A team of British scientists is convinced it has found proof of alien life, just outside Chester.

According to a report in the Journal of Cosmology, scientists sent a balloon 27km into space from an open field near Dunham-on-the-Hill on July 31.

It returned carrying small biological organisms which they believe can only have originated from space.

Professor Milton Wainwright, of the University of Sheffield, said that he was ‘95 per cent convinced’ that the organisms did not originate from earth.

“If they came from earth, we would expect to see stuff that we find on earth commonly, like pollen,” he said.

“We're very, very confident that these are biological entities originating from space,” he said, acknowledging that absolutely certainty is hard to achieve in science.

Isolation of Biological Entities from the Stratosphere is published by Milton Wainwright, Christopher E Rose, Alexander J Baker, Briston K J and N Chancra Wickramasinghe.