We owe the microchip revolution not to Intel but to aliens, if allegedly official top secret US government documents, released on the Web yesterday, are true.

The documents appear in a book entited The Truth and published on The Word is Truth website. The site claims to show that one or more alien vehicles crashed in the US in 1947, from which government scientists were able to recover numerous advanced technologies, including fibre optics and microcircuitry.

"It is now absolutely clear that one or more crashed vehicles were recovered by the military of the United States government in 1947," Firmage said. "It is certain that these vehicles were not manufactured by any contemporaneous government. Scientists and the media who reject this claim, particularly in the face of this most recent evidence, are ignoring the single most important event to confront humanity in perhaps 2000 years."

Andy Grove, on holiday in Tau Ceti, could not be reached for comment. ®