And as for Russia: “Coming to us is either too early, or too late. Why bother? In any case, the Americans will be right there to figure things out, so the aliens shouldn’t waste their time. Grishkovets rejects a range of possible alternative landing sites: China, Hungary, Belgium. It’s just hard to imagine that aliens would land anywhere else. And it’s not only because most of the films and books are made in America. Isn’t it strange that in all, or rather, in most fantastic films and novels, if aliens come to Earth, they always arrive in the United States. Entitled “A….a”, as if the country’s name were a taboo, the novella frames the question in decidedly science fictional terms: In 2000, the Russian dramatist Evgeny Grishkovets published a novella in monologue form about his relationship with the United States, a country he had never visited. Whether or not aliens intend to colonize the earth, when it comes to first contact with aliens, America has colonized the international imagination. By sheer coincidence, that last word is the Russian for “nobody,” a noun that would be appropriate for a depiction of Russia’s role in such tales of first contact: nobody from outer space bothers to go there.
The world ends up on the brink of annihilation at the hands of Klaatu’s robot, only to be averted at the last minute through the repetition of Klaatu’s mysterious command “ Klaatu barada nikto“. Witness the classic 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, where a humanoid extraterrestrial named Klaatu lands in Washington DC and nearly dies after being shot due to a misunderstanding. In modern science fiction, the United States is a prime target for alien visitation. Aliens, a reporter who sounds remarkably like Tom Brokaw announces, “Once again, a UFO has landed in America, the only country UFOs ever seem to land in.” This is one of those cartoon moments of self-aware humor clearly directed at the parents in the audience, but, as the saying goes, it’s funny because it’s true. When an alien space ship comes aground in the 2009 animated feature Monsters vs. It can also be found at . You can also find all the previous entries here.
This is the seventh entry of Russia’s Alien Nations: The Secret Identities of Post-Socialism, an ongoing feature on All the Russias.
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