City's UFO encounter

Ian Craig

UFOS have been spotted twice above Manchester in the past year.

Freedom of Information powers revealed that three silver unidentified flying objects hovering above Chorlton.

In the second sighting, an orange ball was spotted high above Irlam. According to witnesses, the ball was first seen low in the sky, but then gained height, moving very fast.

These were only two of the sightings of unidentified objects recorded by the Ministry of Defence's UFO section.

They were found using the Freedom of Information Act.

Defence officials keep an eye open for sightings because of the possible implications for national security.

Explanation

But most of the UFOs reported either have a rational explanation or none at all.

But the Ministry does keep the records of all reports and analyses many of them in detail. Reports from elsewhere in the north west included an incident in Crewe last year when very bright lights were seen for more than half an hour, hovering quite slowly from side to side.

Meanwhile, in Macclesfield, observers spotted a spinning object which appeared to have a triangular shaped part on either side of it.

They reported it as a grey, almost dull, metallic colour.

Among sightings nationally, there was `a mother ship' with two smaller orbs moving around it, in Barlestone, Staffordshire, and an object which was oblong shaped and `looked a bit like a scooter' over Stevenage, in Bedfordshire.

In one case, in Co Durham, a police officer reported seeing six lights travelling in a line, slightly staggered, from north to south.

As revealed in the Manchester Evening News, between the year 2000 and last year, air crews reported UFOs on 13 occasions.

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said: "Sometimes UFOs are weather balloons. sometimes they are military jets and, sometimes, we just don't know."