A Saudi man has found a solid object that he believes to be a meteor that fell near his house and broke into several pieces.

Mashari Al Subai said the object's fall had created a small pit in the ground behind his house in the western Saudi town of Raniya before it fragmented into small and medium-sized parts.

He said the large piece he found has a semi-transparent hazel colour, adding that the colour changed abruptly when the object was heated.

"I conducted a small test on the object. After I heated it for five minutes, its colour changed to golden yellow before it regained its original colour gradually," he said, as quoted by the Saudi Arabic language daily 'Sabq'.

He said he had sent a piece of the object to the Saudi Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources for testing and identifying. Sabq did not specify the size of the object.