I BELIEVE ALIENS WILL COME HERE BY 2012

The treasurer of a pensioners' campaign group has quit his full-time position to form an organisation dedicated to helping humanity establish contact with alien life forms. Phillip Snow, who will continue to assist the North Staffordshire Pensioners' Convention on a part-time basis, believes a rise in UFO sightings is a sign of the dawning of a new age.

He is convinced this is a time when first contact will be established with extra-terrestrial beings.

Ministry of Defence records show that 158 unexplained sightings were reported nationally in 2005, up from 86 in 2004 and 99 in 2003.

Mr Snow, aged 60, of Betley Court, Betley, has set up the New Living group, which is dedicated to easing the public into an era when the prospect of alien sightings will no longer be a source of panic.

It will raise awareness of its beliefs and offer advice to anyone concerned about other life forms.

The group has no affiliation with the pensioner's convention. Mr Snow is a devotee of the Mayan calendar, which is a series of prophesies and predictions left by the ancient indigenous people of Central America.

Some people believe the Mayans were visited by aliens, who taught them the advanced understandings their race is famous for. Experts are still baffled as to how the Mayans were able to master mathematics, create accurate astrological calendars and build massive pyramids in the jungle.

Some believe the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world in the year 2012 when the calendar - which started in 3115BC - draws to a close.

But Mr Snow believes the end of the Mayan calendar predicts the start of an age when other beings will make contact and teach humans how to solve huge environmental problems such as global warming.

Mr Snow said: "Particularly in 2012, there will be a quantum shift into a golden age. Originally, people were talking about the end of the world, but it's not going to be like that.

"We will establish contact with our galactic neighbours. They will help us through this shift and they will tell us the true history of life - that we didn't evolve from monkeys, we are of extra-terrestrial origin."

Mr Snow believes most aliens look exactly like us and could already be living on earth completely undetected by the authorities.

Mr Snow added: "I know at first people will think I'm a crackpot. But I've studied this for 30 years and it is going to happen."

A spokesman for bookmakers Ladbrokes offered odds of 10,000,000-1 on aliens making contact by the year 2012. William Hill offered more conservative odds on the Prime Minister of the day confirming the existence of intelligent alien life at 100-1.

[link to www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk]