A panicked Stevenage man called the emergency services to report a UFO flying towards his house.

The man rang 999 from his home in Canterbury Way to report “big bright lights floating in the sky”.

He told the operator: “It’s coming towards me now- its enormous lights blazing – I don’t know what the hell it is.

“It’s not an aeroplane, cos it’s hovering, I don’t know what it is!”

The UFO appeared to be over Walkern, the man added.

After logging the report, the operator said she will see if any police in the area know what is going on.

A couple of minutes later however the man called back: “I’ve just made a right mistake. I thought I saw something really strange. You won’t believe this – it’s the moon.”

The log, recorded earlier this month, was released by Herts Police as part of an initiative to try to cut hoax calls at Halloween. The constabulary receive around 20 per cent more 999 and non-emergency calls on October 31 than on an average day - with 1,435 last year.

Jason Baxter, assistant manager at the force communications room, said: “While the caller here may not have been phoning out of malice, his phone call still tied up valuable police resources and time for something which was not an emergency.

“I would like to encourage people before they phone 999 to ask themselves – is this really a police matter? If this is not a police matter, please do not call us. If it is not a genuine emergency call, please ring us on our non-emergency number 101. Otherwise, you could potentially put others with genuine police or emergency calls at risk or prevent them from getting through.”