Locals spot baffling object as it flies and hovers above trees near coast of Cornwall

LOCALS have been left baffled after seeing a mysterious "flying object" hovering over their town.

The large circular object was spotted flying over Cornwall on Sunday - and is set to return over the coming weeks.

Suspended from a helicopter, the huge disc resembled a UFO as it floated over the Cornish sky.

Visiting pilot Guy Powers, from Essex, saw the object hovering over a forest when he was driving home along the coast near Redruth.

The dad-of-two told : "It disappeared over the trees, and then 20 minutes later we saw it again just kind of circling around.

"I've never seen anything in my life like that.

"It was definitely bigger than the helicopter itself, like the length of two helicopters.

He added: "It was kind of sloping behind the helicopter so it didn't look very heavy.

"My four-year-old is fascinated by aeroplanes and my 12-year-old eventually took his eyes off his own phone to look up into the sky."

The baffling object was actually a sensor measuring the natural electrical conductivity of the Earth's surface and subsurface, and is part of a geological survey conducted by the University of Exeter across Cornwall.

An airborne electromagnetic survey started over the United Downs and Redmoor last week, and will cover 100 square km over the next two weeks, weather allowing.

The Deep Digital Cornwall project will map underground granite, regional fault systems and potentially lucrative mineral veins.

But Cornwall residents were still baffled by the object's appearance.

One said: "It's a Devon spy balloon."

Another commented: "That's my washing peg - where are all my socks and knickers?"

A third wrote: "It's a Chinese spy balloon from Wish."

While a fourth added: "If it's an alien looking for intelligent life in Cornwall, we're safe."

It comes after The Sun revealed that ex-Pentagon insider Lue Elizondo is urging the US government to take seriously the threat posed by UFOs.

We also revealed that a whistleblowing sailor on the USS Paul Hamilton claims that mysterious objects which buzzed the ship moved in a way no human-controlled craft would.