Mulder was born on October 13, 1961, on the island of
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The mysterious disappearance of Mulder's
sister and his ensuing search for her became the consuming drive of his life. In 1983, Mulder graduated with first-class honors from the
University of Oxford with a
Bachelor of Arts degree in
psychology. He then graduated with honors from the
Quantico FBI Training Academy in 1986. Mulder joined the
FBI on October 24, 1984. Upon graduating from the academy, Mulder began his work in the
Behavioral Science Unit (
psychological profiling) under
Special Agent Bill Patterson, with whom he had a testy relationship. In 1988, the FBI assigned Mulder to the
Violent Crimes Unit. Mulder investigated the X-Files by himself until March 1992, when Special Agent
Dana Scully, an instructor at the FBI Academy's Forensic Science Research and Training Center, was partnered with him for the purpose of applying
scientific reasoning to Mulder's work and theories. Mulder's ultimate goal was to uncover what he believed to be a
government conspiracy to hide the truth about alien life, and to find out what had happened to his sister. During the
seventh season, Mulder eventually discovers the truth about his sister. Samantha was abducted (either by the alien colonists or the government conspirators), and various tests were performed on her. She was then returned to
The Smoking Man to live out her life under his supervision, all the while undergoing additional tests. She was unable to bear the testing any longer so she ran away from her home and was eventually admitted to a nearby hospital, where she disappeared from her locked room. It is revealed that Samantha was taken by "spiritual intervention", with the help of beings called "
Walk-ins". Mulder is briefly reunited with Samantha's spirit. Mulder was also abducted by the aliens himself in 2000, and returned to Earth, almost dead, a few months later. He had been infected by an
alien virus (for the second time), but Scully found a way to rescue him. After Mulder returned home to his apartment, an application was submitted to the FBI for his reinstatement to the X-Files but this was declined by
Deputy Director Alvin Kersh, who had been promoted in charge of the X-Files shortly after Mulder had been abducted. He returned to work for a brief period of time, but was eventually fired for failure to follow orders not to investigate any X-Files. After Scully gave birth to
William, Mulder went into hiding in
New Mexico after Kersh said his life was in danger. After about a year in hiding, Mulder obtains crucial information from
a secret facility about the date of the planned alien colonization effort, but is caught and put on trial for the murder of
Knowle Rohrer. Despite a defense organized by
Walter Skinner with numerous witnesses, the judges sentence Mulder to
death. With help from several people, including a reformed Kersh and the ghost of
Alex Krycek, Mulder breaks out of prison and escapes with Scully. As of the
series finale, Mulder and Scully were on the run. Six years after the events of the ninth season, Fox Mulder's fugitive status is clear. Scully mentions that he is wanted by the FBI and the dialogue also shows that the FBI does not really want to find him and is simply happy to have him "out of their hair". He is called to assist with the investigation of a missing FBI agent. In exchange for his help, all charges against him are dropped. Seven years later, Mulder returns to the FBI when the X-Files is re-opened, in order to look into a government conspiracy, when it transpires they have been using alien technology. Along with Scully, they investigate several cases together like they had done originally. Six weeks after their return to the X-Files, Mulder confronts an alive Smoking Man to try to prevent him from carrying out a plan to depopulate the United States using a virus applied to smallpox vaccines. In a vision of Scully's, Mulder falls sick to the disease, but refuses the Smoking Man's help and his proposal to join his elite. Mulder is saved by Agent Miller and they regroup with Scully; however, she says Mulder needs a blood transfusion and only their son can give it to them. At that moment, an unidentified flying object hovers over the trio, which is where
season ten ends. The beginning of
season eleven reveals this vision came from Scully's son, William. Over the course of season eleven, Scully and Mulder search for William. Skinner learns from the Smoking Man that the Smoking Man, who is Mulder's father, also artificially impregnated Scully, and thus is William's father as well. In the third episode of the eleventh season, "
Plus One", Scully and Mulder are intimate again. In the season 11 finale, "
My Struggle IV", she reveals to Mulder that she is pregnant with his child.
Characterization Despite his aloofness and cynical sense of humor, Mulder displays unbridled enthusiasm and interest when it comes to the paranormal, especially because of his personal involvement after his
sister's abduction. Mulder's overprotectiveness of Scully stems not only from his obvious devotion and love for her, but also a long-harbored guilt; Mulder has admitted feeling indirectly responsible for the ordeals and tragedies Scully had gone through because of their investigations. In the episode "
Drive", Mulder facetiously apologizes on behalf of the "international Jewish conspiracy" in response to the abusive and
anti-Semitic tirades of a suspect, to which Mulder appears to take offense; the suspect also guesses Mulder's ethnicity is Jewish based on
his last name. Despite this, in the episode "Kaddish", Mulder is unable to identify a
Talmudic book, states that he does not know
Hebrew, and quips that Jesus returned from the dead. Also, Mulder, as his father before him, had a Christian burial presided over by a
Protestant minister following his apparent "death" in the episode "
Deadalive". Mulder also seeks comfort in a
Christian church following the events of the episode "
Conduit". Of course Mulder could conceivably be of a Jewish ethnic descent but a Christian background, perhaps through ancestral marriage or conversion.
David Duchovny suggested Mulder is
Jewish when interviewed during production of the second season. In the episode "The Field Where I Died", Mulder went into a hypnotic trance and recalls a past life, where he is in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, and another where he was a Confederate soldier killed in the
Battle of Chattanooga. Mulder is almost never seen sleeping in a bed. The bedroom in his apartment (which appeared as late as the
sixth season of the show's run) is apparently used for storage and is filled floor to ceiling with junk, including a couple of boxes of
pornographic magazines. Since "
Dreamland II" where a "man in black" body-swaps with Mulder and takes over his life, Mulder gets his bedroom renovated and equipped with a waterbed.
Relationships Mulder had a rather strained relationship with his parents
Bill and
Teena Mulder, not least thanks to
the X-Files. Initially, he had no idea his father was involved in the conspiracy and
Samantha's disappearance. Bill, who became disenchanted with the
shadow government and his own role in the conspiracy, eventually approached Fox about his past deeds but was shot and killed by
Alex Krycek – working as an assassin for the
Syndicate – before he could reveal any great amount of information. Over the next few years, Mulder got into several conflicts with his mother while trying to discover the extent of her own knowledge of his father's precise involvement. Teena dies of an apparent suicide when the stress of Samantha's abduction finally becomes too painful. During the last years of his work on the X-Files, Mulder was even forced to doubt that Bill was his true father. He is led to consider the possibility that his mother had had an affair with the
Smoking Man, a connection which may have resulted in the birth of either
Samantha or Mulder himself. The possibility was hinted at later in the series, and
Jeffrey Spender, who certainly was the Smoking Man's son, said that Mulder was his
half-brother. In the
ninth season, "
William" explains that Spender and Mulder have very similar
DNA, providing strong evidence that they do have the same father. During his studies at
Oxford, around the year of 1983, he was dating Phoebe Green; future investigator of
Metropolitan Police Service (season 1, episode 12,
Fire). When he started his work on
The X-Files, around 1991, he was close with his current partner;
Diana Fowley (season 5, episode 20,
The End). None of those remained longterm and stable. Mulder's closest friend was
FBI partner Dana Scully, who was assigned to "debunk [his] work" by the conspirators and the FBI brass. But against their intentions, her loyalties quickly became affixed to Mulder's quest and Mulder himself, a connection which seemed to pull Mulder's work out of obscurity, as Scully's scientific bent afforded them a certain amount of credibility. and who continued to serve as a recurring adversary, acting as an assassin for the Syndicate in the murders of
Bill Mulder and
Melissa Scully.
Appearances Duchovny portrays Mulder as a series regular for the first seven seasons of the show. Duchovny left the show following the
seventh-season finale "Requiem", wherein he was abducted by aliens. Although he makes a handful of cameos in the first part of season eight—most notably in the episodes "Within", "Without", "The Gift", and "Per Manum"—Mulder is returned by the aliens and the latter part of the season deals with his death, subsequent resurrection, and his departure from the FBI. After the conclusion of the eighth season, Duchovny left the show and only appeared in four ninth-season episodes: "Trust No 1", "Jump the Shark", "William", and "The Truth". Duchovny's appearances in "Trust No 1" and "Jump the Shark" were via archival footage, and he only made a small cameo in the third. However, his appearance in "The Truth", the program's series finale, was substantial, and Duchovny was once again listed in the credits as starring. == Conceptual history ==