RESIDENTS across the two counties reported hearing a loud bang just before 10pm last night (Sunday 28 Februrary.) 

The UK Meteor Network confirmed the 'explosion' people reported seeing was a slow-moving meteor fireball.

A spokesman for the Network said: "A fireball meteor is space debris moving through space at incredible speeds. As it encounters resistance from our Atmosphere, it is forced to slow down. This process creates heat, and light is what we see in the night sky.

"We received almost 800 witness reports and videos from doorbell and dashboard cameras from witnesses right across the UK. Surprisingly many people reported hearing either a sonic boom or a rumbling noise.

"Moving relatively slow, compared to other fireballs and meteors we seen in past, it is still moving faster than anything human-made. We think it was a softer cemetery or asteroidal material, and there is a definite fragmentation in the second half of the flight.

"There is a good chance some material survived the entry and might be found on the ground."

Dr Sarah McMullan of UKFAll estimates that about 50 tonnes of extra-terrestrial material enters Earth’s atmosphere each year.

She said: “Most are sand-sized particles known as cosmic dust, including the most meteors in the Perseid meteor shower that takes place every August. But even over a relatively small land area like the UK, about twenty meteorites probably land each year. Most are barely the size of a sugar cube.

"However, two or three are bigger, and that’s probably the case with this one. Every few years a much bigger one will arrive”.

Did you see or hear anything? Let us know in the comments.