Actually what happened was a herd of robots landed and stole the memorial ashes of the cricket stump burn to signify the "death of English circket." And the alien landed in the crowd to insult Arthur Philip Deodat. He called him a "no good dumbo-nothing". And then Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and Slartibartfast escaped in the starship Bistromath. Which, incidentally, was Somebody Elses Problem.