As many as four unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have been spotted in Bolton in the past few weeks, leaving many stunned.

Stephen Maloney, from Sharples, said he saw a UFO for the second time on Wednesday (February 7) within three weeka..

This time he assumed it was a star again until he looked closer and says he has never seen anything like it.

He said: “It’s very exciting to think about the possibility of aliens and knowing that it might be intelligent life.

“I was very shocked to see something so strange again in the sky.”

The Bolton News: Captured by Stephen Maloney this weekCaptured by Stephen Maloney this week (Image: Stephen Maloney)Read our top stories below:

On the other hand, Radio Astronomy Professor Michael Garrett – who is the inaugural Sir Bernard Lovell chair of Astrophysics at the University of Manchester, and the Director of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics – says that there has not been any “good evidence of people seeing any bona fide space craft coming from outside our planet”.

He continued: “People do see strange things in the sky and things that are unusual, but I don’t think there is an extra-terrestrial explanation.

"I have seen people on Facebook seeing this line of stars crossing the sky and they get excited about that, but there are new sky links launched on a daily basis."

Prof Garrett is also a member of the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, which looks for signs of transmissions from advanced civilizations on other planets.

The Bolton News: Some of the signals that are looked for include radio waves and waste heat, similar to that of our planet such as WIFI.

He explained: “I look at national and local data and I try to look for anomalies that can’t be described by a natural phenomenon, but there may be another explanation.”

He says that no one knows the answer to whether there is other life out there yet, but that as AI continues to advance, it is a great tool when trying to find out and assess any data, including the improvement of the telescope.

He said: “Some of this involves looking at the technological signal, and use of energy from other civilizations.

“It’s hard to tell because it depends on how far away those civilizations are and how much energy they are using and how long they have been around, because if they don’t stick around for too long, the chances of detecting them in our galaxy is quite small.”

The Bolton News: Captured by Warren Booth last monthCaptured by Warren Booth last month (Image: Public)Last month two other residents in Bolton thought they saw UFOs in the sky.

Sceptic Warren Booth, 43, was up with his four-year-old daughter Ophelia at 4am after she woke up in the night, in Darcy Lever, when he saw a strange object with flashing lights on either side.

In the same month Paul Longstaff, from Farnworth, was sat at his computer when his mum shouted and pointed to some bright lights in the sky, which left them both shocked.

And according to UFO Identified as many as 10 UFOs were reported  to them in Bolton in May last year.

Greater Manchester has one of the highest UFO sightings in the country according to UFO database website, UFO Identified.

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