"Born Again" is the twenty-second episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, premiering on the Fox network on April 22, 1994. It was written by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, and directed by Jerrold Freedman. The episode featured guest appearances by Brian Markinson and Maggie Wheeler. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, a stand-alone plot which is unconnected to the series' wider mythology.

The show centers on FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. When Mulder and Scully are called to New York State to investigate the death of a police officer, they come to believe that a young girl present during the incident may be the reincarnation of another officer murdered years earlier.

"Born Again" earned a Nielsen household rating of 8.2, being watched by 7.7 million households in its initial broadcast, and received mixed reviews from critics. Additionally, several crew members disliked the episode, most notably Gordon and Duchovny. Gordon felt that the episode was too similar to the other episodes that had been aired, whereas Duchovny bluntly stated that he "detested" the episode.

In Buffalo, New York, police detective Sharon Lazard finds a little girl, Michelle Bishop, alone in an alley. Lazard takes the seemingly lost girl into her precinct and leaves her alone to be interviewed by another detective, Rudolph Barbala. However, moments later, Barbala is launched through a window, falling to his death.

Lazard turns to FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully for help. She tells them of Michelle's claims that a man had attacked Barbala, even though she was the only person in the room when the detective was killed. The agents have Michelle describe the alleged attacker for a computerized facial composite; the computer seemingly glitches, displaying a face that Michelle identifies as the killer. The composite matches that of a Detective Charlie Morris — who died nine years previously in an apparent gangland hit. Mulder speaks to Michelle's psychiatrist, Dr. Braun, who tells him that she habitually mutilated dolls in a uniform manner during their sessions together, removing the same eye and arm each time; Mulder realizes that these mutilations match the circumstances of Morris' death.

The agents interview Tony Fiore, Morris' ex-partner, who attributes his death to a triad gang they had been investigating together. Later that day, Fiore meets with a Leon Felder to discuss claiming a large sum of money from a safety deposit box. The two men agree that they haven't waited the ten years they had intended to, ominously discussing that they are the last two claimants left. That night, Felder gets off a bus, but his scarf catches in the door, seemingly moved by an invisible force, as the bus drives off. The driver tries to brake, but the bus inexplicably continues to accelerate, strangling Felder. Michelle watches from inside the bus.

Investigating further, Mulder and Scully learn that Fiore, Barbala, Felder and Morris had all worked closely together in the past. They also find that Fiore's wife Anita keeps a collection of origami animals made by her first husband—Charlie Morris. Anita tells the agents that Fiore hasn't returned home from the previous night; meanwhile, the agents find that pages are missing from the file on Morris' murder, and Fiore was the last one to have checked the file out.

Michelle undergoes a session of regression hypnosis, where she claims to be twenty-four years old. She suddenly starts screaming in panic about someone trying to kill her, and the session is ended. Mulder reviews the video of the session and is convinced that the girl is the reincarnation of Morris, having been conceived right around the time the detective was murdered. The tape contains a brief section of static noise just before Michelle begins screaming, which Mulder has an expert clean up. The noise is found to contain a grainy image of what appears to be a fish tank ornament of a man in a diving suit. Meanwhile, Scully has tracked down Morris' autopsy findings, which show the presence of salt water in his respiratory tract, indicating he died of drowning. The agents realize from these findings that Morris was drowned in the exotic fish tank in Fiore's house.