When Deep Throat points out a news story about a fugitive who apparently drowned, Mulder and Scully cannot see what makes the case special but follow it up anyway. With Deep Throat's insistence, they discover evidence of a secret government project code-named Purity Control, which uses human test subjects and infects them with extraterrestrial DNA. However, the evidence and everyone who has seen it is quickly being eliminated.
When two fathers on opposite sides of the country are inexplicably murdered at the exact same time in the exact same way, Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate. When they discover that the two fathers' eight-year-old daughters are identical twins, they realize that something even stranger is going on.
Mulder puts the future of the X-Files in jeopardy when he heads to a UFO crash site being rapidly covered up by the military. He is arrested, and while in jail he meets Max Fenig, a UFO nut whose NICAP group has followed Mulder's work on the X-Files. When Mulder is released, Scully urges him to return to Washington to face his superiors and try to save his job, but Mulder finds out that Max is more than meets the eye and ignores Scully to try and save him instead.
Mulder and Scully head to Ellens Air Force Base to investigate the mysterious case of a military test pilot who disappeared after experiencing strange psychotic behavior. While on the case, Mulder meets a mysterious man dubbed 'Deep Throat' who claims to have classified information about his investigations into the paranormal.