John Lennon's murderer was under the control of ''dark'' aliens determined to eradicate his messages of peace and love, it has been claimed.

The late Beatles legend was assassinated by Mark Chapman outside the Dakota Building in New York City in 1980, with the deranged fan blaming the ''devil'' for his actions.

Extraterrestrial expert Michael C. Luckman believes Lennon was at the centre of a battle between different species of aliens which resulted in his death.

Luckman - author of 'Alien Rock: The Rock 'n' Roll Extraterrestrial Connection' and a forthcoming sequel 'Rock Stars, Hollywood and Alien Contact: Celebrities' Inside Secrets' - claims Lennon was regularly sent messages from intergalactic beings to include in his music with him acting as a vessel for them, something he was able to do because of the way his brain was wired, and at one point Lennon even had a close encounter of the third kind.

The veteran UFO researcher exclusively told BANG Showbiz: ''This is what enabled John Lennon to receive musical messages broadcast from space and compose hit songs celebrating peace, love and freedom. John was the ideal candidate for alien contact. ''Much later on he had two UFO encounters, one which may have involved a meeting with four little grey aliens at the Dakota Apartments in New York City where he lived with Yoko Ono.''

Luckman claims it was these messages of peace and love which led to Chapman - who is still incarcerated in prison for shooting the musician - being targeted by rival aliens determined to stop the 'Gimme Some Truth' singer from spreading his messages of love.

Luckman added: ''When Chapman blamed the devil for ordering him to kill Lennon, he may have indeed been operating under the influence of negative entities who were upset with John's universal message of brotherhood and wanted to stop him dead in his tracks before he could become even more powerful.

''The circumstances that led to Lennon's death can easily be seen as a classic battle of light and dark forces, in this case a battle for the soul of rock 'n roll.''

When describing the songwriting process, Lennon himself claimed he often ''felt like a hollow temple filled with many spirits, each one passing through me, each one inhabiting me for a little time and then leaving me to be replaced by another''.

While his widow Yoko Ono has previously stated she believes her deceased husband and his Beatles bandmates - Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the late George Harrison - were musical ''mediums''.

She is quoted as saying: ''They were like mediums. They weren't conscious of everything they were saying, but it (the music) was coming through them.''