A man was baffled by a set of dark footprints that mysteriously appeared on his living room ceiling while the home was empty.

The homeowner Mr Liu said the ceiling was perfectly clean when he and his wife left home in the afternoon in Wuzhong, in north-central China's Ningxia Region, on September 14.

But upon their return at night, he was stunned to find the ceiling in his living room looked like someone had walked over it with dirty shoes.

In a video filmed by Mr Liu, the prints can be clearly seen spread across one part of the ceiling. He said he and his wife were scared throughout the whole night, and in the morning, they checked and found the footprints were still there.

He said: 'The footprints suddenly appeared when I returned home. The building was renovated over a decade ago, and we can confirm these were not there before. It's quite unsettling.'

One friend told the homeowner that ' footprints could have been stepped on before the ceiling was installed' and then became invisible when it was painted over, 'but later appeared due to condensation or smoke'.

Mr Liu said: 'This is definitely not the case.'

He has still not found an explanation.