Thousands of people across the UK have reported huge fireballs streaking across the sky in what is thought to be debris from satellites or spacecraft burning up in the upper atmosphere.
It streaked across the night sky, leaving a trail of bright orange and green in its wake.
So startling was the sight that people across Britain contacted the police, many of them convinced they had seen a plane crashing or even a UFO.
One eyewitness speaking to the BBC called the spectacle a “beautiful sight, like something out of Independence Day” - the film about an alien invasion of Earth.
But the explanation was rather different. Experts say the sightings on Friday night were of a small object, most likely man-made space debris, burning up as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
They said the fireball could have been caused by an item around the size of a tennis ball, travelling at 17,000mph at a distance of about 70 miles above the surface of the Earth.