Green aliens ‘with cream-coloured bellies’ have been plaguing the skies of Greater Manchester, according to calls made to the Ministry of Defence.

The claim came from a caller in Wigan, who said they had spotted 17 spaceships carrying the extra-terrestrial beings through the sky.

The undated incident was among 22 alleged UFO sightings made across the region in the last decade.

In another close encounter, another panicked witness claimed to have seen a “dome-shaped orange ball of light” take off from a field in Leigh in February 2009.

The caller described the transparent object as ‘organic like a jellyfish;, adding: “You could see its internal workings. It departed swaying left to right and made a droning noise.”

And another person saw a “UFO that appeared several times during the night” in Bolton in November 2009 - perhaps unsurprisingly, as it was Bonfire Night.

Curiously, there were two mystery items reported in Stockport on December 18, 2001.

One is recorded as “two grey plumes of smoke in the sky over Stockport railway station. A grey triangle was then witnessed.”

The other was “red light moving fast, high up in the sky”, which “slowed down, got fast again, then wobbled from side to side”.

Another detailed sighting was reported in Ashton-under-Lyne in September 2009, when a caller claimed to have seen eight orange UFOs, which “shone brightly, travelling at speed, low in the sky”.

They then reportedly changed direction at a 90 degree angle towards West Yorkshire.

The sightings, which are among some 2,000 reported to the MoD nationally between 2000 and 2009, are not the first to have emerged from Greater Manchester.

In the 1970s, a documentary was made about a couple who spotted a UFO on Urmston meadows, as did police who were called to the scene.

Last year the government released details of a call from pilot Roger Willis to Manchester air traffic control in 1995, when he said his passenger plane was overtaken at high speed by a wedge-shaped craft with bright lights.

Happy Mondays star Shaun Ryder even claims to have had twice spotted UFOs while growing up in Salford, experiences which inspired his book What Planet Am I On? last year.