MINISTRY of Defence staff recorded sightings of alien craft over Wallasey Town Hall and a saucer-shaped Unidentified Flying Object hovering over Waterloo Bridge, it was revealed today.

Files detailing hundreds of sightings of unexplained objects in the skies above Britain have been opened to the public for the first time.

The information was considered sufficiently important for a form to be produced which is kept by police stations and airbases ready to record details of such reports.

Briefing documents for government ministers facing questions about policy on unidentified flying objects also form part of the release at the National Archives in Kew.

But the Ministry of Defence was not investigating the possibility of visitors from outer space making a stop at Earth.

Defence intelligence staff were more interested in checking that UFOs were not in fact signs of earthly covert spying missions by other countries.

Nick Pope, who worked for the MoD for 21 years and was responsible for investigating the sightings, said: "While there's no evidence of little green men in these files, they should be of immense interest to sceptics and believers.

"Most of the UFO sightings here are probably misidentifications of aircraft lights and meteors, but some are more difficult to explain, and include UFOs seen by police officers and pilots."

One report taken in October 1984 dispels the myth that such sightings are only seen in isolated areas after numerous witnesses on Waterloo Bridge in London report seeing a UFO.

Little green men feature very little, but one man from Wirral does claim to have met such creatures repeatedly.

One, he reports, visited frequently and was called Elgar. Sadly, he says, Elgar was killed by another race of beings in the 1980s.