Chinese jailed for cooking up 'alien' story

A Chinese farmer has been jailed after posting photographs of him posing with an 'alien' which he claimed to have electrocuted after its UFO crash-landed on his farm.

Li's photos, standing next to a crude looking extraterrestrial made from rubber, sparked a frenzy of speculation on social networking sites across China, Daily Mail reported Thursday.

Li had claimed having seen a formation of UFOs buzzing across the night sky along the Yellow river in Shangdong province's Binzhou city.

But after spending five days in police custody, he admitted to having cooked up the story.

Despite originally sticking to his story that a craft plummeted to earth before Li discovered the charred remains of an alien visitor in an electrified rabbit trap, he changed his version after police interrogation, Daily Mail said.

But he refused to admit that the rubber doll was a fake - claiming he bought the 'body' from a villager and decided to keep it in his freezer. When police found files on his computer that provided further evidence of the deception, Li confessed to lying.