X-Files was inspired by Chris Carter's observation of alien abductees' hypnosis

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In the early 1990s, Harvard psychiatrist John Mack studied hundreds of people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens and wrote multiple books about his research. He invited Chris Carter to sit in on one of Mack's regression hypnosis session with a self-proclaimed abductee, an experience that Carter says informed his vision for the X-Files.


"That 'I Want To Believe' poster states it so perfectly for me," Carter told The Independent this week. "I am looking for a paranormal experience. I am looking for a miracle, I am waiting for the supernatural. I am waiting to be confronted with something I can't explain."

Here's John Mack on Oprah in 1995: