DON’T accuse him of being all crazee now – but rocker Noddy Holder of Slade says he felt the noize when he had a close encounter with a UFO in Bournemouth.

The colourful star, most famous for the ubiquitous festive hit Merry Xmas Everybody, said he saw a circular flying saucer, emitting beams of light, flying over the sea while staying in the town.

Recounting the tale on Radio 2, he said his Bournemouth hotel room had suddenly filled with “white light” at midnight, which at first he thought was coming from a police helicopter.

“I puts my paper down, looks out and it was a flying saucer,” he said. “I’m serious here – it was a flying saucer. It whizzed across the sea, just like you see in the movies. It was circular with all beams of light coming out of it.”

He described how it raced over the surface of the water a such speed that “massive waves came up”. But his wife wasn’t so convinced.

“She would not believe I’d seen this flying saucer,” he added. “She said ‘Ah, you’re drunk you fool’– it’s one of them police helicopters’.”

But the day after the sighting, which happened some five years ago, he said he turned on the BBC news to see reports of UFO sightings “in a straight line” from Gloucester to Bournemouth and along the south coast.

It is not the first time the area has experienced such a visitation – in fact it appears to be somewhat of a UFO hotspot.

Strange lights spotted in the sky over the festive period prompted a flurry of calls to the Daily Echo newsroom. They were described as “moving around like an insect. It was as bright as a car headlight”.

And in February last year, there were a number of sightings of a cigar shaped object in the sky over Poole Harbour and Swanage.