[ Wp ] And then the alien took off his helmet , revealing a human face and said : `` What are guys doing here ? You guys were supposed to colonize Mars , not Earth ! ''

Students had poured out onto Meyer Green after the spaceship had touched down on the Stanford University Campus. A few mechanical engineering majors had furiously debated the function of different flaps and the wisdom of thruster placement. Some students still clutched open textbooks—there were midterms this week, dammit, alien invasion or no. Friends exchanged gossip and made plans while they aimed their smartphone cameras at the ship. 
 
 But the not-so-strange visitor from another planet had captured their complete attention with his opening line. 
 
 The crowd of students had gone silent, shifting uneasily. Then a girl in the front row snapped her flip phone closed. “ Oh my God, if this is some performance art shit I am going to blow. I have an OChem lab due tomorrow! ” 
 
 Only one person laughed. He leaped from a newly-arrived limo convoy and pushed through the ring of students until he stood beside the alien. 
 
 The alien ’ s eyes bugged out and he grabbed the newcomer by both shoulders. “ Elon Musk? Is that you? How are you still alive? ” 
 
 Billionaire tech tycoon Elon Musk hissed “ Not now, cadet, ” and stepped out of the other man ’ s grip. He turned to the awed Stanford students and declared, “ Yes, it is I, billionaire tech tycoon Elon Musk! And this is nothing more than a publicity stunt for my super cool company SpaceX. What this fellow is trying to say is—why aren ’ t we on Mars by now? Our future is in the stars, America! Stay tuned for my next rocket launch. ” 
 
 A football player in the crowd shouted, “ Hey Elon, can I have an internship? ” 
 
 “ Yes, yes, ” Elon Musk said, “ you can all have internships. Unpaid of course. Now move along. ” 
 
 The Stanford students scattered, summer plans assured, leaving behind Elon, the alien, and a baffled team of SpaceX engineers debating how to transport the spaceship to their headquarters. 
 
 “ But I ’ m right, aren ’ t I? ” whisper-shouted the alien. “ You ’ re Doctor Elon Musk, from the Mars colonization mission. That was two hundred years ago. What happened? ” 
 
 “ Or sixty thousand Earth years, ” Elon added. “ Well, there was obviously a miscalculation in the landing trajectory calculations. We awakened from cryosleep on the wrong fucking planet. ” 
 
 “ What about the others? Lieutenant Mores? Captain Eve Gilligan? ” 
 
 Elon Musk cast an assessing glance at a nearby clump of bushes. “ Not here, not now, ” he said, shoving his companion towards the waiting Tesla limousine. 
 
 “ But why didn ’ t you complete the mission objective? ” the alien pleaded. 
 
 Elon slammed the limo door and snarled, “ Because I was the fucking team geologist. ” 
 
 Hiding in the bushes, Jon Valentino, a rare non-STEM Stanford student emailed his video of the conversation to The New York Times and figured he might also be getting an internship offer.
