Belfast caller told police of being in spaceship with aliens – but amid drop in UFO sightings, PSNI is urged to take phenomenon more seriously

There has been a significant fall in the number of sightings reported to the PSNI in the last year.

Nick Pope, who used to investigate reports of UFO sightings for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), described the figures as “staggeringly low” and suggested there may be an under-reporting due to mistrust of the authorities.

The MoD closed its UFO desk in 2009, while in the US there is a government taskforce on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).

Mr Pope said that the US is treating the phenomenon as a “potential defence, national security and flight-safety concern”, adding “it’s time the UK did the same thing”.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) received eight alleged sightings in the region during 2021, an increase from six in 2020 and four in 2019.

This dropped to just one in 2022.

The only sighting reported to police was on October 20, 2022, when a caller in the Stewartstown area of Dungannon, Co Tyrone, reported seeing a UFO flying from the Belfast direction to Dungannon every evening.

A police spokesman said: “No further police action was required on this occasion.”

Police said there were no reported UFO sightings from January 1 to November 1, 2023.

There were two reported sightings of aliens and one reported sighting of “strange lights”.

According to information released by the PSNI under the Freedom of Information Act, at 11pm on June 15, a caller in Belfast reported being in a spaceship with aliens.

And on February 1 a caller in Crossgar, Co Down, reported having been abducted by aliens.

On February 21, a caller in Draperstown, Co Derry, reported seeing two strange lights in the sky.

Mr Pope said that he thought the drop was due to mistrust of the authorities.

“A more likely scenario is that we’re seeing chronic under-reporting that reflects witnesses’ distrust of the authorities, and the associated suspicion that making an official report won’t achieve anything,” he said.

“Many people believe there’s a government conspiracy to cover up the truth about UFOs, and probably believe there’s little point reporting what they’ve seen or experienced to the police, who they may think are complicit in a cover-up.”