Coastguards in Northern Ireland took calls from people who saw the objects from Coleraine on the north coast, to Strangford Lough in the south east. Sightings were also made in Dublin.

The lights were also seen in parts of central Scotland including Grangemouth, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

And a meteor was reported in Norfolk and at Walsall in the West Midlands.

Brian Guthrie in Grangemouth, who watched the objects pass through the sky, said it appeared to be something “pretty large breaking up in the atmosphere”.

“I’ve seen shooting stars and meteor showers before, but this was much larger and much more colourful.”

One person who contacted the BBC said it was “kind of a mass of light, gold light. Everything moving in unison”.

“It wasn’t diverging or whatever. I thought it was a plane at first. It was quite low on the horizon and moving much slower than I’d expect to see a shooting star, but it was amazing.”

Another said the sight was “like Independence Day” in reference to the film about an alien invasion of Earth.

“It was broken up by the time I saw it. There must have been 10 or 15 huge pieces on fire, white hot with red down the side.”

Colin Johnston, from Armagh Planetarium in Northern Ireland, says it is unlikely to be part of one of the meteor showers expected this month.

“There are actually several small, faint, meteor showers scheduled across September but they’re so unspectacular, not many people actually bother looking for them.

“I think that actually this spectacle tonight might not be associated with that.

“I think it’s something just by chance has happened to come in tonight, some piece of actual space junk floating around the universe for billions of years has just picked tonight to fall in across our skies or some satellite that’s been up for some years has decided to burn up.”

( via bbc.co.uk)