From the moment when Dana Scully was first assigned to the X-Files, the sinister chain-smoking man in the stiff suit has been keeping an eye on Mulder, Scully, and the X-Files. Tall, gaunt, with a tendency to squint, he has contacts in the black ops operations that thwart Mulder in his investions, but it is unclear whether he is aiding them or parrying their moves.
In "Tooms", the Cigarette-Smoking Man broke his long silence to affirm his belief in Mulder's report. In "Sleepless," he began to intervene more directly than in the pilot episode; he is the superior to whom Alex Krycek reports. His chilling dismissal of Scully- "Every problem has a solution" - followed by the stubbing out of a trademark "Morley's " cigarette, implies that he will stop at nothing to shut down the X-Files permanently. Yet in "Ascension," he tells Krycek that is better not to kill the agents outright, thus risking turning the one man's religion into a crusade.
In "One Breath," Mulder contonted the Cigarette-Smoking Man directly, after Walter Skinner relcutantly revealed his whereabouts. Mulder named him "Cancer Man," by which name he is now widely known on the Internet. With Mulder holding a gun to his head, the Cigarette-Smoking Man revealed that he had "no wife, no children, some power," and that he was "in the game because I believe in it."
"Anasazi," the second-season finale, revealed his deepest secret to date: the Cigarette-Smoking Man is very well acquainted with Mulder's father, William Mulder. In a tense conversation, the Cigarette-Smoking Man claims to be protecting Mulder. Yet when the Cigarette-Smoking Man later speaks to Mulder himself, he blames Bill Mulder for authorizing "the project" that Mulder is about to uncover.
