The human reproductive cycle is an utterly amazing thing.  Consider this:  The average woman is impregnated with sperm from her sweet patootie, henceforth known as the "father", and nine to ten months later has miraculously created, in her body, a tiny human being; one who coos, gurgles, and will eventually want $120.00 Nikes and the keys to the Volvo. It's an incredible, astonishing, miraculous yet natural feat of human reproduction.

...  Well, usually.

Dana Scully has been pregnant for either 9 months by the 1013 timeline (invisibly, first trimester barely-pregnant for 7 of those months, shifting overnight to "give me your seat on the bus now dammit, before I have to pull your lower lip over your head, because I'm going to drop this thing any second" end-of-the-third-trimester pregnant, for the last two months), or a whopping 12.5 months by standard time. It kind of makes you wonder what she might be growing in there, doesn't it?  That is why this month we are going to discuss mammalian gestation periods.

Mammalian gestation periods vary with mammalian biology.  In general, the larger a mammal is, the longer it will gestate.  Human beings gestate for nine to ten months.  Elephants stay pregnant for a wince-inducing 22-24 months. (Author's note: Elephants tend to get a little cranky going on the second year of pregnancy, I would imagine).  Hamsters have the shortest gestation period of all mammals: two days.  It should go without saying that this is why we have more hamsters than elephants.

Let's consider Dana Scully. According to the 1013 timeline, she has been pregnant for nine months.  I personally don't know many women who never show at all until the seventh month, so let's try to explain how this might be happening.   As is my habit, I have combed the internet researching this month's topic.  Interestingly, "mammalian gestation periods' is the only altavista search I have ever done that turned up no porn sites.  I'm not sure how I feel about that, actually.  On one hand, this month's research took very little time to complete, but on the other hand, this month's research took very little time to complete.  It's sort of a glass-is-half-full situation.   Anyway.

My research leads me to believe that she might just be harboring a marsupial underneath those enormously cute pregnancy outfits.  Consider this:  marsupials give live birth, but they do not have long gestation times. Instead, they give birth very early and the offspring continues its development on the outside, as it were, for weeks or sometimes months.  This hypothesis not only allows Scully to be pregnant until Sweeps Week, whenever Sweeps Week happens to be, but also explains the bizarrely sudden development of the infant, as a marsupial which obviously is having a post-natal growth spurt. 

If you don't choose to believe that the baby is, in fact, a kangaroo, let's look to other answers. Cetation gestation periods range in time from 9 to 18 months.  Hmmmm.   Suspicious?  Definitely.  We have to explain this date discrepancy somehow.  Humpback whales have a gestation period of ten to twelve months, which, when one considers statistical outliers, fits both the 1013, and the real time timelines.  Even more suspicious.  The clincher to the humpback hypothesis (Author's note: sounds like a wonderful title to a suspense novel - kind of like the Pelican Brief, but with humpbacks instead of pelicans, and no lawyers.  Anyway.)  is that we have never before witnessed a humpback whale birth.  Seriously. No one has ever seen one.  We don't have it filmed anywhere. 

To conclude, I believe that it is entirely plausible that 1013 has hit on how the humpback whale species continues.  I have been sitting here thinking for a while, and I can't come up with a babyarc plot point that cannot be explained by the baby being a humpback whale. 

Q:  Scully's pregnancy has been going on for over a year.  Why is that?

A:  The baby is a humpback whale.

Q:  Scully is enormous.  I mean, completely huge.  Twice the size that Ms. Anderson was back in Season 2, when she actually was pregnant.  What is up with that?

A:  The baby is a humpback whale.

Q:  Scully has been incredibly secretive about the gender of her baby, and even the actual paternity. That's just not normal behavior.  Why does she do that?

A:  Scully's baby is a humpback whale.

Q:  Why have we never seen a live humpback whale birth on television?  I mean, not even PBS and the The Discovery Channel, both of which have filmed actual human conception with those little cameras of theirs, have ever gotten this footage.  How hard can that be to obtain, anyway?

A:  Scully's baby is a humpback whale. (Apparently everyone associated with the birth of this mammal, with the exception of the parents, meets with a horrible, inexplicable death. Ask yourself this: How much personnel turnover does The Discovery Channel have, by the way?  Do they seem to be hiring suspiciously regularly in the Cetacean development department, and do they give evasive answers as to why, during the interview?  Do they?  Huh?)

I rest my case. 

by Cherish

As someone who has learned to appreciate the moniker bestowed upon her by tree-hugging, hippie parents, I thought I'd volunteer to give the Blessed One a few helpful hints on naming her precious little diaper soaker. As with all dutifully crafted X-Files scripts (excluding seasons 8 - ¥ of course), a lot of time and effort went into researching this article. I spent countless hours online clicking through pages and pages of pink and blue borders and smiling cherubic visages and I now sympathize with Scully's first-trimester nausea. Since we all know the importance of a name and common blunders to avoid, I won't waste time by saying that Fox Jr. probably isn't

a viable option for their pint-sized, drooling manifestation of lurve. Below, I've compiled a list of names for our Saint to consider for her milk-chugging bundle of joy:

Paula:  traditional Californian name derived from Pa--meaning horned and Ula--meaning transparent one.

Autumn: from the Greek meaning "she it is all about", or "demure"

Nina:  from the Slovenian, meaning "she who uses quotations between her first and last names"

Lily:  popular in turn of the century New York, meaning "She who looks horsy and wears a lot of hats" or, the more modern version, "killer of llamas"

William:  Tenthirteenian; meaning "lack of creativity"

Nanners: ancient French for "bossariffic" or "bosstastique"

than on the mother.  Before, we had inspiring role models (Fig. 1; Note 1) who obviously enjoyed their cheese and Cheerwine.  Afterwards.... (Fig. 2).  I rest my case.  We, being Nuns, are in a tricky position. We might be expected to relish the idea of our Saint being immaculately conceived and miraculously pregnant. But in fact, we are an Internet cult with esoteric rituals, and thus have more in common with the Ancient Greek Mystery Cults....

  ....Probably. (See Note 2) In Eleusis, 22 kilometers west of Athens, the Mysteries were held once a year. They honored Demeter, Goddess of fertility and mother of Persephone (Fig. 3).  You all know the story - Persephone was picking flowers one day and was abducted and medically raped by aliens.  When Demeter found out, she took quick action. She didn't follow the slow route of going to Oxford to get a degree in Psychology, training at Quantico to be an FBI agent, going into Violent Crimes then starting an X-Files Department, all in the hope of someday finding her daughter. No!  She went postal and caused all plant-life to wither and die. In fact, Demeter was sometimes referred to as "Brimo" on account of her anger [meaning "the Mighty" or "the Raging", perhaps better translated as PornoNurseKick!Demeter]. This forced the Consortium (Thunderbolt-Wielding Man, Rosy-Fingered Woman, Seaweed-Clad Man, etc.) to compromise; Persephone could stay with Demeter half of the year.

There is a strong connection between Demeter and a deity from another cultic tradition: Dionysos (from "Dios" (God's) and "Nyssos" (son). Translation: "the punk"). It is known that these two deities were honored in Athens and elsewhere as "paredroi" [partner deities]; less certain is whether this partnership status had any deeper significance (See Note 3).  Even if Dionysos held a position in the festivals of Eleusis, some would argue that he assumed this function only in the capacity of a butt of jokes, rather than as an object of worship (See Note 4).

The celebration of the Mysteries at Eleusis was an elaborate affair which took place over a period of nine days in the month of Boedromion (late September). The initiates would descend singly to the sea, each bearing a suckling piglet for purification and sacrifice. The initiates would then maintain either a partial or complete fast. It is believed that they would break their fast as evening approached by drinking a special beverage known as "kykeon" (As to the composition of the drink, it is generally agreed that it had had no alcoholic content, but there might have been some other intoxicating ingredients, such as hallucinogenic fungi).  When the mystai entered the sacred precincts they may have been required to utter a special password. Now compare this with Fest '01, an elaborate affair that will take place 67 miles northwest of Denver, Colorado over the course of 4 days in the Month of July. The initiates will descend singly from airplanes, each bearing a PI for purification. They will then maintain a 24-hr-a-day eating frenzy (Fig. 4), including the partaking of a special beverage known as a "Scullyrita", which, it is generally believed, has an extremely high alcoholic content as well as other intoxicating ingredients.  When entering the sacred precincts of the convention lounge, they are required to utter a special password: "Craptacular Relaxers Bastard"

What next transpired in the ceremonies remains hidden behind veils of secrecy.  Most scholars believe that the Mysteries comprised three main components, known as the deiknymena ("things shown"), the legomena ("things said"), and the dromena ("things done"). [Work it out, people; collectively that's  "All Things"]. In a dark underground chamber, the Hierophant met with the High Priestess, the torches were extinguished, and "the vast multitudes believe it is for their own salvation--what those two do together in the darkness" [perhaps "in the darkness" is better translated as "during the commercials"]. Many investigators have concluded that some form of Sacred Marriage probably took place at the Mysteries, and that this ceremony culminated in the symbolic birth of a son.

In any case, after the performance of the dromena, the Hierophant would withdraw alone into the Anaktoron (the sacred, secret chamber of the Telesterion) and reemerge with the Hiera, those most mysterious and holy relics of Demeter and Persephone. Yet we have no idea today what these objects were. Theories have ranged from stalks of cut wheat, serpents, specially blessed bread, a stylized phallus or female pudendum (or both) (Fig. 5; Note 5).

As the festival wound down, the initiates (probably exhausted at this point) would then return to Athens singly or in small groups. You, too, are probably exhausted at this point, exclaiming "Ow!  My head hurts".  So I will close in noting that the Eleusinian Mysteries strongly influenced subsequent religions and even to this day, groups of initiates gather to worship fictional Kick-ass females.
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Note 1: Goddesses caused Christianity no end of trouble.  The name "Easter" comes from Oestre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility. Oestre was once approached by a giant bird who wanted to be a rabbit. She transformed him, and in gratitude, he laid eggs each spring as an offering to her.  That's how the holy day commemorating the rebirth of Christ ended up linked with the "Easter Bunny".
Note 2: The problem being that these were *secret* traditions. What we know of them comes from initiates who couldn't keep their mouths shut - like Aescylos, Sophocles and Herodotus.  (Kind of like our own Lensie. -ed.)
Note 3: It depends on whether the particular scholar is a Shipper or a Noromo.
Note 4: Perhaps it is his butt that is worshipped. The female initiates in the Cult of Dionysos are described as roaming the woods wearing the skins of animals, whipping themselves and screaming hysterically.
Note 5: Or possibly Pixie-Sticks, trout, specially blessed cheese platters, or plastic action figures.
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LINKS:
Hard as it is to believe, the information on the Mysteries is largely accurate and was taken from "The Eleusian Mysteries"
More on Oestre and other symbols of fertility (including the Venus of Willendorf in Fig. 1) 
You can read about the cult of Dionysos
The "Hymn to Demeter", once attributed to Homer, describes the Rape of Persephone