MYSTERIOUS orange lights in the sky above the Cotswold Water Park have been labeled UFOs by residents at a loss to explain what they have seen.

The phenomenom has been witnessed by several people over the festive period who insisted they were not the Chinese lanterns that are often blamed for UFO sightings.

Cirencester resident Natasha Brock was driving on the Spine Road near the Four Pillars Hotel just after Christmas with her boyfriend Sam Howitt and cousin Bryony Newton when they saw around 20 of the lights.

The 19-year-old said: "They were a glowing orange colour and were really quite bright. They were in pairs one underneath the other one.

"We pulled over and two of them started moving off to the right and then disappeared and then the next two and then the next two.

"It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. It wasn’t anything like those Chinese Lanterns. We know two other people in Cricklade who said they saw the same thing at the same time."

Natasha’s mother Becky Whitaker, who lives in Ashton Keynes, says she saw the lights on New Year’s Day.

"There’s a lot of people in the village that have been seeing them since before Christmas up until a few nights ago," she told us this week.

"I was driving back from work and I spotted them because they were so orange. They were the brightest orange you had ever seen, it was quite peculiar.

"I pulled over and turned the car off but you couldn’t hear anything."

A spokesman for Wiltshire police and the Ministry of Defence said they had received no reports of UFOs sightings in the area.

Do you know what the phenomenom was? Contact the Standard newsroom on 01285 627319.