Bewildering Stories introduces and welcomes...

Olaf Baumann

Olaf hails from the mines and mills of the Ruhr Valley, in Germany. He started writing stories and TV plays while young and has published short stories since taking up residence with his family in Washington State, where he is a Lutheran minister.

“Roswell: It Was My Fault” adds a humorous twist to the now legendary “weather balloon” story of Roswell’s “flying saucer” fame. What if the flying saucer were real, and the weather balloon story were really a cover-up? What if the real story were that of a man who wishes desperately to flee a stultifying existence and happens to encounter a space alien who is a victim of bureaucracy and has had to land on Earth in order to make an ordinary pit stop?

Despite the setting, the story is quite up to date. Twentieth-century readers of science fiction are liable to take it literally and find the space alien’s motivation disappointing. After all, weren’t space aliens in UFO’s coming to investigate the explosions of nuclear weapons on Earth in the years beginning in 1945? Those were dangerous and exciting times for Earthlings and space aliens alike, right?

Twenty-first century readers of science fiction may be more likely to enjoy the irony in the characters’ motivation. The space alien is not only cliché green but a victim of bad saucer design, and his human counterpart has come out to the desert to escape a bad job. To top it off, in a post-UFO publicity setting, the human launches the ultimate put-down line at a mob of Earthlings who suspect he’s an alien who wants to eat them, apparently for dessert: “Take me to your leader.”

Twentieth-century science fiction readers will wonder what a space aliens’ toilet is supposed to look like. Twenty-first century readers will take the whole scene as depicting the public as realizing that its fascination with UFO’s has been an escape from post-war boredom and, perhaps, fear of the future.

In the 20th century, readers and viewers often thought science fiction might really be possible. In the 21st century, they now have the opportunity to see — in prose fiction as well as in reruns of the various Star Trek series — that it’s really a genre of contemporary morality plays.

Olaf Baumann’s bio sketch can be found here.

Welcome to Bewildering Stories, Olaf. We’re glad to have you with us.