A FAMILY who installed a security camera after a spate of burglaries in their neighbourhood were staggered to find the device had captured a UFO on screen.

Diane Beard was on holiday in Greece with her partner and three children when they went online to check footage from their Chew Moor home on August 15.

Keen to keep an eye on their empty house, they were startled to see that the motion-activated camera had caught a would-be intruder prowling around outside their house with a torch.

But a bigger shock was to come.

Footage from 11.20pm the same night shows the camera trigger for a second time by sources unknown – and then something remarkable occurs in the skies over Bolton.

Through a gap between two houses across the street, a bright white light can be seen streaking across the sky in the distance.

The light then appears to turn abruptly and travel at high speed in a different direction.

“We’ve had the camera a few months. We were actually looking for a thief. There has been a lot of robberies,” said Diane, 48.

“We didn’t know what triggered the light the second time. It couldn’t have been our cat, Alfie, as he was in the cattery while we were on holiday.

“But because we’d seen this intruder earlier, we kept watching the video.

“We were thinking that someone might appear, but there was nothing. Then we saw the light in the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

“The light has a tail following it, so I thought it could be a meteor. But a meteor doesn’t turn around in the sky and set off in the other direction. It was going at some speed.”

Watching the video from their hotel in Ixia, Rhodes, Diane’s partner, Michael Smith, joked that it was a ‘flying saucer’.

Diane’s three children Olivia, 17, Alexandria, 14 and Honor, 13 were equally astounded.

Diane posted the video on Facebook, where some speculated that it was linked to the Perseid meteor shower – and annual celestial event that peaked a few days before the footage was recorded.

“People said there had been a lot of meteors. But I looked at the video again and thought: 'No, meteors don’t turn around 90 degrees in the sky', added Diane.

“We also thought it could be a drone. But we have a drone and they usually have a flashing light. It also seems to move too fast to be a drone."

And what of the more outlandish explanations – alien visitors or even a secret military aircraft?

“I have an open mind about that sort of thing. There’s possibly something out there. Maybe there are things we don’t know about or that the Government keeps secret.

“I just want an explanation. There's probably a reasonable one. But if there isn't, maybe we’re being watched!”

To view the video, visit theboltonnews.co.uk What do you think the light could be? Have you captured any unexplained footage around Bolton? Email webdesk@theboltonnews.co.uk Message us on Facebook via facebook.com/theboltonnews or tweet us on Twitter @TheBoltonNews