ET phone home ... and you can use the public call boxes at the bottom of Buchanan Street.

Believe it or not, Glasgow has been named the UFO capital of Scotland.

The city has stolen the title from Bonnybridge, which for decades has been abuzz with reported sightings of alien spacecraft.

UFO TOP 10 BRITAIN'S Top 10 UFO hotspots: 1 West Yorkshire. 2 Nottinghamshire. 3 Lancashire. 4 Shropshire. 5 North Somerset and Avon. 6 Suffolk. 7 South Wales. 8 Co Durham. 9 Glasgow. 10 Devon.

Glasgow is the only location in Scotland to make the Virgin Media Files, a specially compiled list of Britain's top 10 places for spotting UFOs.

The hotspots were identified by using recorded data from a UFO research website.

Glasgow's tourism and civic leaders welcomed the news that inter-galactic tourists are seemingly flocking to the city.

A city council spokesman said: "This is no great surprise. Glasgow already has an international reputation and we've always said that what the city has to offer is out of this world.

"It's also known as the friendly city, so ET can be assured of a warm welcome whenever he or she decides to pay us a formal visit.

"It's great that Glasgow's name appears to be spreading so far."

Whether it's the shops, the clubs or the city's galleries drawing the attention, it isn't clear.

Sightings have been recorded since 1961 and Nick Pope, who once headed a Ministry of Defence project which monitored reports of alleged alien activity, helped compile the list.

He said: "While we have no explanation why certain places in the UK are alien hotspots, there are areas where mysterious objects are repeatedly witnessed, so people who want to alien-spot should definitely head to Glasgow."

One alien-spotter in Glasgow, which comes ninth in the UK top 10, told of a mysterious ball of light in the city centre in the run-up to Christmas.

The spotter said: "As I was walking down Sauchiehall Street to Buchanan Street I heard and saw a small ball of green light whizz from behind me, round in front of me at knee level, then go up across me gaining in height and then up over the roofs."

Scott Taylor, chief executive of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, said: "Glasgow's reputation as a must-see visitor destination is spreading even further than we thought.

"The city's style credentials obviously have a strong galactic appeal and we can perhaps look forward to welcoming inter-planetary conventions in the near future."

Stranger than fiction

He said: "I was lying in the back garden getting some sun - a very rare phenomenon here - and a craft was flying, west to east, slightly to the south of where I was. It was oval-shaped and I saw it from its underside. It reminded me of a walnut split in half."

Five revellers at a city barbecue saw a bright light move "purposefully" across the clear night sky.

And a Paisley resident claimed to have seen a white disc-shaped craft five times the size of a jumbo jet, which vanished "in the blink of an eye" while, in Linwood, a skywatcher using a telescope saw a white object "glide by the stars".

The last two sightings were, of course, near Glasgow Airport.