Brighton is the second most popular place in the country to spot UFOs – unidentified floating objects.

According to research, if you pay a visit to Brighton beach you’re likely to come across mysterious objects causing concern to environment experts. The Barefoot Wine Beach Rescue Project has teamed up with national environment charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) to help uncover a tide of alien objects washing up on our famous shingle.

The random objects include thousands of identical blue rubber balls, blue plastic stoppers and multicoloured nylon pellets known as ‘mermaid’s tears.’ Dom Ferris, SAS campaign manager, revealed the origin of Brighton’s UFOs.

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He said: “The mermaid’s tears are from injection moulding factories and the tiny pellets are used to make their plastic products.

“The blue balls have been traced back to Taprogge GmbH, which is a German company known for its tube cleaning systems for steam turbine condensers, heat exchangers and debris filters for water-cooled shell and tube heat exchangers and condensers such as those used in power stations and other heavy industrial processes.”

Other disturbing discoveries include a yoghurt pot dating from the 1980s and a crisp packet from the 1960s, as well as thousands of cigarette butts.

Brighton and Hove has been ranked second behind Saltburn in Yorkshire for the British seaside destination with the most mysterious objects.

Porthtowan and Perranporth in Cornwall, Croyde in North Devon and Kimmeridge Baye in Dorset fill up the remaining top-five places.

This year’s Barefoot Wine Beach Rescue Project has now come to a close, and since its founding in 2008, has collected more than 12 tonnes of rubbish across the UK’s beaches.