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The Martians are coming and they're brainwashing everyone except blind people.

Everyone seems to be focused on space at the moment. Spirit Rover is beaming back from Mars, Earth's imperial commander-in-chief George W Bush announced this week plans to return to the moon and send a and according to their Colin Pillinger's team is once again attempting to contact the non-communicative Beagle 2 this week (22 January).

While thinking of spacecraft, memories came flooding back from 9 years ago about something I'll never forget. A very strange thing happened in deepest darkest Kent one summer evening in 1995 when I was visiting my parents. We were watching TV when my Mum suddenly gasped "what on Earth is that?"

"What is what?" I responded

"There's something just moved quickly across the sky and, oh my God, it seems to have stopped nearby." She got out of the chair to take a closer look. "It's a flying saucer!!! It's a flying saucer and it's hovering, let me look, yes, it looks as if it's hovering over the off licence".

I couldn't believe this was happening. I was a bit pissed off that I couldn't take part because I can't see, but I jumped to my feet and followed my Mum and Dad out of the front door where they were attempting to get a better look.

"What does it look like?" I asked, trying to get in on the action.

"It's sort of a cross between a round shaped object and a cigar shape. It's shiny and it's got lights flashing along its surface." replied my Mum.

"I can't believe this is happening," I said. "Quick, go and grab your camera and take some photos of it."

"There's no film in it," said my Dad.

We all stood there at the end of our front garden path for quite some time just looking at this object. I remember being really excited and confused and freaked out by it all. My Mum was hopping around an awful lot compared to my Dad who looked on for a while but then went back to settle in front of the TV.

"What should we do?" I asked my Mum. "Do you think we should call the police?"

"What could they do? They'd think we were mad." she responded.

"Are the lights still flashing on it?" I wanted updates. "Is it still hovering in the same place?"

"Yes, it's still flashing and it's still over the off licence. Quite a bit above the off licence but in that general area."

"Are you sure we shouldn't call the police or the air force or something? I wonder how many other people ----"

"---It's moved! It's disappearing off really quickly," she interupted. "Oh my God that was so fast!"

"It's gone? You can't see it any more?"

"Gone. Completely gone," she breathed out deeply. "Well I've never seen anything like that before in my life."

So you'll appreciate that having a UFO flying above us just north of the small town of Sittingbourne in Kent that evening was something of a big event. I have remembered it in great detail to this day. The scary and distressing thing is that neither of my parents remember this incident at all.

How can you not remember having stood and witnessed a UFO for half an hour outside your own house? It was silvery and had classic UFO dibbly flashing lights and everything, but they cannot recall that evening at all. Not one jot.

It seems fairly clear to me what has happened. The fact that I am blind meant that the space aliens in the shiny space craft were not able to wipe my memory with their memory erasing light beams. Maybe that's what the flashing lights were? Memory erasers? But I couldn't see them so I was immune to their advanced brain-washing technology and therefore possibly the only person on the planet that knows that a superior intelligence visited Sittingbourne that day.

While writing this article I thought I'd call my Mum just one more time to give her another chance at remembering. To cut a long story short though, she still can't remember it.

Please note: I am not open to any ideas that this may not have happened. The fact that my parents cannot remember being visited by a space alien is as a result of their being sighted and I am not making this stuff up, nor was I hallucinating. I'm sure you find this compelling evidence as to why we haven't yet discovered alien life.

In conclusion then: blind people are more likely to be able to study space aliens, witness the excellent and his work with searching for extra terrestrial intelligence on the SETI project (the inspiration for the blind character on Jodi Foster's movie 'Contact'). Lets face it, it doesn't matter how many probes Colin Pillinger and his sighted pals send into outer space, they are alien-detection-impaired by dint of not being a gimp.