THE truth is out there.

It's a famous line from television show The X-Files but evidence collected by UFO Research Queensland shows Toowoomba may have had its fair share of little green visitors from outer space.

Since 1983, 15 UFO sightings have been recorded in Toowoomba.

Many of the accounts tell of bright orange balls of light.

A researcher is documenting the history of sightings of UFOs and would like to hear from anyone who may have had a personal UFO sighting, past or current, or know of such reports from their local area.

If you've seen a UFO call Sheryl Gottschall, 3376 1780.

Recorded UFO sightings

7.25pm September 13, 2013: I was out looking at Mars with my telescope with my neighbours. I was looking straight up at the milky way (without the telescope), when I saw what looked like a normal star. It was moving south with great speed. When I say great speed, it probably took a minute to get too far away to see it. It was a long way off, it didn't get any closer or change colours or leave a trail or anything.

8.15pm, April 20, 2012: My husband and I have been watching a light for 15 minutes. It has not moved and is a bright light with orange, red and blue lights flashing around it. It is in the north-eastern sky.

7.46pm, late May, 2008: I live just two streets away from the Toowoomba Airport. I was eating dinner outside, looking at the sky above the park. Suddenly, a sort of egg-shaped vessel was just hovering in the sky. The colour was one that I had never seen before - it could even be a new colour. It stayed there for about 40 minutes, but every 10 minutes it would move to a different section of the park, remaining in my line of sight all the time. When the 40 minutes ended it did one quick flight, revisiting the areas it had already hovered over. Then it seemed to just gain height, until I couldn't see it any more.

11pm, October 19, 2007: I was sitting with my husband outside on our deck quite late at night. While we were talking I saw a bright whitish/bluish light appear in the sky. This ball of light was quite low and moved downwards at an angle out of sight due to houses and trees obscuring the view. I said at the time it was a really big bluey white ball of light and that it was too big for a shooting star and seemed to be much closer and lower than a star.

December 30, 2006: My mother and I sighted orange lights in a haze directly above our house in Toowoomba. The lights covered the entire neighbourhood and all the dogs in the district were barking. Though the object itself was invisible, it made a low humming sound and moved very slowly over the roof tops. I came out to see the craft after having an "abduction" experience in which I was in a hospital environment - white, clinical, all curved walls - with two rows of "people" in crib-like capsules. I remember seeing a "man" who I sensed had some connection with the USA. I was being studied and said at one point "stop it, you're hurting my head". While staying in Toowoomba, I woke up on several occasions with strange marks on my head, a lump on my neck two days prior to the sighting, and seeing a vision of the Earth's destruction and the sensation of symbols being projected in my mind.

9pm, November 11, 2004: I went outside to cool off and looked towards the sky, as I normally do when sitting outside, and I saw two objects in the sky, white ball-shapes, both about the size of Mars. At first I thought "Oh it's two planes flying side by side, but no... no navigation lights..." and then I thought "Two satellites, tracking close together...." But no. As they were... well it seemed liked playing with one another, like two balls in the sky. Flying around each other and doing circles like two swallows playing together. I was going to call out to my daughter to have a look at these things but thought I better not. They played with one another for a while, about 15 or 20 minutes, and then shot off at great speed. They stayed in approximately the same area of the sky for the entire sighting.

6.55 to 7.15pm, February 26, 2004: A woman saw a yellow-red light in the sky at 40 degrees elevation to the south. It appeared to be on the ridge and far away. At one stage it did a quick "zip". She was in a car proceeding southwards on a straight road and had to look away at intervals. As she continued observing, the light seemed to be much closer. She heard no noise from the object and saw no flashing navigation light. She is a flight attendant and takes notice of aircraft in the sky. The time between the light being far away and then closer was about a minute. The abrupt sideways motion "zing" happened in about one second. It was a very clear night. She contacted the Oakey army base and was told that there were no helicopter movements at that time.

 Late 2003 (reported February 2005): This happened while we lived in a house on the Toowoomba escarpment overlooking the Brisbane Valley. My daughter called me to look at an object behaving strangely. It was about 4.30am so the sky was dark. At a glance the object appeared to be lights from a plane, but it moved far too slowly. In my opinion a plane or helicopter would fall out of the sky at that speed. It seemed to be many miles away over the valley, but the photo I took shows it to be closer than I thought at the time. I watched it for about half an hour and got bored with it, eventually taking a photo just as dawn started to break. My daughter watched it until, with the increasing dawn, the light diminished. It didn't do much!

There were no clouds, just a clear sky. This I remember quite clearly. It was also fairly still as is normal at this time of day. I would be likely to remember any abnormal conditions.

 8.25 to 8.35pm, June 12, 1999: Two people saw two stationary orange lights. Bottom one moved to top one then disappeared. 9-9.30pm: People saw orange lights in diamond formation. Blinked and fell away as if like parachutes, but one went upwards and they all disappeared into different parts of the sky. No noise. Most people saw something like lava, fire or flame drop from the objects and at some stage splitting into 2 groups. All seen over the south-west of Toowoomba near airport.