ET: Recently spotted in Streatham?

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STREATHAM'S latest visitor has got internet forums, blogs and even radio chat shows buzzing with excitement.

• UFO spotted over Edgware

Hundreds of listeners flooded James Whale’s Drivetime afternoon show to report a UFO flying around Streatham Common.

First sightings came just before 6pm yesterday, when callers jammed the switchboards of Whale’s slot on LBC 97.3 saying they could see "multiple silver shapes forming in the sky".

Producers thought it was a wind-up, but the volume of calls and emails forced them to take it more seriously.

Whale said: "I got very excited when the calls started flooding in. I thought that Close Encounters was about to become a reality and that what everyone has been waiting for was finally about to happen."

The "Streatham UFO" was also the hot topic on blogging sites, such as Twitter, and in internet chatrooms.

One comment posted on internet chatroom godlikeproductions.com read: "Reports of UFO activity in skies around Streatham. Calls coming in saying silver shapes are forming in skies, lots of people looking up [at] skies in shock."

Another message posted on Twitter read: "Calls reporting huge white flash in the sky. Disc-shaped UFO appearing above Streatham Common."

However, one user wrote on the microblogging site: "If aliens planned on finding out about us, then Streatham wouldn’t be their No 1 target."

But there is still no explanation as to what could have caused the phenomenon.

Heather Dixon, of the British UFO Research Association, said: "There are many objects and lights in the skies that can be misidentified and can look very strange at times.

"I thought that Close Encounters was about to become a reality"

"That does not mean it cannot have a perfect rational explanation and that is normally the case. We would have to have a great deal more information to assess what it is."

Police said they had not received any calls about the sighting.

It is not the first time a possible alien invasion has hit Streatham.

In 2008, the Ministry of Defence investigated "a stationary bright, white light in the sky, lower than the stars with a multicoloured pulsating light" in the skies above the south London suburb.

WHAT IT COULD BE

• A Chinese lantern

• A kite

• A spy plane

• A toy helicopter

• A big cloud

• A hoax

• A silver shell suit

• Naomi Campbell throwing a tantrum