Ford Prefect
Ford is a Betelgeusean and a roving reporter for the interstellar travelling almanac The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Ford shares three mothers with The President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, making them semi-cousins. Ford was responsible for the entry on Earth. He visited the Earth and was accidentally stranded for fifteen years. He was very upset when he learned that his masterpiece of a new entry for Earth had been compressed to the two words: "Mostly Harmless." He only revealed he was from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and not from Guildford after all, as he had usually claimed, to Arthur just before the Vogons arrived to destroy Earth.
We at The Guide tried confirming whether an incompetent reporter from Betelguese was assigned to Earth, but the current Editor-in-Chief couldn’t remember, and many of our records from the time were lost during the Vl'hurgs war. That and apparently there have been several hundred incompetent reporters from Betelguese employed by The Guide.
