X Files - Gotta Keep the Lid On

 

One of many hired guns, Garrett (Greg Michaels)

Sadly Cancer Man's cronies often get away. It is one of those sad states of affairs that happens in the X Files. And in America today, methinks. The good guys -- whoever they are, since a lot of people think are on the side of right and could be seen as wrong -- don't always win. And often the bad guys get away. Greg Michaels represents Cancer Man's long line of hired guns, and he's there at the alien ship crashsite near the Great Sacandanga Lake to recover alien bodies present and to obviously get rid of any evidence that might help Mulder prove of the existence of EBEs, with help from the military. Cover up any evidence and just cop to a mistake of bad coordinates that caused the plane to go down...an error that seems pat and convenient but not one that provokes Mulder to just accept it as fact.

Max Fenig, a final recording on a VHS tape

In "Max" there is this harrowing setpiece narrated by Mulder regarding "what actually happened". It seems so incredible as to defy imagination. And yet it is horrifying and compelling in its presentation. You see the alien spacecraft's "tractor beam" (mentioned by Millar, quite willing to listen even if he finds it, as Scully does, to be quite a whopper) hold the Flight 549 in a "freeze state" where it doesn't move as the section of wall/window right next to Max's seat is removed as Max is eventually lifted onto the spacecraft himself. Nine minutes of time unaccounted for, frozen by the aliens to abduct Max as passengers onboard the Flight 549 looked on. If the military hadn't "intercepted" the UFO, then the Flight 549 might have landed safely without so many passengers dying, if any, as Max was about to be brought back to his seat.

Millar, in charge of the Flight 549 investigation and Frish, the remaining military officer blamed for the crash's error

The military had to put a lid on any UFO activity involved in Flight 549. This just had to be an error and two officers would get the blame for the crash, responsible for diverting a military fighter craft right into the Flight 549. Garrett is the prototypical Cancer Man government covert ideologue who is willing to die for whatever it is Cancer Man has sold to him. Whatever the case, Mulder considers him the standard coverup guy, sent in to clean up messes made when UFOs emerge to threaten exposure kept concealed and secret from the public at large. Max is one of those gnats Cancer Man realizes he can't swat away as much as needs to squash. Mulder is a bit more than just a gnat, though Cancer Man seems content to just swat him constantly. Mulder keeps irritating him. With help from others that have had power and seem to run in some of those government circles, Fox has a bit more "clout" (for lack of a better term) than Max, who had an trailer with all sorts of theories papering the walls and furniture all over the place. But Max's life and the lives of those on the plane sadly remain officially lost to military error.