What would I do without my Secret Sun readers? The smallest details can often be keys to very complex locks, revealing connections that often tie together seemingly-random memes, like a semiotic chain-reaction. And it's often you guys out there that furnish those keys.So let's backtrack to the King Tut post and pick out some of those puzzle pieces...
We kicked off the Tut extravaganza with a clip of Steve Martin performing "King Tut" and speaking "Siriusly." Reader Robert then linked us to a clip from the Letterman show, in which Martin did a bit on being a passenger on Flight 1549, which had been name-checked in the first edition of the Tut post. What are the odds?
This is the image of Flight 1549 that I was thinking of (that we discussed for the Deep Semiotics of Flight 1549 post)...
...when talking about the powerful image of Anubis and the Statue of Isis in New York Harbor.
That in turn inspired another reader to remind me (and I can't believe I didn't make the connection myself) that the flight number of a crashed plane in one of my all-time favorite Mythology two-parters in The X-Files ("Tempus Fugit/Max") was 549.
Which state did the plane crash in? New York.
This episode had always troubled me, not only for the absolutely harrowing depicting of a crashing passenger plane, but for the disturbing connections to Flight 93 and the theories that it -like Flight 549- was actually downed by a fighter plane.
These connections become even more compelling when linked to a similar situation in a Millennium episode, that has strong 9/11 resonance and a remote viewing plotline (check out the "Grill Flame" post for further details).
In "Tempus Fugit" (episode 4X17), a longtime abductee named Max Fennig (the inspiration for the later Lone Gunmen characters- Gunman Dean Haglund actually audtioned for the Fennig role) is trying to bring stolen alien technology to Mulder and Scully. But the Syndicate has gotten wind of his plans and send this menacing hitman to stop him.
Here's where it gets really interesting.
The hitman is played by actor David Palffy, who also appeared in the Stargate SG-1 series. Which character did he play?
Stranger still, the two-parter opens with Scully's birthday party (at a bar called The Headless Woman, oddly enough) in which Mulder gives her an Apollo 11 pendant. Interesting that this episode deals with a government coverup involving spacecraft, no? But that's what The X-Files is all about: the story being told between the lines.
Better yet, the hero of Flight 1549, Chesley Sullenberger, served at Nellis Air Force base (home of Area 51), which is the site of the first scene (renamed "Ellens AFB") of the very first episode proper of The X-Files, "Deep Throat" (airdate 9/17/93).
Life and art sync up again, with the alien and AAT memes once again acting as the catalyst.
