The agents travel to the small town of Dudley, Arkansas after George Kearns, a Federal Poultry Inspector, mysteriously disappears. Aided by Sheriff Arens, Mulder and Scully examine a field where a resident had reported sighting a foxfire burning. They find evidence that some sort of ceremony had taken place in the field. George Kearns's wife is then interviewed, but she believes her husband, a known womanizer, ran off with someone younger.

A visit to Chaco Chicken, the meat processing plant that George had threatened to close due to repeated health violations, leads to Paula Gray, the woman with whom George had been having an affair. She suddenly grows violent and tries to kill Jess Harold, a supervisor at the plant. The sheriff draws his gun and fires, killing her before she can slash Harold's throat.

The agents interview Walter Chaco, the owner of the plant and Paula's grandfather. He grants them permission to perform an autopsy on the girl's body. After the autopsy, Scully concludes that Paula suffered from a rare degenerative illness called Creutzfeldt-Jacob's disease -- the same illness carried by George Kearns. She also learns the youthful-looking Paula was actually 47 years old.

After a near-miss with a chicken delivery truck that plunges into a polluted lake, Mulder orders that the water be dredged in hopes of finding George's body. What the agents find beneath the lake, however, is dozens of human bones. Mulder runs a missing persons check and confirms that as many as 87 people within a 200 mile radius of the town have been reported missing in the last 50 years. He begins to suspect that a cult of cannibals is systematically killing people and eating their flesh to prolong youth.

Doris Kearns approaches Walter Chaco and tells him she can no longer keep what she knows about the town a secret. Jesse Harold warns Chaco that the woman is unstable; but Chaco insists it is the FBI they should be worried about. Nonetheless, Harold has Doris Kearns killed. When Scully arrives at the Kearns' residence, she is taken captive. Mulder returns to Chaco's estate and finds a multitude of human skulls stored within a cabinet. When he realizes Scully has been abducted, Mulder races to the site of a blazing foxfire. The townspeople turn on Walter Chaco and execute him. As Sheriff Arens, a cult member, prepares to eliminate Scully, a shot rings out. Mulder, gun in hand, rushes to Scully's aid. Pandemonium breaks out, and the cult members rush from the scene, trampling Jesse as he tries to retrieve a gun. Scully later concludes that the outbreak of Creutzfeldt-Jacob's disease was spread by cannibalism.

................... CREDITS .....................

THE X-FILES "OUR TOWN"
#2X24
Original Air Date: 05/12/95

CAST:
DAVID DUCHOVNY as Special Agent Fox Mulder
GILLIAN ANDERSON as Special Agent Dana Scully

GUEST CAST:
JOHN MILFORD as Walter Chaco
CAROLINE KAVA as Doris Kearns
GARY GRUBBS as Sheriff Tom Arens
ROBIN MOSSLEY as Dr. Randolph
JOHN MACLAREN as George Kearns
HROTHGAR MATHEWS as the Mental Patient
GABRIELLE MILLER as Paula Gray
TIMOTHY WEBBER as Jess Harold
ROBERT MOLONEY as the Worker
CARRIE CAIN SPARKS as the Maid

WRITTEN BY:
FRANK SPOTNITZ

DIRECTED BY:
ROB BOWMAN