Flying saucers are regular visitors to Bradford, claim a group of skywatchers who have poured scorn on a boffin's claim intelligent life is confined to the Planet Earth.

According to Bradford University's Professor Peter Excell, the chances of life existing anywhere else in the universe is ridiculously low.

Prof Excell, of Bradford University's Electronics and Electrical Engineering Department, is an expert on the work of Sir Edward Appleton, the Bradford-born scientist who first proved the existence of the ionosphere.

He said in the Telegraph & Argus yesterday that the chances of intelligent life existing on other planets was much more remote than was currently believed - possibly as little as one in a hundred billion.

But local folk say they have witnessed events which can only be explained by aliens star trekking their way to West Yorkshire.

"Make no mistake, they are out there," said Tony Dodd, a retired police officer and author of the book Alien Investigator. "UFOs are coming to Earth every day."

Mr Dodd, 64, of Grassington, rejects Proffessor Excell's picture of a universe in which the finely balanced conditions of the Earth meant it is probably the only planet capable of sustaining life.

He says scientists should look outside their labs once in a while.

"If they cannot put it in a test tube they will not believe in it," said Mr Dodd.

"It is what they are trained to do, they have to have 100 per cent proof for everything.

"In all my investigations I have found many of the scientific community to be very blinkered in their views."

Mr Dodd is certain intelligent life exists on other planets and, he says, he witnessed a visitation that changed his life in 1978 - see our sidebar for details.

George Walker, 68, of Lidget Green, also claims to have seen evidence of intelligent alien life.

He was driving home late in September 1991 after a day in York when he, his late wife and their son saw a flying saucer hovering above trees ahead of them.

"No one can say they don't exist because I have actually seen the evidence," said Mr Walker.

"It was round, 10ft tall, about 13ft wide and aluminium coloured. It was like a bright white light with coloured light underneath and it wasn't making a sound."

Graham Birdsall, editor of Ilkley-based UFO Magazine, said he was optimistic that intelligent extra-terrestrial life existed.

The sheer enormity of the universe - billions of stars with billions of planets in orbit - made it certain that life does exist somewhere out there, he believes.

In our own backyard, in the solar system, scientists recently discovered water, in the form of polar ice caps, on the moon and evidence of oceans on the moons of Jupiter.

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