John Ottaway, of Beverley, contacted the Evening News after he and his wife witnessed strange lights over the sea and the cliffs towards Filey.

He said: "We were walking over the Spa bridge at about 7.45pm on last Saturday. There must have been in excess of over 20 lights over the sea, and near the cliffs. At first it looked like hang gliders that were lit up. But most of them flew into the sea and then looked as though they expired. A couple of them went a long way."

He said the lights looked like they were coming off the cliff and falling into the sea.

His experience follows a series of similar sightings from people around the Scarborough area over the last few months.

At the end of July there were reported sightings of a white glowing sphere above houses, travelling slowly in an easterly direction before disappearing into a sea fret.

In August, Adam Meads spotted orange coloured lights above Scarborough Castle on the night of Friday August 15.

He said he had just dropped some items off at one of the North Bay chalets and was driving past the former site of the Corner Cafe when he saw the UFOs at 9.30pm.

He said: "There were two lights above the castle and they seemed to be stationary. They started moving so I got out of the car. I turned the engine off but I couldn't hear anything. They then flew out over the bay and they became four lights."

He said: "The light was orangey and they were big enough to notice that they were circular."

And similar lights were filmed on two separate occasions, later that same night, by former fighter pilot Win Keech.

Russ Kellett, a Filey-based UFO hunter, sent the clips to the Evening News for its website. The first clip was filmed at about 10pm from Saltersgate, over RAF Fylingdales, and shows two orange balls of light which are very close together.