WHEN I was younger, I'd often day-dream about being the first human being to meet visitors from another planet.

Sadly it never happened, and while I have met many people during my life who may have come from another planet - or should be exiled on one - I am still no nearer to my close encounter.

But have you ever wondered why it is that we have no proof that other races exist in the universe?

I'll tell you why.

It's because every other single race on every other single planet - and there are millions of them - is doing a really good job of hiding from us.

For millennia, intelligent life forms across the frozen wastes of space have been watching us closely and have come to the conclusion that there is no way on earth - or even the universe - that they would want to be our neighbours.

Do you hear that massive groan of despair when a new planet is discovered every few years?

That was the collective cry of anguish of an entire race, probably of peace-loving individuals who manage to interact with every single race on a friendly and mutually satisfactory basis.

Apart from us.

Somebody on that planet probably accidentally turned a torch on two thousand light years ago and some sad individual in an observatory on earth spotted the brief spark of light, reported it to his duty manager and thousands of boffins around the globe got very excited.

The scenes of excitement are not replicated on this new planet as they know of our reputation.

Nobody wants to get on with us because they know we can't get on with anyone.

In short, we are the Janice and Les Battersbys of every single solar system unknown to man.

We are the Leeds United fans of the universe. We are the kind of race who can start an argument in an empty room.

Can you blame them?

The so-called civilised world is governed by two men who can't come up with a good excuse between them for going to war.

Because of that - and add a large dose of religious hatred and racial bigotry - people can't go about their normal lives without fearing that they will be blown to pieces by zealots and madmen and women.

There is no such thing as innocence anymore.

Our children cannot play without fear because we have used our brains to create a global technology which feeds the sick fantasies of pathetic individuals.

We have lost control of an entire generation and have to watch helpless as teenagers arm themselves with knives and disrespect' isn't resolved with a cuff about the ear, but a knife in the stomach.

At the same time, the establishment conspires to thwart justice by creating loopholes through which the guilty and the potentially guilty can disappear daily.

We are a pompous race which believes that we are the only intelligent life in the universe.

For many of the races out there who watch our conflicts daily, that's exactly how they want it to stay.