UFO fever is taking hold in a Suffolk town as tales of mysterious flashing lights over Suffolk's mother church abound.

James Mortlock

UFO fever is taking hold in a Suffolk town as tales of mysterious flashing lights over Suffolk's mother church abound.

Fresh reports of the “amazing” light show over Bury St Edmunds on Saturday, November 29, have come in from resident Carol Marsh, who lives in the shadow of St Edmundsbury Cathedral.

Mrs Marsh said she and a group of friends watched entranced at around 10.30pm as the lights travelled low in the sky from Northgate Street, over the cathedral and neighbouring St Mary's Church and out of sight towards Southgate Street.

And Mrs Marsh is no stranger to the supernatural - when she was an 11-year-old girl she firmly believes she witnessed a flying saucer in the skies over her then home in Lincolnshire. Her father, a Lancaster bomber pilot, was so convinced by his daughter's story he called ministry of defence bosses to check out the mysterious sighting.

The Church Walks resident was less convinced her latest brush with little green men was for real, but she believes there was a chance the sighting over the town could have been a UFO: “It's certainly a possibility.

“It was the weekend of the Christmas fair and I suppose they could have been sending up some sort of lights from Angel Hill but what ever it was, it was absolutely amazing.

“The lights were low in the sky, very bright and seemed to be revolving. It was totally noiseless and for 45 seconds it lit up the sky - it was just incredible - an amazing thing going on the sky outside my house. The amber lights were almost like they were being fired up into the sky.”

One sky-watcher reported the strange lights to the police. He said he saw a grey UFO spinning in the air near the cathedral before disappearing behind the Bury landmark.

The report was confirmed by a police spokeswoman, who said: “We received a report at 10.43 pm on Saturday from a gentleman who said he'd seen a large object spinning in the sky for around 10 to 12 minutes, which looked like a UFO. This was the only report received.”

A spokeswoman for the cathedral said a staff member also saw the unexplained lights.