JUNE 24, 2013 - WALES - A man says he and two friends looked on "gobsmacked" as their car, dog and tent were abducted by aliens from a fleet of 12 to 15 alien space crafts.The claims come amid the bizarre extraterrestrial tales revealed in newly released UFO documents by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Bizarre extraterrestrial tales have been revealed in newly released UFO documents by the Ministry of Defence.Included in the 25 files, which contain 4,400 pages of reports received between 2007 and 2009, are reports of alien abductions, air chases between police and flying saucers and spaceship wreckages in North Wales.In one handwritten letter and diagram, a man from Cardiff claims that on October 1992, he and two friends were left "gobsmacked" after witnessing the abduction of their car, dog and tent.And in June 2008, a South Wales Police helicopter crew reportedly chased a UFO that had nearly collided with them.The encounter happened as the crew of three returned to their St Athan military base in Cardiff.The MoD's UFO project is now being shut down after government officials decided it was no longer worth keeping open.The latest cache of documents chronicles the final reports of a department set up due to a surge in UFO "sightings" in a full-blown social phenomenon.Dr David Clarke, author of the book The UFO Files, said it was a cultural fascination in the myth of aliens that led to the thousands of believed sightings.He said: "People believe in aliens but there's actually no evidence of it."They do see UFOs but they turn out to be something that isn't extraordinary when you look into them."Within the latest UFO documents released are reports of an alien spaceship crash landing on the Berwyn mountain in North Wales, supposed to have happened in January 1974.Witnesses claimed they saw soldiers at the crash site collecting two alien bodies and driving them and the spaceship away.A handwritten letter and diagram from someone in Cardiff claimed that on October 1992, he and two friends had been left "gobsmacked" after witnessing the abduction of their car, dog and tent by a fleet of 12 to 15 alien space crafts."People don't want to read 'woman sees UFO but it turns out to be a balloon'. It must make good headlines," said Dr Clarke.In June 2008, a South Wales Police helicopter reportedly chased a UFO that had nearly collided with them.The encounter happened as the crew of three returned to their St Athan military base in Cardiff, though there was no evidence it was "an alien flying saucer".In 2009, a 46-year-old public relations consultant walking his dog in Newport wrote to the MoD saying: "I can't believe I'm actually doing this but I'd like to report a UFO sighting over Newport, South Wales."The person reported a mysterious bright red light in the clouds that did not have the markings of a plane, but said "I don't subscribe to ideas of aliens visiting the planet because I don't believe that it is possible to cross the vast distance of space".Another Newport onlooker saw a black circle in 1954 that when turned sideways looked like a flying saucer, with the man saying "he had seen a few strange objects in his time, and that this was definitely a UFO".Other UFO sightings in Cardiff, Pontypridd and Swansea were also reported to the UFO desk during its last years.The MoD's response to these reports was often a generic letter, stating: "Unless there is evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom from an external source, and to date no 'UFO' report has revealed such evidence, we do not attempt to identify the precise nature of each sighting reported to us."UFO experts say that although there may well be extraterrestrial life-forms out there, many recent sightings have been airplanes, military drones and Chinese lanterns."The first thing I would say is that it's 99% fairly mundane material and there's nothing unusual about that," said Nick Pope, who worked on the MoD's UFO project from 1991 to 1994."At least nine out of 10 UFO sightings have almost always turned out to be honest but mistaken."Mr Pope said factors like the rise of the Chinese lantern and science fiction all contributed to the increased number of aliens allegedly being spotted.Since the release of Steven Spielberg's 1978 film - Close Encounters of the Third Kind - reports have rocketed, with the UFO desk receiving more than 600 sightings and reports in 2009 - treble the amount of the previous year."The Ministry of Defence was faced with the situation that this small UFO project just simply couldn't cope and effectively just rolled over and gave up," said Mr Pope."What would have been better is to have a proper filter mechanism so that when you get a report in that's obviously a Chinese lantern, you just ignore it or put next to zero resources into it. In that way you should discriminate and really focus on the good stuff."Mr Pope added: "The believers only have to be proved right once."The final set of UFO Files is now available to the public and can be accessed at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos - WALES ONLINE.