It was even claimed that some alien species were present during a media statement in which they had answered more than 30 questions put forward by Bulgarian Academy of Science (BAS) personnel.

Luchezar Filipov, deputy head of the Space Exploration department within the BAS, told reporters that “they (the aliens) are here right now, among us”. He said that, although there is little awareness of their presence, they are conducting surveillance and research on Earth.

The scientist said that they are not hostile in any way; on the contrary, they are friendly and willing to help us. Unfortunately, due to our lack of evolution and development, we are unable to conduct any coherent form of conversation with this superior life form. “They want to help us, but the problem is that we don’t know what to ask of them once a contact is established,” Filipov told Dnes daily.

Filipov reckons that it will be impossible to try and track extraterrestrial life with our current radar equipment, or through the usage of radio telescopes. Apparently, the aliens were “categorical” that any future means of contact between us and them would be conducted through mental power and telepathy.

“The aliens are very critical of our immoral behaviour and our destruction of the environment. They say that global warming is attributed mainly to infrastructural engineering. Additionally, they are very skeptical of our use of cosmetics, and artificial insemination because this is ‘unnatural,’” Filipov said.

The BBC3 programme, called I Believe, is presented by Danny Dyer, an actor normally associated with Cockney hardmen and horror movie roles.

The broadcaster revealed that he had previously spotted an unidentified flying object and admitted that the experience “freaked him out”.

Russ said: “He was like somebody that I’d known for years. We all felt very comfortable around him and my sister said what a lovely lad he was.

“He came across exactly as he does in films – he was the same guy that I’ve watched in films and he was in my house.”

He added that the actor had travelled as far as America to interview people for the documentary.

“He came here and he saw our evidence.

“He came here and had a damn good time – that can only be good,” he said.

Local investigator and former pilot Win Keech also took part in the making of the documentary.

He was recently a guest speaker at Scarborough’s first UFO conference and has filmed videofootage of the formation of a crop circle in Wiltshire, possibly the only recorded evidence of such an event.

During the filming, Danny heard about Russ’s close encounter near Bradford in 1988 – where he saw strange red lights at a level crossing – and looked at video footage shot by local UFO investigators.

He added that the actor seemed genuinely interested in the subject.

“We all went out to a location where we had videoed some of the UFOs. Danny seemed to be amazed that we filmed the object so close to us. It was a pleasure having him here.”

Last week it was reported that Danny had an out-of-this-world experience while filming the new documentary.

He said: “I just want to believe that there are things out there. I did see something. It wasn’t a plane, it wasn’t a helicopter, it just looked like a massive star going across the sky. But it freaked me right out.”

His previous TV documentaries have included The Real Football Factories and Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men. His film roles have included parts in films such as The Football Factory, Severance, Outlaw, Doghouse and Dead Man Running, when his co-star was rapper 50 Cent.

Russ added: “He has worked with 50 Cent and now he has been to Filey to work with £1!”

That was the view of MP Keith Vaz, who heads the home affairs select committee. He said McKinnon showed intelligence “far beyond what anyone could imagine” when he hacked into US military networks.

Mr Vaz again urged Home Secretary Alan Johnson to let McKinnon stay in the UK and repeated calls for the UK-US extradition treaty to be reviewed. McKinnon, who was born in Glasgow, suffers from Asperger’s syndrome – a form of autism – and faces the prospect of a lengthy prison term if he is sent to the US for trial.

During debate on the Queen’s Speech, Mr Vaz said: “The Home Secretary is still considering Gary McKinnon’s case. I hope very much that he will … allow Gary McKinnon to stay.

“Anyone who can hack into the computer system of the Pentagon should not actually be sent to trial – I believe he should be offered a job because if he was able to do that, he clearly has intelligence far beyond what anyone could imagine.”

The Home Secretary is considering whether he can stop the extradition on the grounds that it would breach human rights law because of McKinnon’s fragile mental state.

McKinnon, 43, from Wood Green, London, admits hacking in to secret Pentagon military networks, but says he was only looking for evidence of reports of UFO sightings.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the influential Home Affairs Select Committee, has written to Alan Johnson to advise him that he has the power to refuse requests to hand Asperger’s sufferer Gary McKinnon over to the authorities in Washington.

Dozens of calls came streaming into the ABC 4 newsroom with people wondering if they saw a shooting star, others wondered if it was the end of the world, military testing, or even a UFO.

People from Mona to Spanish Fork from Ogden to Bountiful all calling in a very similar sighting. To many, it looked like a large fall of fire, lightning up the sky, some say like daylight, others reported a blue like light that lasted for about 30 seconds. And many reported hearing a boom about 5 minutes later.

ABC 4 called Utah’s NASA and Solar System Ambassador Patrick Wiggins who says that it was a meteor also known as a bolide. From his observatory near Stansbury Park he says the break up of the meteor occured at about 240 to 250 degrees azimuth which puts it just north of southwest. He also heard the sound of an explosion that would put the breakup of the bolide about 100 km in that direction placing it high above Granite Peak in the west desert.

The event, which ran from October 31 to November 6, featured exhibitions of UFOs and other unexplained phenomena in China, as well as a host of UFO footage appraisers. In the interview, Zhang explains that he hopes the forum will help publicize UFO knowledge… and that he can one day make friends with extraterrestrials.

“I am convinced, because I am a physicist and an astronomer,” he says at one point, possibly replying to the question about how a man of science (he teaches Physics at Yunnan University) can entertain ideas about aliens. “I am convinced that extraterrestrials exist.”

Astronomers looked back 12.5 billion years to study one of the most distant galaxies known, MS1358arc. Light from the galaxy began its journey across the Universe one billion years after the big bang.

“Gravitational lensing” was used to magnify the galaxy by making use of the way its light bent round a nearby galaxy cluster. Using this technique the scientists were able to observe rapid bursts of star formation.

New stars were being created in the galaxy’s star-forming regions at a rate 100 times faster than predicted.

Measuring 6,000 light years across, the collection of stars was expected to evolve into a spiral galaxy similar to our own, the Milky Way.

Substantial water reserves have been found beneath the Moon’s surface, Nasa announced yesterday, paving the way for a permanent lunar base.

The discovery came from Nasa’s “moon bombing” mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) probe, which was deliberately crashed into the lunar South Pole last month. An analysis of the dust thrown up from the impact revealed the presence of about 80 litres of water, or enough for a shallow bath. The results suggest that much larger, more accessible reserves are available at the poles.

“We can announce that we’ve found water — not just a little bit, a significant amount,” said Tony Colaprete, principal investigator for the mission at Nasa’s Ames Research Centre in California.

Mr Johnson had previously stated he was utterly powerless to stop the extradition of Mr McKinnon, a UFO enthusiast and computer hacker, who is facing a court case in the US for hacking into Pentagon computers.

“If I were to oppose his extradition I would be breaking the law,” Mr Johnson wrote in the Times earlier this year.

That position remained the same during a Commons debate on the subject.

But eyebrows were raised when Mr Johnson then offered Mr McKinnon an eleventh hour reprieve, saying he would examine new medical evidence “very carefully” before giving the extradition the go ahead.