The X-Files/Recap/S02/E19 Død Kalm
In the Norwegian Sea, chaos erupts on board the USS Ardent, an American destroyer escort. Due to mysterious yet unspecified events, half of the Ardent's crew board lifeboats and abandon ship against the captain's orders. Eighteen hours later, they are spotted by a Canadian fishing vessel; however, in that short span of time, the young crew members have undergone rapid aging.
Dana Scully and Fox Mulder visit the ship's sole surviving crew member, Lt. Harper, who has been quarantined at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. Scully finds that Harper, despite being in his twenties, has aged to the point of being unrecognizable. Mulder explains that the Ardent vanished at the 65th parallel, a location with a history of ship disappearances. Mulder believes that a "wrinkle in time" exists there, and that the Ardent was the subject of government experimentation related to the Philadelphia Experiment from World War II.
In Norway, Mulder and Scully get Henry Trondheim, a naval trawler captain, to take them to the Ardent's last known location. After crashing into the bow of the Ardent, Mulder, Scully, and Trondheim find signs of advanced corrosion, even though the Ardent is only a few years old. Below decks, the party finds the mummified remains of several crew members. They also find the wizened commanding officer of the Ardent, Captain Barclay, who claims that "time got lost" after his ship encountered a "glowing light" in the ocean. Trondheim's boat is stolen and his first mate is murdered.
Trondheim is later attacked by a Norwegian pirate whaler named Olafsson, who has not aged despite being on the ship for the past two days. Mulder, Scully, and Trondheim eventually begin to age unnaturally. Scully develops a theory that the Ardent is sailing near a metallic object beneath the ocean, and that it has caused free radicals to rapidly oxidize their bodies and age them. When Mulder notices that the ship's sewage pipe is the only one not corroded through, the agents realize that something from the ocean contaminated the Ardent's potable water and led to the aging; Olafsson's men remained unaffected due to their consumption of recycled water from the sewage system. Desperate to survive, Trondheim kills Olafsson after he reveals the secret, and sets out to keep the water for himself.
Scully learns from blood tests that the contaminated water causes rapid oxidative damage and dramatically increases sodium chloride in the body. She tries to ration the drinkable water amongst the three, but discovers Trondheim attempting to hoard what little that remains. Trondheim locks Scully out of the sewage hold, forcing her to use minuscule supplies to keep Mulder alive. The mysterious oxidant eventually eats through the ship's hull, flooding the hold and drowning Trondheim, who cannot unseal the hatch. The agents both lose consciousness shortly before Navy rescuers arrive at their former ship. Scully comes to at the hospital, where she is told that her written observations on the case helped naval doctors reverse their aging and save Mulder from near-certain death. Scully says that she wants to return to the Ardent for more research, but the doctor tells her that the ship sank shortly after their rescue due to the flooding.
- Ghost Ship
- Karmic Death: Trondheim locks himself in the hold and hoards all the drinkable water, so obviously the outer hull of the ship rusts away and he drowns in the hold.
- Rapid Aging: Although it's actually more like rapid cellular damage caused by contaminated water.
- Back to The X-Files