Whose father was one of my favorite actors.
Apparently this episode is loosely connected to the X-Files mythos, maybe what was going on at this zoo was a side experiment that the aliens were doing.
I can't conceive that the aliens of the X-Files actually had any concern for the animals of the earth, or any intention to save any earth-animals. If the aliens had gotten their way, all of the animals of the earth, as well as the humans, would have been converted into little gray aliens after becoming "long clawed spacelings" (see the X-Files film which was between seasons five and six and also season six first episode).
If humans could not survive infection with the essence of the black oil (aka "Purity Control"), neither would any other Lifeform on earth.
I can't see any possible purpose of converting every life form on the planet into a long-clawed spaceling, first they would rip each other to shreds, then they would find hot, bubbling water (like the spaceling Mulder saw in the Nuke plant found) so they could shed their skin and become the smaller gray aliens.
But as far as this episode is concerned, we start off with an invisible force that crashes down through a city street, smashing cars, crushing construction workers. It is only later that this invisible force resolves into an elephant.
Mulder makes a statement that the aliens are kidnapping animals from the zoo and returning them approximately 2 miles west of the zoo due to an "astrological" miscalculation. Wait, what? Also, why are the animals being returned in a state of invisibility?
But if what Mulder surmises is true, a tiger that was taken would not have reappeared so close to its cage shortly after it was "beamed" away.
Nevertheless there were some interesting things in this episode. Whoever was wearing the gorilla suit did a good job with their movements, sometimes we are even convinced that this is a real gorilla. This is an homage to the work of Janos Prohaska, who wore the gorilla suit in the Perry Mason episode "TCOT Grinning Gorilla"- and even though you can tell it is a man in a gorilla suit, Janos did a very good job. He was also the "Horta" in Star Trek's "devil in the dark", and the "Mugato" (Gumato) in "A private little war". The person credited for performing "Sophie" is Jody St Michael, who appears to have played monsters in "Hellraiser: Bloodline" and "The Chronicle", also some work on "Gorillas in the mist". So Jody deserves some credit for making us believe even in a small way that Mulder is doing sign language with a Gorilla... "Man save Man".
I think at this point in the series it didn't really matter if any particular episode made 100% sense. This episode was merely a forgotten part of the mythos which was being developed. Whatever the aliens were doing here, apparently it was not important enough to continue.
But there were some great things in this episode, it is worth watching a few times.