"Fearful Symmetry" is the eighteenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files.
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files.
In this episode, Mulder and Scully investigate the death of a federal construction worker and the destruction of various property that can only be tied to an escaped elephant.
The driver manages to stop in time, but the elephant soon collapses and dies, over forty miles away from where it disappeared the night before at the Fairfield Zoo.
Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) survey the damage in the city, which appears to have been caused by an elephant even though none was seen.
Lang tells them that Ambrose is being sued by the Malawi government over a lowland gorilla she took from their country ten years prior.
The tiger reappears at a Boise construction site, and is shot dead by Meecham when it charges at Ambrose; the zoo is shut down the next day over the incident.
Mulder tells Ambrose that the tiger was also pregnant, and explains his theory that extraterrestrial aliens are impregnating all the female endangered animals as part of "their own Noah's Ark."
Scully finds that Lang was struck with a cattle prod and suspects Ambrose of killing him, but she claims that Meecham is responsible.
In order to circumvent these rules, scenes filmed with Bubbles were shot "on a quiet country road" in South Surrey, where these laws were not in effect.
[4] The producers were initially worried that the elephant would be scared of large vehicles and would thus not run towards a truck—a necessary shot for the episode's opening.
Entertainment Weekly gave the episode a C, writing, "Aside from a well-executed invisible-elephant rampage, this one's pretty much on automatic pilot".
"[11] Robert Shearman, in his book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode two stars out of five.
The critic wrote that, despite the episode having "rare anger" and a "genuine passion behind" its conservation message, the entry was not "a very good story".