"A group of Midlothian childhood friends have revisited a terrifying ‘alien encounter’ that left them traumatised for decades.

Anne Calder, 54, Pamela Pollok, 53 and May Brown, 55, were part of a group of five friends, all aged between eight and 10, who believe they encountered a ‘creature not of this world’ when walking together in 1978.

The alleged incident took place on an old railway line which runs underneath the bridge on Suttieslea Road, Newtongrange.

Frozen in fear, they all give matching descriptions of a three foot tall ‘alien’ perched in a tree on a route they had walked hundreds of times before.

All three remember the alien as having bright luminous yellow eyes with greenish brown skin and a synthesised sounding voice but strangely no mouth.

Looking back at the event, they feel the alien may have been communicating with them telepathically.

After the creature ‘spoke’ with the group, they all claim to have blacked out and said they only remember standing in a field around five minutes away - but not how they got there.

Anne, who has suffered from night terrors relating to the incident, believes they may have blacked out as they were taken aboard a UFO..."