicians' briefing on the data, and to their bewilderment, the Colonel's orders are clear: 'What you tracked was a meteor. The aberrant movement was obviously to instrument malfunction.' They know the truth and he knows the truth: it's a UFO, but the elephant in the room remains ignored.
Later Agent Mulder and Deep Throat have a meeting during which Deep Throat advises Mulder to act quickly, suggesting a time frame of just about 24 hours before the Air Force cleans up the scene and seal the evidence.
Of course Agent Mulder couldn't let this one slip by, so he gets to investigate. He travels to the crash scene, dressed in plain clothes, and equipped with a camera and plenty of film.
His spying mission gets interrupted as one of the military personnel surprises him from the back.
Later, in detention, he meets another wannabe reporter by the name of Max Fenig, an odd character and an NICAP (National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena) member, who was also caught sniffing around for some capture. As Scully later arrives to retrieve Mulder, she tells him that FBI Section Chief Joseph McGrath is threatening to shut down the X-Files because of his unauthorized investigation.
Up until this point it wasn't clear as to what direction the show would take. Of course there was insidious government involvement in shady affairs, and it goes without saying that we were strapped in for an unusual TV show from the get-go. However, the alien stuff didn't really kick in prior to this episode, which, of course, came just in time before the viewers became disinterested. The show had started to develop a theme. Even though it was a preconceived one by the creator Chris Carter, he didn't really succeed initially, but, nonetheless, the spooky ambiance and the premise was there all along.
In Fallen Angel the aliens conspiracy was kind of beginning to transpire, although we are left to our own imagination and speculation as to what the heck's going on and if there were really any aliens and alien aircraft involved in the first place. This paved the road to further development while keeping the suspense high.
As with most X File cases this one is filled with speculations and doubts, dubiousness and skepticism against Mulder's theories and beliefs. It doesn't help his case much since we're almost convinced that the truth could be much different. This is what makes The X Files such a great show- the absence of obvious and immediate answer. That's how the real governments work and that's what we've been asking for a long time. The truth is out there, but will we reveal it?
