A FAMILY were left shocked after what they believe was a UFO hovering above them as they sat in their garden in Shoebury on Monday.

Kelly Wells, 40, says she thought the "unidentified flying object" she saw was a Chinese lantern at first, until it starting darting backwards and forwards, and getting brighter.

She, said: "We were just in shock. We saw it two nights in a row. At first I thought it was a Chinese lantern and I said 'wow look at that! Blimey, it’s coming towards us, isn’t it bright?!' and then it darted back.

"Then we thought well maybe it’s a drone, as the MOD isn’t far from where we were."

Echo:

UFO? - Kelly took this photo of the object in the sky

Kelly called out other family members to come into the garden to take a look and decided to start filming and taking photos.

Kelly's videos show a bright, silvery, circular object, rapidly spinning in a circle, with what appears to be a small circle within a larger one.

The object then darts around from left to right, back and forth and glowing and dimming.

Echo:

Great experience - Kelly and her family were shocked

Kelly, added: "I put the photos into a few UFO spotting Facebook groups and some of them were saying it could be the international space station but when we looked up to see where it was, it was in Papa New Guinea.

"Others said they were UFO orbs - balls of energy.

"You could see it coming, it was darting backwards and forwards, and then it was just getting brighter then it would just dim out.

"When it first dimmed out we thought 'oh, it’s gone'. But then it came back and we could see it move over to the right."

Kelly says she has never seen anything close to a UFO sighting before and said it was a great experience.