Mysterious orange UFOs swoop across Britain's skies

Darting silently in formation, the mysterious glowing orbs light up the night sky.

Some say these orange lights even weave in between each other with the precision of a synchronised flying team from some far corner of the universe.

Clusters of more than 100 have been spotted across Britain and even Holland, leaving onlookers with an eerie sense that, for all the mystifying beauty of the strange objects, they may have just witnessed an armada of invading UFOs.

Stunned: Families in Lincoln spotted glowing orange spheres grouped together in the sky on Sunday night

Eerie: Witnesses reported seeing the lights flying in anapparent formation, dodging and darting around each other beforedisappearing

The most recent sighting was on Sundaywhen they were seen in two locations, Merseyside and Lincoln. Daysearlier a similar phenomenon was spotted over Cambridgeshire, where onewitness claims each was as big as a house.

The sightings have prompteddefence officials to check their logs and sent UFO fans into orbits ofexcitement. Engineer Paul Slight, 54, took photos on his mobile phoneof the strange objects hovering over Lincoln at 10.30pm while he wascycling home after a day out with friends.

'There were 26 of them atfirst, dodging and darting in between each other like they were playinga game,' he said.

These four strange orange lights were captured in this photograph taken in Holland on May 11

'After that, seven more arrived and weaved throughthe crowd of lights like strange kinds of aircraft. After five minutesof moving around, they hung in the air for a second then shot off intothe sky and disappeared.'

A spokesman for nearby RAF Cranwell said thebase was closed at the weekend so the lights could not be attributed toits aircraft. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence is examining claimsthat the Merseyside lights were connected to an exercise involving HMSDaring, docked in Liverpool.

An ex-military source claimed the lightswere dropped by jets to simulate the path of a missile in order to testthe warship's radar systems.

Military exercise: Experts are investigating whether these orange lights above Merseyside were 'counter measures' to test the defences of a Royal Navy ship

HMS Daring, which is currently docked at Liverpool, uses radar-activated guns. It is believed the lights seen may have been 'counter-measures' to test its defences

In Cambridgeshire, banker Scott Boswell,37, said he saw more than 100 lights flying less than two miles abovehis home in Hinchingbrooke. The former soldier and experienced pilotsaid: 'I know they weren't aircraft – they were silent.

'And I was asoldier for a decade so I could immediately rule out flares or weatherballoons. I really have no idea what they were.'

On the same night, May27, at around 11.30pm a guesthouse owner near Huntingdon also saw the lights. 'There was no sound,' he said.

Unexplained: An image manufactured by Auberon Hedgecoe of how the lights appeared over a half an hour period above Huntingdon

The Hedgecoe family, from left Suzi, Barney, friend Zac and Auberon, saw 50 of the orange lights above Huntingdon and described them as being 'as big as a house'

'Theywere travelling 15 at a time and every six minutes more seemed to becoming over the horizon. They were not planes. They were not balloons.

Each one was the size of a building.' Last night it emerged a woman hascontacted her local newspaper to claim that the lights over Lincolnwere Chinese lanterns – mini hot air balloons – set off at her weddingreception.

'They looked amazing, hope you all enjoyed the spectacle,'she said.

Nick Pope, the former head of the MoD's UFO Project,supported the Chinese lantern theory.

'I'm not disparaging the wholeUFO phenomenon, but I'd say 99 per cent of UFO reports involving orangelights in the sky these days are attributable to these lanterns.'