‘In hindsight, I suppose there was always going to be a limit to the intelligence we could get from a depressed farmer drink-driving his tractor at 2am,’ said an alien spokesbeing today. ‘We were disappointed to find that the majority of these people from isolated rural communities were not as well-connected to the planet’s major political powers as we’d hoped, and in truth they only confused our understanding of the human race. For a time we weren’t sure the species had a definitive stance on incest, or indeed what the correct number of fingers and toes was for a human. Perhaps we should have made better use of Wikipedia.’

Alien leaders have taken the opportunity to apologise formally to the ‘lost generation’ of socially awkward stay-at-homes they had previously targeted, expressing particular remorse that their routine examinations of human reproductive organs may have been seen as a come-on by the many abductees with limited sexual experience. They also apologised unreservedly to all their former guests for any damage to their credibility or social standing on earth caused by their failure to return and crown them Grand Master of Quadrant Z as promised.

‘If we could travel back in time and do it all again,’ continued the spokesbeing, ‘we’d probably choose to convey our message of constructive engagement with humans in writing or by just popping round to introduce ourselves in person, rather than relying solely on crop circles. And we’d certainly think twice before going with recreational drug users again as our preferred messengers for warnings of global apocalypse.’

Aliens had hoped that their apology would go some way to building bridges between human and extra-terrestrial civilisations and might attract more promising candidates for cranial and rectal probing, but their latest visitor appears to be no different to previous guests. ‘He talked passionately about a vision of the world as a giant theme park in which adults and children live in a harmonious condition of mutual love and respect unhampered by legal interference. By the time he tried to convince us it was normal to walk backwards while keeping both feet on the ground at all times, we knew he was taking the piss and we sent him packing with enough drugs in his system to forget the whole sorry episode.’

‘It’s disgraceful,’ sobbed the girl’s mother. ‘Everyone knows what a load of villains those Montagues are. They’ve been lobbing artillery at our castle on and off for the past 20 years, then that little thug starts sniffing round my baby girl. I told social services what would happen but they didn’t want to know.’

Neither of the pair has been seen in the 72 hours since Montague was caught on CCTV cameras riding his mountain bike up and down the road outside a first floor balcony window at the Capulet home. The authorities are increasingly fearful for the well-being of Juliet and have warned local chemists not to dispense poison until further notice. An all-points notice has been put out for a missing friar.

A police spokesman added: ‘We understand that Juliet is mature for her age and she speaks in iambic pentameters. However, the fact is that she is still below the age of consent and we will not tolerate paedophiles in this community. Besides, her family want to marry her off to the son of one of their friends when she is 15.’