Astronaut reveals that aliens have better technology than humans

There are people who think human beings are smart. (Mostly, they are second-rate CEOs and they are thinking of themselves.)

And there are those of us, and I include astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell amongst our august number, who can attest than humans are, in psychological and technological terms, worms.

Dr. Mitchell, who was possessed of the gumption to set foot on Apollo 14 after the disaster of the previous mission, had the even greater gumption to reveal the truth about alien life to Kerrang Radio this week.

If you have not heard of Kerrang Radio, it is, in essence, a rock music station based in England's second city, a city that most people say they have never visited but have driven through, a suspicious fact in itself. That city is called Birmingham.

Dr. Mitchell's presence on the airwaves of Birmigham's rock station was akin to humans landing on the moon. In jet-propelled, fuel-efficient chariots.

But he was swift to announce that presence by announcing that aliens are "little people who look strange to us."

The terrible, or perhaps great, news for techies is that Dr. Mitchell also revealed that our technology, and I believe he was including both Google and Facebook in this, is "not nearly as sophisticated" as that of aliens.

One assumes that these beings from foreign worlds have solved the problem of monetizing social networks and that they have wafer-thin laptops with built-in optical drives. Perhaps those laptops even run without batteries.

He added that the relief for all of us stuck here on this round, water-dominated wasteland is that aliens are generally a peaceable bunch, not the sort to invade foreign lands, mutilate the inhabitants and take advantage of their natural resources. Like Dan Rather, Kim Kardashian and Starbucks.

Strangely, Dr. Mitchell also claimed that governments over the last 60 years had covered up the aliens' visitations and their obvious technological superiority.

But not before he himself was "privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real".

Now, look, I am just as skeptical as the next pulsating being. Perhaps more.

There have been more times than I can remember that I considered certain people I came into contact with were, in fact, from a planet that time, God and the census had forgotten many centuries previously.

But Dr. Mitchell twisted my recollection into something more disturbing than some of the folks who work in my local supermarket:

"I've been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes, we have been visited," he told Nick Margerrison, the Kerrang presenter.

Could it have been that strange man with the bulging forehead who tried to teach me algebra? Could it have been that peculiar woman with disproportionate features who fell asleep at the dinner table on our first date, as if her batteries had run out?

For me, it would be depressing if aliens had small bodies and large eyes, as they seem to in so many movies, cartoons and video games.

Yet Dr. Mitchell confirmed this to be the case. They really are like that. (But with iPods that never break down and don't need headphones.)

Of course there will be those who will dismiss Dr. Mitchell as a fantasist.

But this is the sixth man ever to have set foot on the moon.

Kerrang's producer, a man the station refers to only as 'Alex', immediately contacted NASA for its reaction.

He received a swift reply: "Dear Alex, NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe."

Alright, now. For one, the swiftness of the reply suggests panic in the ranks. And the declaration that NASA does not track UFOs- doesn't that sound very, very convenient and non-committal to you?

Could it be that UFOs have rarefied radar-avoidance technology? And could it be that they haven't visited more often because, well, they're not very impressed by us?

Yes, not even by Twitter.