From mysterious objects hovering in the air to menacing bright lights burning in the night sky - Norfolk has had its fair share of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Previously unseen records, now released to the public, show that one woman walking her dog near Norwich got much closer than she would have preferred.

By TARA GREAVES

From mysterious objects hovering in the air to menacing bright lights burning in the night sky - Norfolk has had its fair share of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

But now, previously unseen records, released to the public for the first time yesterday, show that one woman walking her dog near Norwich got much closer than she would have preferred - and if you thought aliens were only little green men, think again.

The third instalment of so-called Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) files, transferred from the Ministry of Defence to The National Archives, covers the period from 1987 to 1993 and reveals a number of interesting "X-Files" reports, including the one from the dog-walker in Norfolk.

In November 1989, a member of staff at RAF Wattisham took a call, said to be "one of our most unusual UFO reports", from a frightened woman who claimed a man who had identified himself as coming from another planet had spoken to her while she was walking her dog.

The report was taken seriously enough to be investigated by the MoD's intelligence branch, DI55, whose brief was to follow up credible UFO reports.

"She described the man as 5ft 9ins, fair hair, with a Scandinavian-type accent and dressed in a light brown garment similar to a flying suit," the typed reports state.

During the 10-minute conversation, he claimed his race was responsible for creating crop circles and also explained he felt it was important for contact between the two peoples to occur. "He went on to explain that the purpose of their visits was friendly but they were told not to have contact with the people of Earth for fear that they might be treated as a potential threat. He had spoken to her because he felt it was important for contact between the two people to occur."

The man then left the terrified woman and she ran towards home until "she heard a loud buzzing noise behind her and turned to see a large spherical object, glowing orange-white rising vertically from behind some trees which rose steadily until out of sight".

The hour-long conversation with the RAF Wattisham staff member took place the day after the experience, which occurred at 10.30pm on November 20.