THREE Gwent UFO sightings were reported to the Ministry of Defence between 2002 and 2005, new files show.

Papers made public this week reveal nationwide activity from the last 25 years.

Locally this involves two reported sightings in Newport and one in Croesyceiliog.

In February 2002 at 7pm one large and three smaller triangular objects were seen flashing bright red and blue, while an orange circular object was also seen hovering over the city just after 11pm on August 14, 2003.

Witnesses also saw five to six white lights flying very fast, a bit like bright stars, across the sky on an unnamed date at Croesyceiliog in 2005.

The sightings emerged from 34 files released from the National Archives covering 1985 to 2007 that include MoD correspondence and requests for information from journalists.

But in 2005 a national newspaper was told by MoD specialists that unless a potential threat to the UK was posed – for which no such evidence had been found to date – no attempt to identify the precise nature of each sighting was made.

“We believe that rational explanations, such as aircraft lights or natural phenomena, could be found for them if resources were diverted for this purpose, but it is not the function of the MoD to provide this kind of aerial idenitification service,” they said.

Elsewhere in Wales a “disc with a shining tail”

was spotted in Newport’s Pembrokeshire namesake in 2004, and a big star “with spiderish legs”

appeared over Port Talbot.

The files are available to download at www.nationalarchives.

gov.uk/ufos for a month.