Season 4, Episode 3: Teliko

Synopsis

A black man is found dead in the lavatory of a transatlantic fight from Burkina Faso, bleached of color. The title screen reads "Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate." The CDC asks Scully to look into it as a possible disease after the latest of four missing black men in Philadelphia is found dead and drained of pigmentation. Mulder is suspicious and says he'd like to join the case before the body count (woo!) rises, though Scully says that not everything is a conspiracy designed to deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate. Well we got that one out of the way right quick.

Another agent finds a West African night-blooming flower seed in the Philly man's body, and Scully finds that the de-pigmentation was due to an effect on the pituitary gland. Marita tells Mulder that there's apparently nothing out of the ordinary about the seed and it's just some cross-border detritus. Another black man goes missing after getting hit by a seed and going into a stupor; he ends up in the apartment of a recent immigrant named Samuel Alboah, who flew over on the same flight as the first dead man. Having found out about the plane death, Mulder looks into recent immigrants from the flight.

After seeing Aboah, the agents give chase and find him upside down in a drainpipe. The initial medical tests on Aboah turn up nothing, so Mulder hits up the Burkina Faso embassy. The ambassador mentions the story of the Teliko spirits, whose abilities include hiding in tiny spaces. Scully finds that Aboah has no pituitary gland, and Aboah escapes. He captures his immigration counselor and starts to put some sort of rod up the counselor's nose, but is interrupted before he can finish, leaving the counselor alive.

Mulder posits that Aboah is part of a group of albino men who have somehow managed to stay alive, perhaps through pituitary gland theft. He suspects that Aboah is in a demolition site, but gets blowdarted with the hallucinogenic seed when he investigates. Scully comes to the rescue, helping Mulder and putting a non-lethal bullet in Aboah. In Scully's final report, see says Aboah will go to trial but is in poor medical shape; she also says science should be able to explain the case, but not the fear that causes humans to deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate.

Carl Lumbly, who plays Marcus Duff, has had a number of roles including Detective Mark Petrie on Cagney and Lacey, J'onn J'onnz in Justice League, and Marcus Dixon in Alias.

Episode Body Count

Plane victim: found dead and whitened in the lavatory.

Owen Victors: found dead and de-pigmented near a construction site.

Alfred Kittel: found dead and white in a vent at a demolition site after he goes missing.

Three other men: the bodies of three missing men are also found bleached at the demo site.

Humans: 6
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (76/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 907
Creatures: 59
Aliens: 48

Grand Total: 1,014