Last updated at 09:57, Monday, 20 August 2012

A GROUP of UFO believers will gather on top of a mountain next week to pray to cosmic powers for world peace.

Members of the Aetherius Society believe the Old Man of Coniston to be holy after being charged with spiritual energy by a cosmic being known as a Lord of Karma.

Around 30 believers will spend two hours chanting and praying for world peace before climbing down the 2,635ft fell.

David Trimble, a former High Sheriff of Cumbria, is organiser of the Northern UK branch of the society.

He said: “We chant eastern mantra and pray with our hands open to ensure all of the body’s chakras are open.”

Mr Trimble, 73, moved from Dalston to Barnsley a few years ago.

He said the prayers will be directed to wherever has the greatest need.

The society says that its founder, George King, was able to contact religious figure heads – including Jesus, Buddha and Hare Krishna – believed by the society to be extra-terrestrials.

He is said to have taken their messages of peace to 19 mountains including Coniston in the 1950s and “charged” them with spiritual energy drawn from extra-terrestrials from Venus and Mars.

Now members of the society from across the world climb these mountains to shed positive energy on the rest of the world, and they will gather on the Old Man of Coniston on August 25.

First published at 16:13, Friday, 17 August 2012
Published by http://www.walneylocal.co.uk