The British Army's Special Air Service boasts an elite unit of around 20 soldiers currently being trained to deal with an array of "alternative threats", including a potential close encounter with extraterrestrials, the Daily Star reported.
The special projects unit is capable of using non-lethal weapons against a great many threats, with one such weapon involving spraying foam that covers a target and hardens rapidly, rendering the target immobile.
The threats in question reportedly include everything "from terrorists to human bio-weapons where someone has been deliberately infected with a deadly bug, all the way through to an alien life form", a source told the edition, acknowledging though that it "sounds bonkers but the SAS train for capture missions for every threat".
The troops are reported to have trained alongside US special forces in America, where, incidentally, the Pentagon announced the creation of a new task force to investigate "unidentified aerial phenomena" observed by US military aircraft years earlier.
"Most people believe that life on other planets exists. Even Einstein in 1920 said, 'Why should Earth be the only planet supporting human life?’'If you believe in that then you must accept that alien life may present a threat, so you need to plan for it", the source told the Daily Star.
The commentator stressed the importance of "planning for" potential threats that alien life may pose, saying this "makes sense" despite the common perception that it "sounds crazy".
Despite the late astronomer and physicist Stephen Hawking warning against "contacting Little Green Men", British UFO expert Nick Pope is certain the "clock is ticking" on new groundbreaking revelations about the ET phenomenon that he said could have a massive impact in the coming years.
Mr Pope, who used to run the UK government's now defunct UFO department, cited his sources as saying that the Ministry of Defence continues to look into UFO sightings despite its formally-stated scepticism. UFO investigations were ditched by the MoD in late 2009 on the grounds that they ostensibly served no particular defence purpose and on top of it, were diverting attention from more crucial issues.