IT was on July 7, 72 years ago when strange debris was spotted just north of Roswell in the USA.

When collected, the debris led to rumours of an alien crash.

Things went quiet until 1978 when Stanton T. Friedman interviewed Major Jesse Marcel, who was involved with the original recovery of the debris in 1947 who expressed his belief that the military had covered up the recovery of an alien spacecraft.

With this in mind, we turn our thoughts to a local mystery, of why the hill fort of Maiden Castle, Dorchester, seems to be a magnet for UFO sightings.

For years there have been reports of strange crafts being spotted in the sky and the appearance of crop circles in the area. Some argue that these stories may be related to an old folk tale about Maiden Castle, where a piper stumbled into the castle – enticed by lively music – and was tricked by a band of faeries into piping for them for over a hundred years.