STAR-GAZERS plan to make Rossendale the UFO tourism centre of the country if not quite the universe.

The scheme is not as out of this world as it might seem at first glance.

Bacup UFO Society is well ahead with plans to open a UFO Centre above a restaurant in Market Street in about three weeks and a national conference is to be held at the 500-seat Empire Theatre in Bacup in the summer.

The Society is hoping that Janet Anderson, MP for Rossendale and Darwen, and Minister responsible for tourism will attend the launch of the new centre in rooms above Popadom City restaurant.

The man behind the scheme, 52-year-old college lecturer Roger Markham, claims that Bacup is the centre of UFO in Europe and possibly even in the world with unexplained sightings reported each week.

He said: "We are not talking here about space ships containing little green men but sightings which may or may not be natural phenomena."

He added: "What we have here is a UFO hot spot and a far better claim as a tourism centre than places such as Roswell in the United States."

The centre will include a computer set up and internet facilities. UFO web sites are the second largest subject on the internet and the Society is currently constructing a web site so that anyone win the world can log on to Bacup.

The first annual conference will be held at the Empire Theatre on June 17. Roger said it was hoped that the world's leading authority and top writer on UFO's, Jenny Randles, would attend.

Jenny grew up in Waterfoot and now lives in south Manchester. She has written more than 40 books on the subject and has a world wide following.

Mr Markham added: "If this takes off as hoped it could attract millions of pounds of tourism into the town.

"We are in the middle of a network of motorways and within easy distance of such places as Haworth, which attracts American and Japanese tourists by the thousands.

"We want to get them to spend some time visiting us."

Anyone interested in joining the 30-strong society or receiving more information can contact Roger on 01706 879338.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.