SCIENTISTS say they have found signs of the Higgs boson, an elementary sub-atomic particle believed to have played a vital role in the creation of the universe after the Big Bang.

The leaders of two experiments, Atlas and CMS, revealed their findings to a packed seminar at the CERN physics research centre near Geneva, where they have tried to find traces of the elusive boson by smashing particles together at near light-speed in the Large Hadron Collider.

The experiments generated such excitement by independently reaching very similar conclusions. But the scientists were quick to warn their results have not yet reached the level of certainty needed to claim a discovery.

Professor Tony Doyle, one of the physicists from the University of Glasgow, who is part of the Atlas team, said: "Strong hints are what we're getting right now. My perspective is that this is our Apollo 10 moment. We've done everything needed to land on the Moon, or in our case, find the Higgs boson.

"Confirmation should be very soon, in the New Year. I absolutely think we'll find the Higgs boson next year."

Under what is known as the Standard Model of Physics, the boson is posited to have been the agent that gave mass and energy to matter after the creation of the universe – leading some to nickname it the "God particle".

Peter Higgs, the 82-year-old British theoretical physicist who first proposed the existence of the particle in 1964 as the missing link of a grand theory of matter and energy, was watching the announcement on a webcast with colleagues at Edinburgh University, where he is an emeritus professor.

"I won't be going home to open a bottle of whisky to drown my sorrows, but on the other hand I won't be going home to open a bottle of champagne either," his colleague Alan Walker quoted him as saying after the announcement.