Amesbury - Phil Green wasn't quite sure what he had, when he noticed the unusual rock on the banks of the Merrimack River.

His yard backs up to the river and he was on one of his frequent walks, looking for arrowheads. The tide was low, leaving behind exposed mud and smooth granite. And then he noticed something that just didn't look right.

"There she was just sitting there, sticking up like that, and I said heck what is this," recalls as he holds a large greenish colored rock. "It just didn't belong."

The rock was covered in mud when Phil found it. It was hard to see the burn marks on the side. At first he thought it was a rock used to make arrowheads. Then he suspected it might be meteorite. He used a metal detector to check and found it wasn't metallic.

Terje Fjeldheim, a geologist who acknowledges that he "knows a bit about rocks," was out fishing in the mountains of Setesdal, southern Norway, when he stumbled upon what's believed to be a meteorite weighing four-and-a-half kilos. That would make it the largest meteorite found in Norway in the last 100 years.

"It was so different that it immediately started ringing some bells," Fjeldheim told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) on Friday.

Fjeldheim's discovery has sparked excitement among astrophysicists and Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard, Norway's celebrity astronomer and meteorite expert, was "ecstatic," according to Fjeldheim. Rune Selbekk of the Museum of Natural History in Oslo has only seen Fjeldheim's photos so far, but said his "gut feeling" is good.

"I get around 2,000 to 3,000 samples every year," Selbekk told NRK. "When something authentic comes in, it offsets all the disappointments."

The last time a bigger meteorite was found in Norway was in the far northern city of Alta in 1902. Before that, Tysnes in 1884, reported NRK. Only a bit more than a dozen meteorites have been found in Norway, with one of the most recent ones crashing through the roof of a holiday cabin in Oslo just last year.

Fjeldheim was due to bring the meteorite in to the museum Friday afternoon and have it evaluated. It may be worth as much as NOK 225,000, should he decide to sell it.

There have been multiple reports of a bright burning light in the sky over Toowoomba and the Darling Downs last night.

Witnesses reported seeing a bright white ball falling to earth about 6pm. It is understood the object may have been a meteor or space junk.

Several people contacted The Chronicle this morning to report the sighting.

On Facebook, witnesses spoke of a "spectacular" light display that at first appeared to be a shooting star.

• Shallon Garton: "I saw what I thought was a shooting star but way bigger driving back to Highfields from Esk."
• Stuart Shields: "Yes, saw it on my way home from Highfields last night was pretty spectacular."
• Christine Walker: "We saw it here in the Lockyer Valley just after dark. No time to grab the camera though"

There have also been reports of a bright light or flashes over the Sunshine Coast and the mid north NSW coast.

Just in case you came here looking for information about an explosion-type sound around 2:45 am - this morning we have received several e-mails asking about it, describing it as loud enough to wake them up and scare their pets.

So far, checking fire and police logs, we haven't found anything confirming what it was.

Those who say they heard it are in Gatewood, Lincoln Park, and Lowman Beach areas, but at least one person thinks it could have happened some distance away, to the east. We were on watch at that time, and though we're over south Lincoln Park, we didn't hear it.

So we're posting this in hopes someone out there might have direct knowledge to solve the mystery.

Mercer County - Memorial Day weekend started out "relatively quiet" for police, except for another mysterious "sonic boom."

At 7:29 p.m. Friday, the explosion rocked Shenango Township. A resident in the 3500 block of Hubbard-West Middlesex Road heard "a loud sonic boom," a Mercer County 911 dispatcher said. The caller told the 911 operator "it shook the house; it was not like a transformer blew.

"All of the neighbors came outside to see what happened, so many people felt it."

Southwest Mercer County Regional police were dispatched, but could not find anything.

It was the second such incident reported in as many weeks. On May 13, dozens of callers from Mercer to Sandy Lake to Grove City reported hearing a "massive explosion" at about 9 p.m. Officials have not been able to explain the noise.

The 911 dispatcher said "typical holiday weekend" calls were from all over Mercer County. Early Friday, an alleged "streaker" shocked some callers from Sharon. Later Friday, a reported gas leak near Lake Latonka was cleared up by 11:45 p.m.

At about 5 p.m. Saturday, a kid in a "black hoodie" gave Sharon police a run for their money over "some minor crime."

A couple of hours later, there was a report of a burglary on Tamarack Drive in South Pymatuning Township. About 8 p.m., police in Hermitage responded to a hit-and-run accident with no apparent injuries.

A passenger jet has been forced to make an emergency landing, after an unidentified "foreign object" smashed into its nose cone at 26,000 feet.

A large dent and scraped paintwork was visible on the Air China Boeing 757 after it landed safely at Chengdu Airport, having been forced to turn back after the pilot said he was struggling to control the plane.

Click here for more images of the damaged aircraft

Investigators are said to be baffled by the dent, reportedly ruling out a bird strike as no blood or feathers were seen around the impact site, but insisting traces of whatever caused the damage are likely to be found under closer inspection.

The plane was flying at around 26,000 feet, climbing over China 20 minutes after take-off during an internal flight between Chengdu and Guangzhou, when passengers are said to have heard a loud bang.
At the time the pilot is thought to have been unaware of the damage, but contacted air traffic control to report stability issues shortly after hearing the noise.

He was instructed to return to Chengdu, where the damaged nosecone was seen and photographed by passengers disembarking the aircraft.

Back on June 11, 1930 three members of the American Meteor Society (AMS) in Maryland saw a half-hour-long bright outburst of meteors from the little constellation Delphinus the Dolphin. No one had predicted the shower, but it came out of nowhere and hasn't been seen since. Attempts to catch a repeat performance in subsequent years met with no success.

That may change tomorrow morning, June 11, 2013. Peter Jenniskins, research scientist with the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, has examined dust outbursts from long-period comets and suggests the Gamma Delphinids may return for a brief moment of splendor, as Earth passes through this stream of cometary debris not seen since 1930.

Three "explosions" heard in the early hours of the morning in Northampton are being treated as unexplained.

Northamptonshire Fire Service investigated the separate reports in St Mary's Street, Castle Street and Silver Street but "didn't find anything".

Andy Gineikis, who lives nearby, said he heard a "loud bang" similar to a shotgun blast at about 03:30 BST.

Western Power Distribution said there had been a power cut in the Abington area of Northampton at about 04:40.

WGNS has received multiple phone calls and emails from residents in the area of Smyrna telling us that they heard a loud "BOOM" sound Monday night. The sound was heard around 8:30 in the evening.

WGNS checked with the Smyrna Police Department where we talked to Police Chief Kevin Arnold. Arnold told us, "We received several complaints last night about that. The Sheriff's Office also received complaints. From the log this morning it appears nothing was found."

We then headed to the Smyrna / Rutherford County Airport. There, we were told that no "BOOM" sounds involving airplanes were reported on Monday night. Several workers there told us they did not hear the "BOOM."

So that leaves us with the big question... What was that big "BOOM" sound that was heard Monday? It seems as if we cannot find the answer to that mystery.