World affairs

The ‘dead alien’ video which took YouTube by storm has turned out to be (surprise, surprise) a fake.

Timur Hilall, 18, and Kirill Vlasov, 19 have admitted their video was a fake after being quizzed by police.

“We found the alien in one of the student's homes,” a Russian interior minister said.

“It was lying under his bed and an examination of it revealed it had been made of bread crumbs which were then covered in chicken skin.”

It has yet to be decided if the two men committed a crime and if they will be prosecuted.

Despite the admission of fakery some UFO fans have started accusing the Russian government of a massive cover-up.

'We know what we saw,” one said. “Powerful people in the military just don't want us  to see this.”

The video, which has received nearly 6 million views since being uploaded, purports to show the badly damaged corpse of an extra-terrestrial, a 2ft tall visitor that is missing part of his right leg.