The UFO sighting in Portsmouth that caught the attention of many through social media turned out fake after the people who staged the supposed bizarre event have come out to reveal its real nature and their purpose in making it.

According to the International Business Times, the people behind the recent Portsmouth UFO sighting have come clean and admitted to faking everything up just so they could pull a publicity stunt that will draw attention to an upcoming local science fiction and fantasy festival.

Their revelation comes days after images of an alleged UFO sighting in Portsmouth landed on the Internet, causing a huge buzz among believers, who immediately concluded that unknown creatures are going to invade their city.

The hoax was even made believable because several alleged witnesses claimed to have seen the silver-grey object that appeared like a flying saucer hover over their city, reported the Daily Star.

The so-called witnesses bombarded the social media with testimonies on what they saw in the skies on Sept. 16 at around 6 p.m. local time.

"Watching the sky and saw what looked like a UFO! Starting to believe in what people have been saying! #pompeyufo," read a tweet from Josh Harcourt-Kelly - one of the alleged witnesses.

Meanwhile, Joshua Hibberd, one of the organizers of the upcoming festival, said that they had asked about eight to ten people from around Portsmouth to help them spread their publicity stunt.

Hibberd said that they took pictures of the staged Portsmouth UFO sighting and mailed it to another organizer named Dan Cook right away.

Cook was said to be the one who altered the images using Photoshop, adding the flying saucer to every photo that were later on uploaded on social media, noted The News.

Hibberd gushed that he and the other organizers were completely amazed and blown away by the huge response they got since they didn't expect the photos to go viral.

Because many believed that the Portsmouth UFO sighting was genuine, several news outlets from other parts of the world, including Canada, India and Singapore, covered the news story.

Nevertheless, though the hype over photos has plummeted after they revealed the truth behind the sighting, Hibberd is pleased that they got to promote the SciFi and Fantasy Weekend festival that is to take place on Sept. 27 and 28 in Historic Dockland.

The festival that was made internationally known by the Portsmouth UFO sighting reportedly aims to gather funds for two charities, one of which is The Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Disease.

On the other hand, though the Portsmouth UFO sighting was proven fake, UK's most famous and compelling UFO incident in the Rendlesham forest is being commemorated by the UK Forestry Commission this week.

A large metal sculpture resembling the object that witnesses saw in December 1980 was built and installed in the same area on Tuesday, according to OpenMinds.TV.