LAST week's Chronicle report about a strange craft passing over Chester has encouraged more UFO spotters to come forward.

Steve Culshaw and his partner Erika Tetley had told how they witnessed a triangular-shaped craft, which made a humming noise, skimming the roof tops of the Blacon estate on a recent Sunday evening.

Other people have since been prompted to contact the newsdesk with similar tales of angular-shaped craft travelling low and slow in the sky.

One ex-RAF serviceman, who did not wish to be named, believes he too saw the craft above Blacon on February 29.

The witness said he was an experienced pilot who only left the Air Force last year.

He said: 'I was travelling back from my parents home in Ruthin, I live in Chester, when I saw a light in the sky. It was like a very bright star in the distance. I was probably at about Loggerheads at the time.

'As I got quite close to Chester coming down Sealand Road, it was not long after 11pm, I did see it and it looked very much like an airliner but I didn't see the outline of an aircraft.

'It was quite difficult to see what the shape of the vehicle was,' continued the witness, who added visibility was not brilliant because it was misty.

'There appeared to be more lights than on a normal airliner and it was moving very slowly. It was quite low, possibly about 1,000 feet.'

'If it was an aeroplane it must have been very close to dropping out of the sky,' said the observer, who commented he would be 'surprised' if the object was anything other than a jet, but added: 'It was definitely unusual, I have got to say.'

Another reader Jane Steven believes she saw the same phenomenon on a different occasion.

She said: 'I read with interest the article on the UFO sighting as I am positive I saw this same 'aircraft' a few weeks ago. As I was driving to my family's farm between Rossett and Holt a very low triangular aircraft suddenly passed overhead. I seriously thought it was going to land in one of our fields.

'This would have been at about 7pm and on a week night. The thought of it being a UFO flicked through my mind, but I'm sure there is a more realistic explanation!'

Sisters Helen and Jenny Schrimshaw, of Malpas, were prompted to get in touch by their mother Kay who read last week's article and remembered her daughters saying they had seen a UFO, although she had dismissed it at the time.

Helen, 19, who works at the Ramada Jarvis Hotel near Chester, said she and her sibling were with three friends in the churchyard at Malpas in April 2002 when they experienced a close encounter.

She said: 'We were sitting there until 4am. We heard this dodgy humming noise. We could see these red lights. We had no idea what it was. By the noise it seemed dead close to us.

'Then we saw it and we thought 'What is that'. It was a bit like a cube in shape. It had a square base with a hexagon on top. We were underneath it. We were really scared.

'And it was hardly moving. We thought it was going to land in the other field. I had never seen anything like before.'

Helen compared the size of the craft to the Jodrell Bank radio telescope which she visited recently. And although she doesn't believe in 'little green men' she finds it hard to imagine how it could have been created with existing technology.

Her theory is the craft, which only just passed above the church spire is 'something to do with the MOD'.

Sister Jenny, 19, a sixth former, said: 'It looked like a massive blue or purple object which flew quite low above the church. It had green lights at the back corners and a massive beam of red light at the front.

'At the time people thought I was mad,' she added.

Family friend Nick Sivil, 19, of Malpas, a performing arts student, said: 'We definitely saw a solid object, and it was not a plane. I really don't know what I saw that night.'