Digital Home Advisor

Social networking site Bebo is attempting to prove aliens exist by creating a digital time capsule that will be beamed into space.

As part of the Message from Earth project, Bebo users are being offered the chance to submit images or text for inclusion in the capsule.

Members of the social networking site will then vote for the 500 they deem worthy to be beamed into outer space on 9 October using the National Space Agency of Ukraine's RT-70 radar telescope.

Sadly, it will be spring 2029 before aliens pick up our intergalactic friend request as it's being broadcast to Gliese 581C, some 120 trillion miles into space. So perhaps come 2030, we'll be clamouring to add ET as a friend on Facebook or tagging each other in pictures of our night out on in Roswell with little green men.

Then again, it could of course all just be a cynical marketing ploy following the release of the X-Files film last week, especially since Gillian Anderson, who plays Dana Scully, and Chris Carter, the brains behind the TV show, have both already submitted messages.