Huge 'meteor' spotted in sky over Scotland as residents left stunned

A giant 'meteor' has been spotted crossing the night sky in Scotland and Northern England.

Posting on Twitter, the UK Meteor Network confirmed they received more than 800 reports of a mystery 'fireball spotted' on Wednesday evening (14th September) at 9pm. They wrote: "There have been nearly 800 reports of the fireball that was seen over UK last night. Most reports come from Scotland and Northern Ireland."

Residents from the local area shared footage of the 'meteor' on social media, with many saying it had left them amazed. Stevie Doyle, who lives in Linlithgow, wrote: "We just witnessed something bright moving west through the sky which I guess must be something burning up in the earth's atmosphere. Caught it on the security cameras #meteor."

Scientists are now using the video footage captured by the public to investigated whether the object really was a meteor or simply space junk. It is also not known whether it landed on earth or burnt up in the atmosphere.

Steve Owens, astronomer and science communicator at the Glasgow Science Centre, told the BBC that the sighting was 'incredible'. He said: "I was sitting in my living room at exactly 22:00 and I saw out of the window due south this brilliant fireball - this meteor - streaking across the sky.

"I could tell it was something special. I could see through broken cloud that it was fragmenting - breaking apart with little bits coming off it. Normally if you see a meteor or a shooting star, they are just tiny little streaks of light lasting a fraction of a second but this one was streaking across the sky for at least ten seconds probably longer."

Reports from the UK Meteor Network have just confirmed that the object is believed to be space debris. The team wrote: "The preliminary trajectory has been calculated by the IMO and indicates that the object, which we now believe to be space debris, would have landed in the Atlantic south of the Heybridge."

Were you lucky enough to see it for yourself?

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