UK UFO hotspot revealed as police report ‘woman beamed into the sky’

West Yorkshire Police are dealing with a shocking number of UFO sightings every day – too many for them to share, according to the force.

An Freedom of Information request submitted to the force revealed that since 2020, it has logged 1,805 cases in which the words ‘UFO’, ‘alien’, ‘UAP’ or ‘spaceship’ appeared in the record.

The figures averages at 56 a month, or almost two every day.

West Yorkshire, which includes Leeds and Bradford, has long been well-known as a hive of UFO sightings, although it failed to top the table in a recent hotspot ranking by UFO Identified. Greater Manchester, London and Cheshire were crowned the top three areas for potential extraterrestrial activity.

The most recent FOI, submitted by UFO Truth magazine editor Gary Heseltine, from Featherstone in West Yorkshire, was refused on the basis that it would cost too much to sift through and retrieve the information.

In its official response, the force said: ‘Unfortunately, West Yorkshire Police are unable to provide you with the information requested. 

‘It is estimated that the cost of providing/locating the information you seek within your request, would exceed the time threshold. When a reasonable estimate has been made that the appropriate limit would be exceeded, there are no requirements for a public authority to undertake the work.’

The legal limit for costs of an FOI is currently set at £450. West Yorkshire Police estimated that at approximately 2 minutes per record, the research required would take more than 60 hours, costing far beyond the limit.

However, the force did share one record from its database. While a time or location was not specified, the report read: ‘Male caller reports seeing four flashing lights hovering above his property in the street before a female was beamed into the sky.’

Speaking to the Mirror, Mr Heseltine, 63, said: ‘It is a disappointing response and I am surprised that they do not have searchable keyword databases that could retrieve the information quickly. Interestingly they have admitted 1,805 UFO related events from 2020 which seems extremely high to me.’

A similar FOI requested in late 2021 yielded only nine results, but another using more search terms – including ‘ghost’ and ‘witch’ – also returned more than 1,000, which were not disclosed due to cost.

Of the nine sightings disclosed, reports included a woman who said she was abducted by aliens, a man who said aliens had ‘put drugs in his eyes’, a woman alleged to have been attacked by aliens and numerous reports of lights in the sky.

Worldwide, a rise in UFO sightings was recorded between 2020 and 2022 – also known as Covid years. In the US, sightings increased around 16%.

But ufologists argue this isn’t necessarily due to an increase in extraterrestrial visitors.

More likely, they say, is the fact more people were stuck at home with nothing to do – possibly having relocated to less urban areas during lockdown with less light pollution, offering better views of the night skies and everything in it, including satellites, the International Space Station, and other identified flying objects.

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