STRANGE sightings in the sky and unidentified flying objects have been spotted near Tendring Colchester this week.

And the sightings have come in the same week that the National Archive released a series of Government UFO files.

Steve Woods, from Prettygate, Colchester, was at home on Sunday morning when he spotted something which was travelling “with the breeze across the sky”.

He said: “It looks like it was a huge balloon which had broken free and was caught in streams of air across the sky.”

That evening a resident in Victoria Road, Colchester, also spotted something described as “twice as big as the sun and fiery on all the edges”.

And another resident, Mr Whitehouse, was sitting outside with his family on Tuesday.

He said: “We saw this round shape disk in the sky. It had so many lights on it i was shocked. It wasn’t a plane.

“It stood still in the air then looked like it was landing in the field so I ran out the back to take a photo and when I got out the back it was gone.

“I will never forget what I saw. This was no chinesse lantern. It was some kind of ship but not sure what.”

The Government files, available at nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos, have incidents logged and sightings stretching back decades.

But none of them are in Essex - with Woodbridge, Suffolk, the nearest location.