Surrey Police have detained Cliff Richard on the charge of being an impostor who is possibly an immortal alien, their suspicions having been raised by the Peter Pan singer's never-never-ending copyright extension term proposals.
Authorities were first roused to the possibility when Cliff (whose real name is Elton John) began petitioning the government for an extension in the duration of copyright for music recordings, from the present 50 years, to a massive 250 years.
"Clearly," said Det. Insp. Bob Harris of Surrey Police. "No recording artist would need compensating for their work for up 250 years - they'd be dead for the majority of that time. But despite that Mr. Richard is intent on extending the term to three times life expectancy. That first aroused our suspicions. We became more suspicious upon examining recent photographs of Mr. Richard to find that he doesn't appear to be getting any older at all. Since any non-ageing creature is not to be found on this Earth, we have concluded he must therefore be an extra-terrestrial."
That relentless logic led to Cliff's arrest whilst he holidayed at No. 10 Downing Street. Neither Cliff nor his record company made any statements when he was detained, although NASA did announce that an asteroid had suddenly changed course and was on a collision course with Earth.
Although there have been no confirmations as of yet, Inspector Harris remains open to the possibility that there was once a real human Cliff Richard (real name Reg Dwight) who was kidnapped by the suspected impostor a number of years ago. When asked when this may have occurred, Inspector Harris said, "It probably happened during the nineties when he disappeared from the charts; certainly before the Millennium Prayer song - that was probably the impostor's awful attempt to make it look as though he was the real Cliff Richard. Clearly the alien has come here wishing to manipulate our statutory copyright legislation for its own ends. It sickens me when such things happen."
The investigation continues.
