Alfred Fellig

“	You have, Mr. Fellig, a long and uncanny history of being the first person at the scene of a death. You also have a history of covering up that fact.	”
	— Dana Scully, confronting Fellig in 1998.

“	I'm just there to get the shot. I don't take those people. He does.	”
	— Alfred Fellig, a.k.a. Louis Brady, explaining to Agent Scully that he isn't a murderer.

Alfred Fellig
Naming
Others	Louis Brady L. H. Rice Henry Strand
Personal information
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Date of birth	April 4, 1849
Place of origin	New York, USA
Age	149 at the time of death
Affiliation	New York Police Department
Relations	Unnamed wife (deceased)
Occupation	Photographer
Current status	Deceased
Cause of death	Gunshot
Biology
Body type	Human
Height	1.76 m
Abilities	Immortality (formerly)
Sentience	Sentient
Sapience	Sapient
Behind the scenes
Universe	The X-Files
Created by	Vince Gilligan
Performed by	Geoffrey Lewis

Alfred Fellig, born as Louis Robert Brady on April 4, 1849, is a man who inadvertently became immortal after he evaded the glare of Death during a yellow fever epidemic in New York City. He went on to live to the age of 149, while seeking to capture Death in a photograph, so that he could finally die.

During the years while he looked for Death, Fellig also somehow developed the supernatural ability to sense when someone was about to die, even if it was about to happen suddenly and there was no indication of it.

Biography

Louis Brady saw Death with the corner of his eye while staying in a contagion ward during an outbreak of yellow fever in New York City, in the 19th century. He saw that Death was taking several people, and closed his eyes to avoid looking at Death's face. However, he didn't warn the nurse who was tending to him not to look. He actually wanted her to look at Death's face, so that Death would take her instead of him. She did, and the next thing Brady saw was that the nurse's body was being carried away. Since then, Brady realized that people normally have a single opportunity to die, and since the nurse had taken his place, Death wouldn't look for him again.

Many years later, after his wife died, Brady started to actively look for Death, but found that he couldn't die no matter what. He tried pills, razors, gas, and jumping out of bridges, but to no avail. Eventually, he assumed a new identity under the name L. H. Rice and started working as a police photographer, hoping to take a picture of Death and look into Death's eyes so that he could die. As an immortal, he was forced to change his identity periodically. He lived under the name Henry Strand from 1939 to 1964, and after that lived as Alfred Fellig.

Somehow he managed to develop the ability to detect people who were about to die within the next hour; as they appeared to him in monochrome. His ability didn't allow him to foresee how or exactly when the person would die; only that death was coming. When he saw someone on the verge of death, Fellig would always stay near them, taking numerous pictures as they died, and hoping to catch sight of Death. In 1998, the FBI found clues about his involvement with these deaths, and the apparent coincidence that he was always present at the time someone died seemed suspicious. Agents Peyton Ritter and Dana Scully were assigned to investigate.

When questioned by Scully, Fellig admitted that he felt no empathy for those who were about to die. On the contrary, he envied them and considered them lucky. He further reminisced that, past a certain age, people will inevitably start thinking about "the big thing you're missing and that everybody else gets to find out about but you"; and expressed guilt over the fact that he could no longer remember his wife's name.

While Scully was talking to him, Fellig sensed that she was about to die soon, and started preparing the cameras. Scully noticed this, but maintained that she was not going to die. At this moment, Agent Ritter burst into the room, unaware that Scully was there, and intending to arrest Fellig. When he shot Fellig, the bullet passed through both his camera and his body, and hit Scully, who collapsed to the floor. When Scully was dying, Fellig asked her if she could see Death, and told her to close her eyes like Fellig himself had done in the contagion ward. When she closed her eyes, Fellig saw that she no longer appeared monochrome to him, but he himself did. He took Scully's place, just like the nurse had taken his place previously, and welcomed Death, while Scully eventually recovered. The police reports latter claimed that Fellig simply died from the gunshot wound.

Appearances

• The X-Files, s06e10, "Tithonus" (1999)