Northerners have been left baffled by sightings of mysterious objects lighting up the region's skies.
Several people have reported seeing balls of fire, and one woman even claimed she and her daughter had narrowly avoided being burnt after one hit her car.
Graham Little described how he saw spheres of bright orange light and was so shocked he called the Royal Astronomical Society to try to find some explanation of what he saw.
The 46-year-old was with a friend and his 10-year-old daughter when he saw the giant balls of light over Washington, Tyne and Wear, at around 10pm on Friday night.
He said: "I've been frightened to talk about it for fear of ridicule.
"I just want to know what it is as there has to be some sort of rational explanation.
"I've never seen anything like it in my life. We saw a ball of light in the sky about 5000ft up.
"It was oscillating and pulsating, but it was not a plane. It moved up and down for a couple of minutes then it disappeared. I am in shock as it was so weird and strange.
"I look at the stars regularly with my telescope and have seen meteorites and satellites and it was something totally different.
"I can only describe it as being like when a firework first goes off and you have that split second when it bursts into a bright light."
And on Thursday afternoon, a 56-year-old woman, who did not wish to be named, called police saying that a ball of flame the size of two footballs had hit the car she was travelling in from West to East Boldon.
The woman, who had been a passenger in her daughter's car, said: "As it came towards us it hit my side of the car. If it had been a split second earlier I would have had the window open. I got such a fright.
"We went back but there was no glass, no petrol, so I don't think it could have been someone throwing something at us."
A spokeswoman for Northumbria Police said officers were investigating.
She said: "We are aware of this and there were superficial marks on the car which rubbed off which were caused by unknown means and we are looking into this."
Professor Sir Arnold Wolfendale, professor of physics at Durham University said the strange phenomenon could be ball lightning which takes the form of a glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball.
He said: "It could be ball lightening which is a candescent ball of gas and can be up to 1ft in diameter. That would seem to be the likely cause, but I would not like to say."
2 comments:
Very strange. I hadn't heard anything about this and Washington is only about 30 miles up the road from me. Mind you, I never watch the news or read a paper, so perhaps it is not so surprising.
My guess would be ball lightning.
Could you imagine that hitting your car?! That would scare me silly!
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