When Michael Moore embarked on a documentary about the closing of the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, his quest became a live drama on film in Roger & Me (1990). Similarly, Christian Bauer decided in 2000 to film his investigation of the disappearance of Allen Ross, his collaborator in seven documentaries over as many years, and the result is Missing Allen, a blend of documentary and drama with voiceovers from Bauer and interviews of those whom he questioned to get to the truth. After Bauer and Ross finished the documentary Ol’ Man River: A Trip Down the Mississippi (1996) for German television in the fall of 1995, Bauer returned to Germany but soon lost contact with Ross. Curious about the disappearance, Bauer went to the United States to solve a mystery that soon emerged as a series of mysteries. For the police, Ross was missing and presumed dead; after a desultory investigation in February 1996, the case was closed. Bauer’s efforts in 2000, hence, served to reopen the case. In 1993, Ross married Linda Greene, a leader of a cult in Guthrie, Oklahoma, called the Samaritan Foundation, and in 1995 the couple moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Ross was deeply troubled about the lack of spirituality in the world, but nevertheless made the seventh documentary with Bauer. Afterward, Ross returned to Cheyenne and disappeared. Bauer interviews several close friends, including Ross’s father in Naperville, Illinois, and the houses in Guthrie and Cheyenne where Ross lived. Hints of Ross’s ties with David Koresh and Timothy McVeigh come to light. The trail of evidence at the various homesites alerted Bauer to the possibility that strange practices of the Linda’s cult caught up with Ross, whom the police ultimately found buried in the cellar of the Cheyenne house with a bullet in his head and his sexual organs removed, presumably a victim of a ritual for exorcising vampires. Although Linda and her former husband Denis Greene have pointed the finger at each other for committing the murder, the case remains unsolved. Apart from the true story, Missing Allen provides instruction on how to trace missing persons, and the quest is even more fascinating than the puzzle. MH