THE Stretford UFO sighting has been solved and apparently it was no more than a lot of hot air!

Bright orange lights appeared above Stretford on Thursday night, sparking speculation that extra terrestrials had come to Manchester.

But, according to a witness, the truth is that they were lanterns made by children out of bin bags and candles.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "We saw the lanterns coming out of a garden off Bradfield Road at about half six. There was a group of three lads letting them off and three more riding on bikes to see how far they were going. They were laughing at all the people staring."

Police were called to investigate the lights and hundreds of people have since logged onto this website to see the objects floating over Stretford.

The sightings follow a Ministry of Defence report which revealed two UFO sightings last year in Chorlton and Irlam.

Stephen Mera, founder of the Manchester Association of Paranormal Investigators and Training,said: "There are usually between 80 and 90 sightings a year and the vast majority of them are these lanterns or balloons. They only cost around £3 and can be set off within minutes of being bought."

This year has been an unusually large number of sightings with more than 150 UFOs reported. Only around 4 per cent turn out to be unexplainable.

Some witnesses claimed the UFOs were too big to be lanterns and disappeared in an instant but Mr Mera has a theory.

He said: "It's very hard to judge how big something is in the sky because there is nothing to compare things with.

"As for the disappearing, the lantern more than likely just went behind low cloud cover rather than vanish into thin air."

According to Mr Mera, the lanterns have been set off all summer and Thursday's `UFOs' were the results of a particularly successful launch.

He said: "I think we'll see more of these throughout the summer. It's not the first time and it certainly won't be the last."
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