A man in northwest Germany called police early on Monday to report a close encounter with Russian-speaking extraterrestrials, police said.

The 40-year-old man from Gifhorn, Lower Saxony called the police at 3:30 a.m. local time [2:30 GMT] and said six extraterrestrial beings, each about 15 centimeters tall, were flying around his apartment and talking Russian.

When the police arrived at the scene, the man told them that the aliens' UFO had flown out through the door and hidden in flower boxes.

The police spokesman did not say whether the "witness" spoke Russian himself.