This came up on Twitter the other day, but feels too urgently urgent for that transitory medium. So I thought I’d give it an entry of its own here on the blog.

I spend a lot of time scribbling about ghosts and devils and inflatable children and lake monsters. When I’m writing I believe in all of it. How can I not? It’s happening right in front of me, and I’m just taking notes, like a sportswriter with a front row seat at a fight. When I’m writing, to be honest, belief doesn’t even come into it. It’s an act of concentrated dreaming while awake and for the most part, we don’t argue with our dreams, we go with them.

But I got wondering how much of this stuff I could actually buy into, when I’m not playing professional make-believe. More than that: I wanted something concrete, something tangible, some marker of how open-minded/gullible I really am. And thus… the Mulder Score.

To figure out your own personal Mulder Score, work your way down the following list of paranormal possibilities. When you believe in something, you get a Y. When you don’t, you get an N. When you think, “well, maaaaaybe,” you get a % (for 50-50). Go ahead, use the comments thread as a scratch pad to keep track of your results.

• Horoscopes

• Ghosts

• Auras

• Telekensis

• Telepathy

• Fortune-Telling

• Bigfoot

• Nessie

• UFOs

• Souls

For every Y you get 2 points. For every N you get 0. A % is worth 1 point. Add it up, and here’s what it means:

0 – Congratulations, you have less imagination than a turnip; you also have less nutritional value. I’m sure you will enjoy your life, even though you already know it is, in fact, a big meaningless jerkoff.

1 – 4 – You are Velma. If Bigfoot was roaring in your face, you would swipe off his rubber mask, and then shout, “Mr. Petersen!” Also you look both sensible and sort of hot in orange sweaters and pleated skirts.

5 – 8 – You are Scully. Find your Mulder and you find contentment, for at least 7 seasons.

9 – 11 – Skeptic by day, playing with the Ouija board in your pajamas by night. You know that crop circles are complete and utter horseshit… but those Stonehenge guys were up to some serious druid shit.

12 – 17 – You’re Mulder. Find your Scully and NEVER LET HER GO. Or him, if you happen to be a she.

18 – 19 – Ruh-ro… you’re Shaggy. You’re living in a van, subsisting on dog snacks, and sure that THE GHOST OF CAPTAIN CUTLER IS OUT THERE WATCHING YOU RIGHT NOW!!! I’d try and convince you that Nessie can’t possibly be real (there’d have to be 400+ of them in the loch to have a steady breeding population), but you’d think I was just a government agent spreading misinformation. And you’d be right.

20 – Dingdingding! You win the grand prize in today’s contest: it’s a psychic prophylactic, designed to protect your sensitive psyche from telepathic bombardment. No, no, ignore the fact that it looks like a large sheet of tinfoil. It is, in fact, a creation of ADVANCED SCIENCE. Total Area 51 stuff. Just wrap it around your head. Yeah, go on, make a hat out of it. Here. Have some extra sheets. They’ll look great taped into your windows.

Oh, what’d I score? Mm, turns out I’m a bit of a Scully-type. I made a 5. I’m a maybe on ghosts, telepathy, and UFOs, and a yes on souls.

Go ahead, use the comments thread to work out your own score. Gimme the full report. I want to know what kind of weirdos/hardassed skeptics frequent this site.

And be sure to tune in next week, when I’ll teach you how to calculate your Doctor Score.