How a slug becomes messianic

What makes a whole town – a pretty small town, to be sure, but still a whole town – come to believe that a slug could possibly be a messiah?
Not for me to make political allusions, but if ever you needed proof that the X Files was prescient!
Seems fantastic, doesn’t it, that any disparate group of people could believe not only in the same thing but in something so obviously absurd? How devoid of meaning must their lives be to make them so susceptible to the ridiculous!
It does make one wonder, though, how they actually came to believe in what they do. How did the slug persuade a town of relatively normal Americans that it was in fact something special? It seems to have no communication skills before it actually gets to creep under one’s skin – at which point, it appears to take over completely. A once ordinary person becomes a willing proselytizer for the cause - not convinced by the logic of an argument, nor persuaded by the example of good will towards all, they nevertheless willingly give their lives for the slug, it’s continued existence overtaking even their own instincts for self-preservation.
To someone outside looking in, it can seem nothing but sheer irresponsible credulity to allow oneself to succumb to such nonsense and yet these people are to all intents and purposes not unlike ourselves. Something missing in their lives led them to give of their selves to a most unlikely savior, even though, with their own eyes, they can see the destructive effects it has upon those it invades, even though it asks of them to transgress the very laws and respect for life that one would imagine a real messiah to uphold.

Life can seem so meaningless it isn’t hard to imagine some reaching for the easiest thing to grab a hold of to provide some sense of purpose and worth. It might seem beyond belief that a slimy slug could ever be seen as anything other than it really is. When you think about it, though, it is no stranger than seeing the face of Jesus in your food – a naan bread, for instance. Not unsurprisingly, the face seen is that which has been presented as the face of Jesus.

We believe and then we see. Once seen, we then strive to convince others of our belief. Those who come to see what we have seen do so because they are looking for the same thing as ourselves. Of course, they are looking outside of themselves only because they have nothing within worth valuing. When the inside is empty, the outside becomes full of the meaning we want to see.
When the inside is empty, even a slug can appear messianic.
Fortunately, these fantastical beliefs only work within small groups, which is why ‘Roadrunners’ and other episodes of the X Files, is set in a small, out-of-the-way place, disconnected from the outside world. And it is important that it be disconnected, hence the townsfolk choose not to get the phone lines fixed.
There is no way, is there, that the people at large would ever succumb to such gullibility?