Devon and Cornwall Police scrambled to the scene on Sunday morning after more than 90 official sightings were recorded across Plymouth, Dorset and London. One eye-witness described the flying object as a “lump of burning magnesium” and claimed to see it split into two, sending debris tumbling towards dry land. Police deployed two aircraft across the south coast to conduct vast searches after initially fearing a plane had crashed.
The mysterious object was initially spotted at around 6am by Plymouth police who thought it could be an asteroid.
The force wrote on Twitter: “Did anybody else see two glowing objects falling southwesterly direction out towards Plymouth sound?
“I know I have been up all night, but that was odd. Asteroid?”
The object is understood to have flashed through the skyline for 25 seconds.
Harry Sims, who lives in Dorset said: “It was a sudden bright light and made me stop in my tracks.
“I thought it may have been a shooting star. However when it started disintegrating I thought it could be a plane. It appeared so low I expected to hear an impact.”
The fireball was then spotted more than 160miles east crashing through the sky above Hampshire.
Paul Michael Murphy, who was out walking his dog, said: “I have never seen one that low. It was very close — it looked like it was going over the rooftops.
“It lit up the sky and was quite sizeable, about the size of a football. It was like a big lump of burning magnesium.”
Patrick Blake, from London, responding to another sighting on Twitter, said: “I saw a meteor as well at the exact same time. Was in East London Bow Church facing in the south west direction. Saw it curve downwards moving east to west. It even broke into two pieces.”
Meanwhile a leading meteorologist believes the object could have been Earth-grazing fireball.
This type of object travels through space as a large asteroid before transforming into a meteor as it enters the earths atmosphere – it known to travel at speeds of more than 65,000mph before bursting into tiny fragments.
READ MORE: Asteroid half size of the City of London closes in on Earth’s path
Inspector Shuttleworth said: “We are as satisfied as we can be that this has not been a light aircraft crash and no persons have been injured.
“The expert opinion of trained search officers is that if there had been an aircraft crash, assets in the air would have seen some debris.
“There have also been a couple of reports from the Cardiff and Dorset areas of people watching meteor showers across the south-west.”
He added: “In principle if it was an aircraft there would be something visible from the sky in terms of smoke and or fire.
“There is still no recorded flights in that area but that’s not to say a small aircraft wouldn’t need to register the flight; it’s possible one could be in the air with no formal authorisation. It could also be a meteorite.”
