Some aliens visit the planet Earth. Chiefly they're annoyed at “all the dumb stuff you Earthlings keep writing about [us]” and they've come to set us straight.

First they publish mercifully abridged and corrected editions of the works of Robert Heinlein. “Mars is not just real estate”, “No, there is no way you could make machines do that”, and so on. This puts people off a bit. Nobody likes to be nagged and criticised over their stuff.

Then the aliens start showing movies about the history of the Earth—the real thing, because they were able to watch and videotape our history from their distant planet, and it's more embarrassing for us than appearing on “Cops”.