Aliens have landed? All hail our new overlords, they can't be any worse than our current ones – Susan Morrison

Well, I say it's about time they showed up. We’ve been waiting for those danged aliens since Captain Kirk first spaffed on about final frontiers, and now it looks like they’ve finally arrived.

Oh, I know they look like balloons, but if Star Trek taught us anything, it's that extraterrestrials can look any way they please, from gassy green clouds to giant rock monsters that can melt people. Obviously, if our aliens are female, they will be astonishingly underdressed, extraordinarily attractive and incredibly susceptible to the charms of good ol’ James T.

This could be bad news. If they start their invasion in Scotland, they won’t last ten minutes. Those wisps of chiffon are no match for our summers, never mind winter. I’ll bet there’s nary a semmit between them. Must cost a fortune to heat those spaceships. If they hook up to our energy suppliers, they’d need to flog off an entire brave new world to afford the bill.

It makes sense that our new alien overlords should start their conquest of Earth in Scotland, since it's not that long ago that they were playing peek-a-boo with the good people of Bonnybridge. Why, there was a time when you could hardly move in the notorious Falkirk Triangle without now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t cigar-shaped lights whizzing past you on the M876.

Sorry for shooting down your balloons (Picture: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

Obviously they were aliens. Nothing else could move that fast on a Scottish motorway. Dilithium crystals and warp drive, baby. They laugh in the face of roadworks and temporary traffic lights.

Of course, these might not be the actual aliens. They could be probes sent out by the invading fleet, but it does seem surprising that a hi-tech galaxy-crossing civilisation would be using balloons which can be tracked and then shot down by the United States Air Force.

Perhaps their home planet is having a bit of an austerity drive. They may have sent out a memo to all currently operational invading/exploratory fleets requesting minimal spending, and to only deploy some clapped-out tech for surveillance.

Anyway, all hail to our alien overlords. They can’t do worse than the overlords we’ve currently got.