A BURY man claims he spotted a UFO in the area.

Jason Warner, aged 26, believes he had a “close encounter” after spotting strange aircraft flying over the Bury and the surrounding hills on August 2.

Mr Warner, whose high-rise flat on The Rock means he has a good view across the town, also saw flashes of light and a large object moving behind the clouds.

He said: “I was watching television at around 9.45pm when flashing lights in the distance got my attention.

“At first I thought this was lightning but I realised it could not have been a storm as there was no rain and no thunder.

“I could not see exactly what was there but I could see something in the distance behind the clouds, something really big.

“Then at around 10.30pm I began spotting aircraft going over my building in the direction of the original flashes, towards the hills.

“A round shape with two lights on the underside and a light in the middle which changed from red to green flew over and another identical object followed it closely.”

Mr Warner managed to capture video footage on his phone and camera of what he saw but could not zoom in closely as the objects were too far away.

He did not report the UFO, although he said he had seen the same sort of aircraft above his flat several months ago as he entered the building in the evening.

Greater Manchester Police confirmed no other sightings on August 2 in Bury had been reported to them.

But the Bury Times and Radcliffe Times did receive another report that mystery flashes of light had been witnessed.

Mr Warner added: “I do not know whether those aircraft were extraterrestrial or owned by the government, but whatever they were they were they were not something I was supposed to see.

“I began researching online and found so many theories about governments supp-ressing alien activity over the years.”

Stephen Mera, chairman of Manchester's Association of Paranormal Investigators & Training, said the organisation received no reported incidents in Bury on the same night.

He said: “We obtain around 300 reports each year over the whole of Greater Manchester and Bury has been a location of previously reported incidents to us.

“Often if the object was seen in or passing through a cloud base we can deduce the approximate altitude of the unknown object – on August 2 in Bury there was Stratus Cumulus cloud at around 7,000 feet.

“The location of the Bury sighting is a known flight path, linking with incoming civilian airliners to Manchester International Airport.”

Mr Mera said anyone reporting an unidentified flying object should give details such as direction, traversity and length of sighting.

He said from this information UFO specialists can often deduce numerous rational explanations – be those technological, environmental, astronomical or meteorological.

Mr Mera added: “We do still have sightings that still defy rationality.

“It is not unheard of for the military to run test flights of exotic or secret aircraft or drones, but the chances of such tests taking place over a busy populated location is rather slim.”

Do aliens exist? Tui Benjamin has written a comment piece on the subject.