Get the biggest stories sent straight to your inbox Sign up for regular updates and breaking news from WalesOnline Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

The fleet of 12 to 15 alien space crafts were seen by 37-year-old Keith Robins one evening in 1992 while on a Whitchurch camping trip with friends Christopher French and Sylvan Salway.

Still at school, Keith and his friends had asked permission from their parents to go on the trip. But the group were left disappointed when before they had a chance to pitch their tent, the alien vessels made off with their Datsun Cherry and all its contents.

“We got all our stuff together and we parked the car up in Whitchurch,” said Keith, from Rumney.

“We went looking for a gully area. My two mates were a little bit further ahead of me.”

With Keith’s camping tent and Chris’ eight-week-old pit bull staffordshire terrier eight-week-old puppy still inside, the locked car “vanished” off the face of the earth without the engine starting.

“It all happened so fast in about three to five minutes. I walked back to the car and it had just vanished off the face of the earth,” said Keith.

With the car missing, it was at this point that all three noticed a bright glow above the trees that were there for just under a minute before zooming off into space.

“These lights came from behind these massive trees. About 12 to 15 of them. I thought they were pink flamingos. My other mates thought they were fire flies,” he said.

“They then just speeded up and were gone in 30 seconds. I was baffled – so confused.”

The next day, Keith and his friends reported the incident to the police, leaving out the mysterious floating objects, but a search for the Datsun Cherry and it’s contents proved futile.

Keen to find out what he saw, Keith sent a handwritten letter and diagram showing the alien space crafts and sent it to the MoD in October 1992.

“I don’t 100% know what happened but what happened I’m going to believe it for the rest of my life. I’m willing to have a lie detector test,” he said.

“I’ve been telling this story for years.

“I’ve been a believer ever since.”

Mr Robins’ story was just one of many extraterrestrial tales revealed to the public when the Ministry of Defence released its final cache of UFO documents.

The 25 files contained 4,400 pages of reports received between 2007 and 2009 with details of alien abductions, air chases between police and UFOs and spaceship wreckages.

The MoD’s UFO desk, which handled these reports, saw the number of UFO sightings rocket, with 600 reported in 2009 alone.

Buckling under the weight of these submissions, the project was recently shutdown, but Nick Pope, who worked for the UFO project from 1991 to 1994 said believers should not be laughed off too quickly.

“The believers only have to be proved right once,” he said.