THE truth is out there...

In the wake of moon-walking astronaut Edgar Mitchell claiming that aliens exist, and with a new X-Files film released next Friday, it seems our fascination with little green men and related paraphernalia refuses to go away.

Indeed, web traffic figures across Dorset and Hampshire reveal the story with the most "hits" in June this year was about a strange black triangle-shaped UFO which hovered for days over Southampton.

Big Brother 9 devotees will have seen Lisa recently claim she'd once seen a little green man, to the mirth of her fellow housemates. But while some may scoff at her beliefs, when it's an ex-NASA employee saying there IS alien life out there, it's a little harder to ignore.

Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has claimed that extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions, and that their appearance resembles the classic alien image of small frame, large eyes and head.

He said in a radio interview: "I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real.

"It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it."

This corresponds with the Ministry of Defence recording 135 official UFO sightings last year - up 40 per cent on 2006.

Some of these are witnessed by the general public, such as the light over Swanage on June 23, which was bright yellow and pulsing and suddenly changed course.

Others were from Ray Bowyer, piloting a routine passenger flight from Southampton to Alderney last April. He witnessed two bright orange craft measuring up to a mile wide. The stationary objects were not only observed by other aircraft and the passengers on the plane, they were picked up on the radar.

John Spencer, deputy chairman of the British UFO Research Association, said: "These types of sightings have been reported by pilots - generally accepted to be reliable and sensible observers - since the 1940s and they have excited attention to this day."

But why is this the case? Is there extra-terrestrial life out there or can we take a clue from the title of the new X-Files film: I Want to Believe?

The media have certainly shaped our fascination with aliens. In 1938 Orson Welles created widespread panic in the US with his radio broadcast of an adaptation of The War of the Worlds.

And many believe that The Roswell incident in 1947 - when scattered wreckage and debris of an alien craft was discovered near New Mexico - was the turning point in our quest to find out the truth.

The allure of aliens has grown even greater thanks to the Hollywood machine. Until recently, out of the top 10 highest-grossing movies, five are about alien life forms. Independence Day, Star Wars, Men in Black, ET: The Extraterrestrial and Return of the Jedi made a combined world income of nearly $3.5 billion.

Media professors argue that Hollywood is only cashing in on our obsession with conspiracy theories, as well as preying on the fears of the public.

But the existence of life other than our own has been explored for centuries.

Some suggest that the ancient Nazca lines in Peru are only properly visible from the air as they were landing strips for returning aliens.

And even the bible mentions entities other than ourselves which live within the cosmos.

Dorset's own X-Files

  • On Sunday, July 6, 1989, Paul and Debbie Clare saw a small spherical object in the sky when driving through Blandford Forum. It was too big for a helium balloon, metallic grey in colour with no lights. The UFO travelled parallel to the car at the same speed for a few minutes when it suddenly disappeared at high speed.
  • Last August, five people reported seeing a UFO near Lyme Regis. The mystery object had a "pulsating incandescent light rather than a beam, was making strange movements and seemed to be getting lighter and darker".
  • In the same month six witnesses saw two red/orange objects over Bulbarrow Hill. They were moving slowly together and seemed quite large. One became really bright and then it seemed to pour out an orange light underneath. Then it climbed up again and both just vanished.
  • In June 2006 a crop circle appeared at Waterditch Farm near Christchurch. An enthusiast reported: "The formation is approximately 150 feet in diameter with three centre circles each around 30 feet in diameter and surrounded by larger semicircles. "There is also a very thin ring less than a foot wide that circles the whole formation."