A FAMILY spotted a UFO in the skies above a village last week.

And it is not the first such sighting – it can now be revealed that police spotted a UFO above Huddersfield several years ago.

In the recent sighting, on Friday last week, Anndy and Julie Evans were walking home along Smithy Lane in Skelmanthorpe with their daughter, five-year-old Amber, when they saw a strange orange light in the sky.

Anndy, 46, said: “We watched it as it flew at about the speed of a plane, but then it stopped like a helicopter. However, it was silent and it was high in the sky, so it couldn’t have been a helicopter.

“My wife said it looked as though it was on fire and Amber thought it was a spaceship.”

Anndy, a builder, photographed the mysterious object as it hovered.

“It stayed in one position for about a minute before flying off towards Clayton West,’’ he said. “Then it started climbing and in a short time it had gone.”

The UFO sighting, just after 7pm, is the latest in a string of mysterious incidents in the skies above Huddersfield.

Earlier this month Deighton woman Tracey Britton spotted strange orange lights in the sky while walking near Huddersfield Broad canal.

In August four people said they saw a bright white light above Huddersfield. They also reported hearing a loud Tardis-like noise.

In July people in the Holme Valley reported seeing strange red lights in the sky, but after an appeal in the Examiner it turned out the mysterious lights were nothing more mysterious than fast-flying Chinese lanterns.

Earlier this week the Ministry of Defence released 19 files about UFO sightings between 1986 and 1992.

They revealed that in 1986 police officers based at Holmfirth responded to reports of two bright lights in the sky above Emley Mast.

Officers arrived on the scene at around 4.20am and watched the UFO, which was around 1,200 feet above the mast for several minutes. It had bright white lights at either end.

A statement from an unnamed officer said: “On first seeing the object it was totally static in the sky, not moving in any direction, but appeared to be hovering.”

Another said: “It did not move in any direction though it appeared to wobble and distort.”

It is thought nine people saw the UFO, which appeared to be changing colour from red to green before it flew off in an easterly direction.

Officers reported the sighting to the Civil Aviation Authority, which could give no explanation.

It was confirmed it was not a commercial or private aircraft.

In another incident in Kent in 1991 the pilot of an Al Italia jet reported a brown missile-shaped object zooming over the plane.

For more information visit the ufos.nationalarchives.gov.uk website.