НЛО. Австралия

THE truth is out there for a young Townsville doctor-in-training who believes he has photographic evidence of a UFO chasing a large flock of birds.

James Cook University medical student Joshua Thompson, 20, was driving to his home at Riverside Gardens in Douglas on Tuesday about 6pm when he spotted thousands of small black birds flying over the Ross River towards the Palmetum gardens, as he went past the bridge.

"I've never seen anything like that before in Townsville," he said.

"I thought that looked a bit cool."

He took a photograph on his iPhone 5 and, when later examining the picture, he noticed two strange, small saucer-shaped objects in the sky.

In one of the photos, there is a clear burst of yellow light in the shape of a disc, with six small lights in the sky.

"The six small lights really weirded me out," he said.

"You can see them really clearly in this ring type of thing."

There also appears to be a black shadow behind the unknown object, and another object above it, seemingly flying away.

The lit UFO also has a transparent beam underneath it, suggesting it is zooming away.

"My theory is the birds may have been some sort of cover for it to get away," he said.

Mr Thompson uploaded his sighting to YouTube from his smartphone on Tuesday night, attracting more than 1000 views within 24 hours.

He said he was not a "superstitious" person, but was aware of another recent sighting.

"My mate who is in the same course as me, who did astronomy as an elective this semester, he saw a similar sighting about a month ago in the same area, the same type of disc-orb shape, he said, that just took off," he said.

"I didn't actually see it at all, I was just driving and quickly took a snap, and the rest is history."

Mr Thompson, who is originally from Darwin and also lived in Indonesia and Portugal for many years, said he had never seen anything like the UFO before in his time living around the world. "I've occasionally seen lights in the sky and just thought, oh, shooting star, or whatever nothing that crazy," he said.

Kenneth Armitage, from Townsville City Council's parks department, said he was not aware of any reports from Palmetum staff about unusual activity in the sky this week.