Published: 3:31 AM 10/5/2009

Councillor has an out-of-this-world experience with a ‘ballerina-like alien’

Winchester High Street on a busy Saturday afternoon. Shoppers briskly go about their business, groups of teenagers mill around shop doors and market traders cry out their wares.

A typical English scene, you may think. But all is not as it seems – because unbeknownst to most of the shoppers, an alien walks among them.

Visible only to the chosen few, the pretty blonde interloper shuffles along the pavement in a penguin-like walk, wearing only a white ballet outfit and broad smile. No one bats an eyelid.

Is it here, in this quiet Hampshire backwater, that 'the invasion' has started? Yes, according to councillor Adrian Hicks.

He says he saw the ballerina-like alien under the city's Guildhall clock five years ago but has only now come clean about his strange encounter.

'It was staggering – I am not usually lost for words but I was that day,' he said.

'She was a humanoid walking with a penguin-like gait. 'She had very large oval eyes and was twirling her hands in a circular motion. She was laughing and seemed to be enjoying herself. She was human enough to get away with it,' he added.

And the intrigue doesn't end there. Mr Hicks, who has spent £400 perfecting an artist's impression of the alien, believes she is linked to covert US and British military operations at a nearby base.

'UFOs are flying in and out of the military base – Winchester is the UFO capital of Europe,' he added.

Mr Hicks, a Lib Dem councillor for the city, claims he saw the alien in January or February 2004.

He said other shoppers also saw her but no one had admitted it. The hospital technician also regrets not plucking up the courage to speak to her.

He has not spoken about the day for fear he would jeopardise his chances of winning a council seat, he added.

His colleagues, he says, are 'in denial' about the existence of aliens in Winchester. We have to admit, we're not convinced either, Mr Hicks.