People of Redditch beware - you're being watched!

Britain's ufologists are getting excited over four separate sightings this week of what they believe could be an alien space craft hovering over the Worcestershire town.

In each case, witnesses claim to have seen a long black, cylindrical object gliding in the sky just after 5pm on Tuesday evening.

The Redditch sighting is the latest in what ufologists claim has been a "bumper" year for UFOs in this country so far - with Birmingham proving a hot-spot.

Those who saw the Redditch UFO were struck by the fact that it had no wings or lights and made no sound before suddenly vanishing.

Contact International - an Oxford-based organisation dedicated to UFO research - believes the sighting may be a genuine close encounter of the first kind.

Spokesman Michael Soper said: "It involved a very long, black cylindrical object seen by five people in total.

"They saw it for five minutes and it was heading in the direction of Oakenshaw. They say it was totally silent and moving steadily before it vanished. They couldn't see any wings or lights, it was like a fat, black pencil and very dark.

"We think it was genuine."

Mr Sponer said 2006 "wasn't brilliant," for sightings - but this year had seen an increase.

He said: "Birmingham is a hot-spot partly down to the generosity of the people. They respond much better than many parts of the country.

"We have had a lot from Solihull and Leominster. Generally speaking, they are seen most in areas that are not heavily industrialised, with the exception of Birmingham."

The most dramatic UFO sighting this year occurred in April near Guernsey. Witnesses claimed seeing two flat disc shapes estimated to be twice the size of a Boeing 737.

"They were huge," said Mr Soper. "These were about half-a-mile across and reported by three pilots."

The sighting caused excitement among UFO chasers because it came from highly-trained professional pilots that were less likely to mis-identify.

Contact International has amassed a database of 80,000 sightings since it was set up in 1967.

The organisation reckons it gets an average of roughly 10 sightings a month, of which about four are hard to dismiss.

"Some of them have forms of behaviour which are inconceivable for anything that man can make. One of them is giving off a physical presence by effecting clouds or the ground and then completely vanishing, sometimes with a bang.

"Sometimes one can entertain the hypothesis that they are secret spy planes of various sort.

That will go some way, but then we still have this residue of reports which are very strong."

Mr Soper believes the Government is aware of UFO activity over Britain, but is reluctant to advertise it.

"Part of it is they don't want to admit that there are places over the island which they have no control over.

"There definitely seems to be covert planes flying over England at high altitude and there is definitely a cover up."

Mr Soper claims to have once spotted a UFO himself.

"I was walking over the Malvern Hills and I was looking up at a Valiant Bomber plane due east in a clear sky in the morning. I saw a disc near it which oscillated quickly then zoomed off to the left and went into a bank of cloud.

"The colour of the object changed as it went faster - it went from blue-white to a silver-red hue with the increased velocity. It was completely silent and unexpected."

Mr Soper said oscillating discs followed by a high-speed motion was common behaviour for UFOs.

"Where ever they come from, it appears they slow down when they come to our world by oscillating."

The best time for UFO spotting is during the summer at about 8pm, when there is a mixture of cloud and clear sky.

"I would suggest people go out when the sky is contrasty," said Mr Soper.

A spokeswoman for the National Air Traffic Services said it had no report of unusual activity over Redditch.

"They couldn't see any wings or lights, it was like a fat, black pencil and very dark. We think it was genuine.