17 Pieces of 'X-Files' Trivia for Everyone Who Wants to Believe

The X-Files returns to television on Sunday night, a boon for all of us still carrying the torch for the series (and a torch for either lead agent). Like Breaking Bad, Mad Men or any of the other finely detailed shows of the current era of great television, The X-Files has fans whose obsession with the show borders on that of David Duchovny’s Agent Fox Mulder. That’s why we’re celebrating the show’s return with this trivia roundup: Feel free to bring up any of these gems at a premiere party or themed event to show your credentials.

The show’s theme was built around a fluke …

In a behind-the-scenes feature in the DVD release of the show’s first season, composer Mark Snow explains that he dropped his arm on his keyboard in frustration after a long scoring session with series creator Chris Carter. The keyboard was set to a spacey echo effect, and Snow’s inadvertent chord became the show’s iconic theme.

and a Smiths song.

The whistle in the show’s theme was inspired by The Smiths song “How Soon Is Now,” but not its iconic guitars: Snow took inspiration from lead singer Morrissey’s whistling.

Chris Carter used to write for Surfer magazine

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Carter was at one point editor of the magazine, and spent the ’80s traveling the world covering the sport. “I have to be careful with surfing,” he told PEOPLE in 1998. “It’s still an addiction to me. It’s all I want to do, and that’s the big dilemma I have with it.”

Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s skeptic/believer roles are reversed in real life

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“Psychokinesis appeals to me,” Anderson told Entertainment Weekly in 1994. “ESP, telling the future, I love that stuff.” Duchovny, on the hand, is something of a skeptic.

The show was rookie Anderson’s first big role

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Just 24 years old when she was cast, Anderson told TV Guide that the show’s first episode was only her second time on camera.

Mulder shares his phone number with a few other famous folks

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Mulder’s phone number in the show, (800) 555-0199, has also popped up in Wag the Dog, The Insider, American Beauty and The Italian Job.

The Cigarette Smoking Man had quit smoking when he was cast …

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William B. Davis hadn’t smoked for 20 years when he took the part. He went back to the habit for two seasons before switching to herbal cigarettes.

and he was supposed to just be an extra

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Davis was literally just supposed to be a guy smoking a cigarette in his first appearance on the show, and producers weren’t sure about making him into the main villain. He obviously proved them wrong.

Rupert Murdoch spontaneously applauded when he was shown the pilot

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“That’s one of the times I realized we were poised to do something good,” Carter told Vulture in 2013.

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan wrote his first script as a freelancer

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Gilligan was living in Virginia and working as a film writer when he first saw the show. He quickly became a fan and penned the script that would become season 2’s “Soft Light,” which he contributed to the show as a freelancer. (The episode stars Tony Shalhoub!) Carter asked him to join the writer’s room after that.

The poster from the show in the Smithsonian belonged to Anderson

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The last remaining “I Want to Believe” poster from the show was donated to the Smithsonian in 2008. It came from Gillian Anderson’s collection because the rest were, in Carter’s words, “stolen or, I assume, destroyed.”

The Agent’s badges contain deliberate errors

If you look closely at Mulder and Scully’s badges, they identify the agents as part of the “United States Department of Investigation.” Obviously, this does not exist; the badges were altered because it’s illegal to perfectly duplicate a law enforcement badge.

Chris Carter was a huge defender of Gillian Anderson

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Anderson told the Chicago Tribune that Carter fought “tooth and nail” to get her cast as Scully, and lobbied against having her replaced when she got pregnant.

Robert Patrick beat 100 actors for the role of John Doggett

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The actor, best known as the T-1000 in Terminator 2, was one of the final 10 actors producers considered from a group that apparently also included Lou Diamond Phillips and Bruce Campbell. (Campbell at this point had already guested in an episode, season 6’s “Terms of Endearment.”)

David Duchovny sued Fox over the show

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He claimed that a syndication deal cheated him out of royalties and accused Carter of taking money to keep quiet about the deal. The suit was settled out of court.

An episode of the show was the first network TV show ever to receive a TV-MA rating

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That would be season 4’s “Home.”

and was inspired by Charlie Chaplin

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Well, specifically an anecdote in Charlie Chaplin’s biography about a visit to a tenement house where he met a family’s quadriplegic son they kept under their bed. (It’s a really messed-up episode.)