Lights in the sky over Lilleshall. Picture by Gareth Goodwin

What are these strange cigar-shaped lights spotted glowing in the sky above Telford?

Could they be an optical illusion caused by unusual atmospheric conditions?

Are they Chinese sky lanterns, which have sparked so many claims of unidentified flying objects recently?

Or are they perhaps evidence of an alien invasion?

The questions have been posed by Shropshire Star reader Gareth Goodwin who was on hand with his camera to capture the pair of orange lights.

“I spotted this this strange vision looking north from Lilleshall at about 11.45pm yesterday,” he said.

Mr Goodwin’s photograph is just the latest in a spate of weird and wonderful sightings in Shropshire, which is rapidly gaining a reputation for being something of a Twilight Zone, reaching the national top 10 for reports of UFOs and big cats. In March, similar lights to these pictured were spotted in the sky around Telford.

The mystery was solved shortly afterwards when Colin Turner, a customer services officer with Telford & Wrekin Council, said the lights were Chinese sky lanterns which he had lit and launched .

Mr Turner, of Dunlin Close, Leegomery, dismissed the suggestion aliens had landed in the county as “nonsense”.

Nevertheless, the county is coming under close scrutiny from Phillip Hoyle, of the UFO Investigation and Research Unit in Shrewsbury, who says there is no single obvious explanation for the sightings.

At least 30 sightings of weird lights were reported in the county during a two-month period this year.