The truth is out there - and if a police officer, a politician and a pilot are to be believed, aliens are keeping a close eye on us from above.

Dramatic eye-witness testimony was heard at a conference over the weekend which, delegates were told, provided "definitive" proof of recent UFO activity in the skies around north Dublin and Meath.

Footage, filmed on a camera phone at 10.35pm on August 3 near Dunboyne was also played and replayed to over 70 delegates who attended the fifth Irish International UFO conference in Carrick-on-Shannon.

The triangular shaped image, with lights at each point, which appeared to send a red laser-type light towards earth, drew gasps of amazement from the 70 or so delegates who attended the world premiere of the footage.

A senior garda officer who was driving when he noticed the unusual light formation in the sky stopped to film it.

"There is no footage like this in the world. It is the most amazing and spectacular I have ever seen," said Carl Nally, co-founder of UFO and Paranormal Research Ireland and joint author of 'Conspiracy of Silence'.

Five days earlier, on July 29, an off-duty pilot who photographed lightning from Howth pier just after midnight later noticed what appeared to be a triangular-shaped object to the right of the lightning fork in the developed image.

And Fianna Fail Town Councillor in Trim, Jimmy Peppard, ran indoors for a camera on August 8 when he spotted a triangular-shaped object measuring "about a mile in diameter" in the sky, where it remained static for about half an hour.

"What we have here is sightings of three objects east, west and south-east of Dublin airport, each five days apart by reliable and trained observers and even since I have arrived here I have received another image from a pilot," Mr Nally told the conference.

He later described the laser beam footage as the best footage on the planet and said it would be shown all over the world. "This is what the sceptics are crying out for. What all this footage has in common is that trained observers, honest people, took it. What better could you get than a senior garda, a politician and a pilot," he said.

He added that he would not rule out speculation that increased UFO activity in the north Dublin and Meath areas was linked to the road construction works near Tara. "We cannot rule this out as a possibility. We are talking about a very ancient sacred place," he said.

Ross Hemsworth, who presents a TV show on Sky which investigates the paranormal, said he would reserve judgment until he examined the footage more closely.

"There have been a lot of sightings in Ireland in a lot of strange places and the proximity to the digging of the motorway may have opened things up," he said.

Delegates at the two-day event, organised by Betty Meyler, President of the UFO Society of Ireland, otherwise immersed themselves in talk of orbs, luminosity, crop circles, alien abductions and star children. And ex-oilfield executive Ian Crane warned of plans for a fake alien invasion to be staged at the 2012 Olympics in London by the terrorists behind 9/11 and other atrocities, in their quest for global control.

For organiser Betty Meyler the conference provided an opportunity for like-minded people to come together and make friends. "Before, people were afraid to report sightings because they did not want to be thought of as 'cuckoo' but that has changed now," she said.