Ghouls? Who needs ghouls at Halloween when there are so many other exciting visitors from outer space lining up to meet us. Zhang Zixuan and Erik Nilsson search out the fortunate few who say they have had close, sometimes intimate, encounters with extraterrestrials.

Heilongjiang farmer Meng Zhaoguo is convinced he had an intimate encounter with an alien seductress who told him their offspring will appear 60 years later. Provided to China Daily

She was 3 meters tall, and had 12 fingers and braided leg hair - and she wanted to make love with him, Meng Zhaoguo says. So the farmer from Heilong- jiang and the robust extra-terrestrial seductress had intimate moments - while levitating - for about 40 minutes, claims Meng, who is the protagonist of what is perhaps China's best-known alien abduction report.

Meng says he was working outside in Heilongjiang's Wuchang in 1994, when he saw a metallic shimmering on a mountainside. He went to investigate, believing it was likely a downed helicopter, when he blacked out.

When he came to, he was confused and unable to communicate with other people. He had also developed an extreme fear of anything made of iron.

Later that night, the female humanoid visited him, he says.

"I didn't believe in aliens before I actually met them," he tells China Daily. "Seeing is believing. We cannot explain UFOs and aliens because our technology isn't advanced enough. But that doesn't mean such things don't exist."

Meng's account is met with both skepticism and belief - not only by the general public, but also the country's growing community of ufologists, who study reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

Chinese interest in, and sightings of, UFOs have been increasing, especially since one shut down Xiaoshan Airport in Zhejiang's provincial capital Hangzhou for about an hour on June 7, making world headlines.

The hovering object affected 18 flights and about 2,000 passengers.

There have been eight more mass sightings since, with the latest shutting down the airport in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region's Baotou city for about an hour on Sept 11, ABC News reported.

Unexplained sightings reported to the Beijing UFO Research Organization (BURO) have increased from about 100 in 2008 to more than 200 this year, says the organization's Secretary-General Zhou Xiaoqiang, who was also part of the Xiaoshan Airport investigation team.

"As material and cultural life improves in China, more people are able to use cameras to photograph and film the strange things they see," the 62-year-old says. "Also, media broadcasts are making the UFO a more popular concept in China, and the Internet makes it easier to file reports."

Zhou points out that sightings spike around festivals.

"That's because fireworks, lanterns, kites are everywhere. For example, a flashing triangular UFO could be a kite with lights," Zhou explains.

Zhou puts the chances that UFOs carry extraterrestrial visitors at "zero" and says there have been less than 10 abduction reports in the country.

Wang Sichao, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Purple Mountain Observatory in Jiangsu's provincial capital Nanjing, says China's UFO reports are "more credible" than those in other countries. And there are fewer abduction reports.

"The aliens that are reported here are all different. Some are humanoid, some have large heads and eyes, some conduct sexual experiments, some speak Chinese and others use a kind of universal language.

But the one thing all these claims have in common is a lack of solid evidence."