VIDEO VAULT: X-Files fans still 'out there' 19 years later

Mulder and Scully are back on the job: The X-Files have reopened.

And much like Mulder's office in the basement containing years of casework, we've got the FOX 7 Video Vault full of lost footage dating back to the '50s and '60s.

Back in 1997 when our favorite show was in its heyday, we aired a profile of three X-Files fanatics: KUT DJ John Aielli, computer guru Nancy Cotton and 12-year-old Robert Valera.

In a move that would make Walter Skinner proud, we tracked them all down 19 years later.

"What science may never be able to explain is our ineffable fear of the alien among us," Aielli said in 1997.

These days Aielli is still on the airwaves at what is now KUTX.

And he's still an "X-Phile."

"Well I loved the routine of it.  It was like a ceremony, every week we had to watch the new episode, what's going to happen?  And it was all full of mystery," Aielli said last week.

Back then he would chat about the show with his listeners.

"And I think that's why most of us like the X-Files because it's examining...'What is it really?  Is it aliens?  Is it our own imagination?" Aielli said in '97.

"So much was left 'out there' as they say in the show.  There's something out there but what is it?  And is it real?" Aielli said last week.

Next up: Nancy Cotton who had created a tongue-in-cheek website dedicated to Scully called the "Order of the Blessed St. Scully the Enigmatic," Cotton said.

"She is cosmically intelligent.  She is probably the best female character ever to appear on television," Cotton said in '97.

"I loved the character of Dana Scully, I really did. I thought she was really one of the most brilliant, great portrayals of a female on television.  So we created the website but it was really sort of tongue-in-cheek and very humorous but it gathered thousands of followers from around the world," Cotton said last week.

The group was pretty hardcore about who they let in -- they quizzed fans.

"What's Scully's centric meme?  What is a Scully-ism?  What is a Scully-ist?" Cotton said in '97.

"A Scullyism would be something that she said routinely like 'Mulder it's me,'" Cotton said last week.

OBSSE lives on now on Facebook -- a luxury she didn't have back then.

"I mean now with social media and Facebook and Twitter, none of that existed 20 years ago.  And if I'd approached it today it would be a whole different thing, I wouldn't be creating it, you know doing HTML coding by hand," Cotton said.

Next up: 12-year-old Robert Valera -- eyes peeled for the X-Files with his little sister Columbina.

"I just turned off all the lights and put candles everywhere...made it real scary-looking watching episodes of the X-Files," Valera said in '97.

"Really?  Haha Jesus that's a little extreme," Valera said last week after hearing about the candles.

Robert is 31 now and helping his family run the famous Tamale House on East Sixth Street.

"I would get any opportunity to watch it with my brothers and sisters because I could never watch it alone, I was just absolutely terrified by the X-Files but I loved it," Valera said.

Valera says he tried to watch the old show again recently and still has trouble watching it alone!  As for the new X-Files, he has one wish.

"I remember one particularly creepy episode with the guy who was living inside of his brother.  He would come out at night and commit crimes and crawl back into him.  I hope they don't show that part because that was disgusting," Valera joked.