Mankind’s first contact with aliens was not a ceremonious affair. There were no fanfares, no parades, no celebrations. On the other hand, there were also no ominous ships in the sky or aliens with very dated-looking Ray Guns vaporizing humans with ease. So that was nice.

In fact mankind’s first contact with aliens – or rather, the aliens’ first attempt to contact us – was ignored. That said, the Vorans (for that was the name of their race) had attempted to make contact by sending the President of France an email. It began with the words, “Hello, I am Grand Overseer Klsye of the Voran Empire,” and was promptly deleted by an intern.

The first successful contact was a phone call made directly to the French President’s mobile phone at 4:27am, GMT+1. It started with the same words, and continued so:

“I hate to wake you, but I had to ask. What is Nicholas Cage for?”

And, after the French President tried to explain the purpose of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, the alien simply laughed, and hung up.