It seems unlikely but the proof is in the viewing, and over a million people have watched the video so far on YouTube.

The image was picked up by a series of telescopes set up to observe activity on and around the sun - the SECCHI project website first put up the images which were picked up on by eagle-eyed extra-terrestrial enthusiasts.

Scientists are insisting that the bright glowing object is a side effect of the image processing procedure. It is, they claim, an image of Mercury taken from the previous day as the two images overlap.

However, thrilled space-watchers beg to differ. The user who uploaded the video, who may have watched too many episodes of Star Trek writes on the description ‘It's cylindrical on either side and has a shape in the middle. It definitely looks like a ship to me, and very obviously, it's cloaked.’

An alien spacecraft the size of the planet Mercury, which is around the same size as Earth's moon, would certainly be noticed out in space. Unless there really was such a thing as a 'cloaking device'.

Dr Nathan Rich from the US Naval Research Laboratory had a sobering explanation that may put a dampener on UFO hunter's spirits. He told Space.com "When [this averaging process] is done between the previous day and the current day and there is a feature like a planet, this introduces dark artefacts in the background where the planet was on the previous day, which then show up as bright areas in the enhanced image."

See the video below, and we'll let you be the judge. Keep watching the skies!