FORGET War of the Worlds - the alien invasion has started at Middlesbrough.
Throughout the summer holidays, a programme of sci-fi entertainment will be on offer at the Hillstreet shopping centre.
There will be everything from Darth Vaders on stilts to cyber face painters and alien lizard magicians and balloon modellers.
An advance party of aliens abducted centre manager Peter Drabble when they called in for a reconnaissance mission yesterday.
He said: "It was quite exciting meeting the aliens and it follows a popular theme among youngsters - especially with War of the Worlds and the ever faithful Star Wars series.
"The stilt walkers will be roaming the shopping centre, entertaining the customers, while the face painters and balloon modellers will be working in the centre's square.
"We are all really looking forward to the summer holiday programme."
The events start at 10am on Tuesday, with balloon modelling and stilt walkers, followed by cyber face painting and Star Trek stilt walkers next Thursday and then every Tuesday and Thursday until September 1.
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