Wonder and panic at meteor fireball

It brought wonderment from most, and panic in a few – the rare spectacle of a meteor flashing across the skies of the Midlands.

Scores of people in the regionhave taken to astronomy websites to post their own accounts of the meteor, which appeared as a bright flash on Saturday night.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing a large fireball travelling from northern Scotland to southern England, passing over the West Midlands.

The Met Office tweeted: "Hi All, for anyone seeing something in the night sky, we believe it was a meteorite."

Police forces across the UK also received numerous calls from people who had seen the meteor at around 9.40pm on Saturday night. Some thought it was a burning plane.

The American Meteor Society website was inundated with dozens of Britons logging sightings.

Michelle Thornton from Birmingham wrote: "It was the most amazing thing I have seen in the night sky in ages outstanding. The fragments was burning off."

Meanwhile Rob Ellis from Telford, Shropshire, said the meteor looked like it had "orange sparks coming off it".

Oliver Chanceo from Birmingham described it as "a glowing orange train with a spherical orange tip". One eyewitness from Cannock wrote: "It was really strange how it went from the left of the sky to the right then it seemed that I was seeing the back of the smoke trail and then it disappeared."

Grampian Police said reports of people seeing a "flare or a bright object with a tail" were received from across the region.

Meanwhile, Lothian and Borders Police said it had received "quite a lot" of calls from members of the public.

The Royal Observatory said it was part of a meteor shower frequent at this time every year. Experts believe the light was caused by a small rock fragment and are now working out if it survived to hit ground or sea.