This is according to the latest instalment of Government UFO files - this time between 1994-2000 - released this week by The National Archives.

It contains notes on a detailed investigation of a UFO apparently sighted by police over Boston in the early hours of October 5, 1996.

Their colleagues in Skegness had spotted a 'strange red and green rotating light' to the south-east, stationary and high above the horizon, with another sighting being made out at sea.

At the same time, however, RAF Neatishead, in Norfolk, detected an unidentified object on radar over Boston.

With the integrity of UK Airspace potentially at risk, Boston police were contacted for visual confirmation.

At one point, HM Customs was contacted, fearful that it might be a helicopter transporting drugs to the country, as this 'has happened before'.

In a transcript between the coastguard and police, officers in Boston put the UFO outside the town.

They state: "Still have this light visual to the south east approx 60 degrees above horizon. No horizontal movement. Very bright white light, but it must be very large for me to be able to see it as its very far away."

The investigation that followed explained the close encounter of the second kind to two rather more common phenomena than little green men.

The lights south-east of the town it concluded was a 'distant celestial source', probably Venus rising since the planet 'can appear bright, coloured and to flash in certain conditions'.

The blip on the radar over Boston, on the hand, was thought to be the spire of St Botolph's Church.

It states: "This church spire is known in aviation circles as the 'Boston Stump' and appears occasionally on some radars in certain radar propagation conditions."

The investigation concludes that the prolonged sighting of stationary coloured flashing lights had 'no significant for the integrity of UK Airspace'.