Stafford is named as a UFO hotspot
Staffordshire's county town has been named as a hotspot for UFO sightings.
Nineteen UFO sightings were reported in Stafford in a 12-month period, according to new research.
The old market town made the UK's top 10 list for UFO sightings - coming in at number six.
The tally of sightings were revealed through Freedom of Information requests.
The data is from 2009, more than 10 years ago, as those are the last public records available.
That was the year that the UK Government decided to close its UFO desk at the Ministry of Defence - as officials said that, in 50 years, no evidence of a "potential threat" had been found.
However there has been some interesting sightings connected with the borough by credible witnesses.
In south Staffordshire, pilots flying from Halfpenny Green Airport, known as Bobbington Airport, reported seeing UFOs during a flight in February, 2019.
One pilot reported being hit by a laser moments before the encounter.
In 1988, a prominent UFO sighting occurred over Cannock Chase, in Staffordshire, which was investigated by the MOD.
Multiple witnesses reported seeing objects over the beauty spot.
One described seeing two triangle-shaped objects making a faint sound and climbing vertically into the sky.
Reports were made to the then Stafford MP Bill Cash, who now serves the Stone parliamentary constituency on the border.
The 2009 data shows 11 UFO sightings were made in Shropshire and three in Birmingham.
Secret
The most prominent UFO sighting in Shropshire is known as the Cosford Incident, which happened at RAF Cosford, in 1993.
A large triangular craft was seen by an MOD police patrol at the airbase.
Nick Pope, who headed the UFO desk at the time, said it was "among the best cases" in the MOD's archive, which consisted of 12,000 sightings.
He believes it could have been investigated in a secret study by the Pentagon in the US.
With the UK's UFO desk now closed, there is no official Government department that investigates sightings.
Instead, some get reported to the police, leaving officers with the task of getting to the bottom of sightings.
An FOI from West Midlands Police, requested by the Express & Star, revealed there was 12 sightings from 2013 to 2016.
And an FOI by sister paper the Shropshire Star found there were four UFO sightings across the rural county in that same time period.
One witness reported seeing an "object with lights and flames" over Telford.
