John Macdonald with the picture he took last week

A pensioner has captured a picture of a UFO which he claims hovered near his home for a few minutes before vanishing.

The aircraft, which bears a striking resemblance to the alien spacecraft from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, was said to have been snapped over Rossie Ochil, Perthshire.

John Macdonald, 65, from Dysart, Fife, is convinced he saw a spaceship above him and said it was only around 50 to 70 yards away from him.

He said: 'It's definitely a space craft of some sort.

'I don't know whether I frightened it or not with the flash of the camera, because in the beat of a heart it was gone.'

It happened at around 11pm last Sunday, when he was driving home after visiting a friend.

He described how the noise drowned out the sound of his jeep.

'My jeep is quite noisy, but this sounded like a thousand hoovers.

'When I phoned my friend, who's a shepherd, he said 'don't worry about it, we get this up here quite a lot'.

One suggestion is that the mysterious flying object, which looks like the spacecraft in the Stephen Spielberg's science fiction hit movie, could have been a drone.

But the Civil Aviation Authority said, although it was possible to fly a drone in darkness, it would make managing to control such a craft much more difficult.

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said: 'It's possible to fly a drone in darkness, but you have to keep it in your line of sight at all times.

'If you are flying something in darkness it is difficult to keep it in your visual line of sight.

'Even though it has lights, you won't be able to see it sufficiently well to control it.

'At night, you can't see obstacles because the obstacles aren't lit.

But Mr Macdonald dismisses the idea that his experience was anything other than out of this world.

'I always thought there was something out there, but have never seen anything until now,' he added.

'There is no doubt in my mind. I know what I saw.'

John Macdonald, 65, from Dysart, Fife, is convinced he saw a spaceship above him and said it was only around 50 to 70 yards away from him

The aircraft, which bears a striking resemblance to the alien spacecraft from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (pictured), was said to have been snapped over Rossie Ochil, Perthshire

Drone pilot, Jonathan Hall, from Southport says he is also convinced that the image is not a drone.

He said: 'I have no idea what it is but am pretty sure it's not a drone craft.