There's no better way to put this: Sammy Hagar believes his mind was taken over by aliens. Years ago, before he played with Van Halen or Montrose, before he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the American singer claims extra-terrestrials tapped into his consciousness in the California foothills. "I know there's something out there," he explained, "and someday they'll come."

Hagar's intergalactic theories have come to light with his new memoirs, Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock, written with Joel Selvin. "I was lying in bed one night ... dreaming," he recalls in the book. "I saw a ship and two creatures inside of this ship. I couldn't see their faces. I just knew that there were two intelligent creatures, sitting up in a craft in the Lytle Creek forest area about twelve miles away in the foothills above Fontana. And they were connected to me, tapped into my mind through some kind of mysterious wireless connection."

In a new interview with MTV Hive, Hagar said he wanted to write a lot more about UFOs, but Selvin "talked [him] out of it". "He'd be like, 'Aw, people don't want to hear that shit'." But Hagar "could write a whole book just devoted to [aliens]," he said. "I love it, man. I'm into it deep."

Although Hagar's vision of an alien spaceship was part of a dream, he insists he was seeing something real. "[It] friggin' happened," the 63-year-old explained. "Aliens were plugged into me ... Either a download or an upload. They were tapped into my brain and the knowledge was transferred back and forth. I could see them and everything while it was happening ... Like an experiment: '[Let's] see what this guy knows'."

Nor was this his first close encounter. When he was four years old, he claims, he saw something he didn't include in his book. "I saw what I considered to be, well, at the time I thought it was a car with no wheels," he said. We lived out in the country and I saw this thing floating across a field, creating this big dust storm. I threw rocks at it and shit. And I don't know what happened after that." Asked if he thinks he "blacked out", Hagar replied: "I guess. I just have no memory of it. And that wasn't a dream. It was during daylight."

Hagar's current project is the supergroup Chickenfoot, with Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Red Hot Chili Pepper drummer Chad Smith.