A UFO hunter has called for a scientific inquiry into a mysterious black object filmed flying over the Bristol channel.

Gary Heseltine, editor of UFO Truth magazine, says the National Police Air Service (NPAS) who filmed the footage have failed to provide enough information about the UFO, which was spotted in September at around 1,000 feet.

NPAS St Athan, in South Wales, filmed the UFO for seven minutes on September 24 last year but only posted a short 1.15 minute clip on Twitter.

The video shows a round black object moving across the night sky.

Mr Heseltine says he has submitted Freedom of Information requests to find out more. 

The police said it ‘was pitch black’ at the time and the object was filmed with the helicopter’s infra-red cameras.

Mr Heseltine, a retired Detective Constable with the British Transport Police, told The Mirror: ‘What I can say is that in my opinion the police have not been as open and transparent as they could have been.

‘I believe this British case is a major UFO event and should be the subject of a scientific enquiry.’

NPAS St Athan ruled out a suggestion that it could be a balloon or a lantern.

‘Only slight problem is the amount of heat and it was travelling into wind?,’ they said on Twitter.

‘We really don’t know but doubt it was a lantern as it was going into the wind,’ they added.

When other UFO hunters asked for information about the object’s size, NPAS said: ‘Really difficult to judge the size but we filmed it for just over 7 minutes as we were coming back into land.’