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Sceptics who thought that Manchester United’s treble win in 1999 was achieved with the aid of some higher power might have been onto something after all.

The Red Devils’ unprecedented capture of the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in the one season at the end of the last millennium was truly a marvellous feat, but it seems as if they might have been helped by some alien power not of this earth.

A bizarre theory perhaps, but not if your imagination is capable of giving even the slightest bit of credibility to a recent report, 6,700 pages long, detailing various UFO encounters over the last 30 years.

According to The Sun this morning, hidden somewhere in the incredibly lengthy report is a claim from a police officer on duty at United’s FA Cup quarter-final victory over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in 1999, who said that he spotted something “unlike anything I’ve seen before”.

The police officer in question described seeing a “square to almond shape” yellow object, with four lights, floating silently above his horse.

There’s not much more detail included about the UFO spotted at the United game, but if you want an idea of the type of sightings included in the report, another one details the experience of a Wales hotelier who spotted two silver “faceless humanoids” taking measurements in a field shortly after landing in a UFO nearby. Make of that one what you will.

We don’t want to completely ridicule the claims of the Stamford Bridge policeman or others that may have been included in the report, but these particular extraterrestrial sightings seem just a little far-fetched to us.

Forgive us for having a little fun with the content of the report, but we wager that the general reaction might be something along the lines of Chief Wiggum's when Homer put it to him that he spotted an alien in the forest in a classic episode of The Simpsons.