A few weeks ago, I got a rather disturbing e-mail. And based on some of the stuff that comes to me in e-mail (oh, you so should see it), it would take quite a bit to get me to stop in my tracks.

But a longtime reader of Airlock Alpha told me he is working in China, and typed in our URL to get his daily science-fiction entertainment news fix when he discovered something: According to China, Airlock Alpha doesn't even exist.

That's right. In a country where more than a billion people live, Airlock Alpha is about as real as Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and William Shatner's hair.

It's common knowledge that China likes to censor Web content, but I thought that was typically reserved for critics of the country's government and things that could create rebellion among the residents. Last time I checked, Airlock Alpha has never criticized the country's government, and really have had no interest in inciting the masses there.

In fact, I even went as far to see what we might have said about China, and all I could find in a quick Google search was a story we published back in March called "'Knight Rider' Crashes, 'Heroes' Renewed For Fourth." It's not that China has something against "Heroes" or had a place in their heart for Michael Knight. All I could find was this line:

"Every single place you go has heard about 'Heroes,' NBC entertainment president Angela Bromstad told The Hollywood Reporter. "Whether you're in China or Japan or Russia."

So maybe that's it! Maybe the fact that people in China watch "Heroes" is a government secret that they don't want the world knowing about. Or maybe "Heroes" is an underground show in China, and the government doesn't want their residents to know the show exists.

I guess I'm not too sad about China not being able to visit Airlock Alpha. I mean, really, English can't be that common of a language there, and I'm not sure if Rosetta Stone offers courses in Mandarin. But still, it would be nice to have great science-fiction entertainment news available to anyone in the world with an Internet connection.

Of course, then again, maybe we're too American? I do everything I can to reach out to international audiences, but according to Alexa, more than three-fourths of our traffic comes from right here in the United States. The United Kingdom is our second biggest country, but that only accounts for less than 4 percent of our total traffic, so you can imagine where that goes from there.

In the end, does it matter if China blocks us or not? I would say no, but still, it's hard to be a global news outlet if one-seventh of the population doesn't even know you exist.