There was shock and awe for South Wales residents on Monday night after a meteorite raced across the night sky then exploded with such force that it rattled windows and set off car alarms.
The golf-ball-sized space rock was first spotted by Bristol residents, but it eventually exploded above Cwmbran, near Newport, South Wales, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Dozens of calls were made to the police as it streaked across the sky.
Shortly afterwards meteorite forums lit up with excited comments, Walesonline.co.uk reported.
Nathan Jones, from St Athan, wrote on Meteorite News: “It was orange and white and very bright, and also seemed very close, not that I could see.
“Never seen something so amazing in my life. It looked like it was skimming through the atmosphere due to the curved path it was taking.”
Homeowner Steve Edwards, 56, meanwhile, told The Daily Telegraph: "There was an enormous boom - It sounded like a bomb going off.
"The force of it shook the windows in my house, woke up my children and caused car alarms to start going off in the streets.
"I'm just glad none of it landed on my roof."
Meteorites can come from comet debris, asteroids, planets and moons.
Some stony specimens are called 'chondrites' and date back to the birth of the solar system around four and a half billion years ago.
Meteorites – which burn at altitudes as high as 100 miles - pose very little danger to human populations and rarely make any major impact on the ground.