Take me to your beach huts and donkeys!

The traditional seaside resorts of Cromer, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft attract hundreds of thousands of visitors from far afield every year.

However it seems the word has spread to other worlds about the delights of the three coastal towns.

According to top secret government UFO documents out today aliens seem to have packing their bags to take galactic long haul holidays at the Norfolk and Suffolk coast.

Among thousands of pages of documents released by the National Archives are three UFO reports showing how the resorts were at the centre of UFO scares.

The most detailed sighting involves Cromer in which a RAF officer reported seeing a UFO from his car on January 24, 2002.

In a document entitled report of an unidentified object flying officer Green says he saw eight or nine lights in the sky about four to five miles off the coast.

He describes the UFO as a 'like a large firework, too large to be flare'.

The report says the lights were also witnessed by Oxfam employees and shoppers.

In reply to the report a wing commander says 'following enquiries through HQ 2 Gp and RAF Neatishead, there is no evidence that unauthorised military activity or any other activity of air defence interest occurred on 24 Jan 02 in the Cromer area'.

RAF Neatishead is also mentioned in another report dated November 17, 2003 in which it was asked to check reports of 20 to 30 flashing lights over Bromley, Kent.

Nothing unusual was detected though.

Among the mounds of Ministry of Defence UFO documents available on the internet today are freedom of information requests asking about the number of sightings.

A report for September 13, 2003 describes a close encounter in Yarmouth.

The report says someone saw an object that was 'Bright as Mars. White light. Dim. Moved in a South East direction'.

A less detailed report says another UFO was spotted over Yarmouth on October, 27, 2001.

There was a UFO sighting in Lowestoft on March 1 2004. A witness says the object was a 'Yellow light in a circular formation. The flash shot across the sky.'

Also on the UFO lists is a report from King's Lynn which describes a UFO seen on May 5, 2004 as 'A bright pulsing spider-like looking object'

There are less detailed UFOs reports over Thetford on August 16, 1995 and over on Norwich on May 6, 1996 and August, 31, 2000.

Other sightings were at Diss on June 16, 2001, Coltishall on June 2, 1996, Dersingham on May 7,2001 and Syderstone on April 13, 2001.

Bizarrely it may seem as if aliens may have got their hands or tentacles on the UFO report to cover up their tracks.

One listing for Norfolk on November 4 1995 says a UFO was seen over Brundle - which does not exist as a village, although there is a Brundall near Norwich.

Other documents briefly mention a UFO flap over the Wash in October 1996 and fighter planes being scrambled after a UFO was seen on radar by RAF Lakenheath in 1956.

Today more than 8,500 pages of Ministry of Defence top secret UFO files are being released by the National Archives.

The largest disclosure to date of UFO documents includes RAF investigations, parliamentary briefings and government policy on UFOs.

In the documents is a report from a RAF pilot in a Tornado who saw an object the size of a Hercules transport plane over the North Sea near Holland.

The pilot said he had never seen an object like it before.

Another military sighting saw the crew of HMS Manchester spot an object off Norway, but according to the MOD the logbook covering the incident was lost after it was blown overboard.

In October 1988 a man from south London told the MOD he feared he had beamed up to into a large cigar shaped object which flew over his home.

The man claimed he may have been abducted after he had mysteriously gained an hour of time. But MOD investigators pointed out the clocks had gone back the night before.

Another report from 1967 describes a 'War of the Worlds' incident in which it was feared the UK was about to be invaded by marauding aliens.

Police forces, bomb disposal experts and army and intelligence experts had been put on alert after reports of six flying saucers flying over the south of England.

However it turned to be rag day hoax by engineering students.

Also included in the documents is a 1979 House of Lords debate on possible alien sightings, claims about government procedures for dealing with crashed or landed UFOs, calls to the UN to make 1978 the Year of the UFO and CIA plans to use UFO reports as psychological warfare.

All of the files are available to download for free from today for a month by visiting www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos