Ancient people described in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. The original Golgafrinchans decided to rid themselves of all of their "below average" population by blasting them off into space. This had the unfortunate side effect that all of the sanitary workers were removed, and the Golgafrinchans were killed off by germs. All of the hairdressers, insurance agents, and managers that were launched into space actually did survive and ended up on earth as our ancestors.