LOUGHTON was visited by aliens in bright triangular orbs on Saturday night or so some residents believe.

Lit, flying objects were reported in the sky over the town at around 9pm.

Shelley Ginn, 17, of Barfields Gardens said: "I was sitting in the front room with my mum, when my brother came in and told us about these strange things in the sky.

"We went to see what they were, and watched them from the window for about an hour. During that time, about seven of our neighbours were out watching them as well."

Miss Ginn said that she was unsure what the objects were, but said they were moving too quickly to be planes. She said: "They were lit, orangey objects moving at real speed across the sky. They disappeared and re-appeared a lot, and there were about ten in total."

Saturday evening saw patchy cloud, but Miss Ginn said that although she was no expert, it was an extremely strange sight. She described the lights as "phenomenal" and "extremely bright".

A report on international website ufoinfo.com described a "triangular formation of reddish/orange lights" and said they were orb-shaped.

The website also noted that they made no noise, unlike aircraft, which can clearly be heard on the ground when passing over residential areas.

A similar sighting was made in Epping in March this year, but it turned out that the floating objects were Thai lanterns that had been released at a wedding.

Miss Ginn said that this had been mentioned to her as a possible explanation by a neighbour. She added: "It was like nothing I've ever seen before totally weird."