Eighties pop icon Kim Wilde has revealed the bizarre reason behind her recent musical comeback, saying that it was an alien encounter in her back garden that inspired her to make her new album.

Appearing in front of what was, to say the least, a sceptical panel on ‘Loose Women’ on Monday afternoon (March 12th), the 57 year old singer spoke about the inspiration behind her rather appropriately titled new album, Here Come the Aliens, which is being released next week.

“It was in 2009 and I was in my garden with my husband and a girlfriend of mine,” she told the show. “We saw some helicopters and a bright light come towards us from the South West. We looked of course, expecting to see they were after someone. That didn’t happen, the helicopters left. I think they were scrambling to try and find what this thing was.”

Kim WildeKim Wilde believes she had an encounter with a UFO in her back garden

“Everyone thought I’d been on the pinot grigio… I’d been in A&E all night and that’s a long story,” she laughed as co-host Gloria Hunniford asked her whether anybody had believed her story at the time.

Explaining how her UFO sighting had happened, Kim went on: “The light remained behind cloud in the sky, we went to investigate. I’m looking up and I’m seeing this thing and all of a sudden it moves from 11 o’clock to 2 o’clock… Then a smaller one joined it.”

Despite the strangeness of her experience, Wilde believes that the aliens have actually been watching Earth for a long time, and are benevolent in their intentions.

“It has really inspired me a lot,” she said. “I really believe what I saw was a UFO. It wasn’t of this planet. I believe aliens are here already, and have been for a long time. They have been keeping an eye on us for a long time, and are in despair because of the way we treat each other and the planet.”

More: Video Gone Viral – a drunk Kim Wilde gets festive on the London Underground [archive]