A brilliant ball of flame streaked across the sky above the Spanish capital Madrid, dazzling stargazers and astronomers alike. The celestial display was so bright it could be seen across the entire country.

The eye-popping moment was caught on camera by the Hita Observatory at the University of Huelva at around 11:45pm local time (2145 GMT). The object struck the atmosphere above the Villamuelas district in the province of Toledo, southwest of Madrid.

"The impact was so abrupt that the object immediately caught fire, creating a ball of flame around 100 kilometers above the Earth," Jose Maria Madiedo of the University of Huelva told the Huffington Post. The meteor then shot towards Madrid at over 75,000 kilometers an hour before disintegrating completely at an altitude of 70 kilometers.

The Spanish Institution for the Study of Meteors and Meteorites, which tracked the fireball, classified the meteorite as a piece of a comet that was flying by Earth.

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The bolide was caught on camera by the Hita Observatory at the University of Huelva at around 11:45pm local time (2145 GMT). The object struck the atmosphere above the Villamuelas district in the province of Toledo, southwest of Madrid.

Stargazers say a meteor that floated across Adelaide skies overnight looked like a flaming tennis ball before it disappeared from view.

The object appeared in the sky about 9:30pm, with people from around Birdwood, Norwood, Mannum and Balhannah reporting sightings to ABC Local Radio.

One listener, Barry from Murbko on the River Murray, said he was watching television when he saw the object through his window.

"I saw this ball of flame, it would have been about the size of the moon just above the tree tops," he said.

"It was a flaming ball and it went across the the tree tops at a very low altitude and it wasn't travelling that fast like a shooting star.

"This just took my breath away. It was that incredible I just sat there for ten minutes and couldn't believe what I just saw.

"This was just like a ball of flame, like somebody lit up a tennis ball and hit it with a tennis racquet."

Staunton - What goes bump in the night has new meaning to some Stauntonians.

Monday night, some residents heard a large boom in and around the downtown area, which is leaving officials baffled.

Officer Lisa Klein, public information officer for Staunton Police, said they received multiple calls on the noise about 9:30 p.m.

Fire, rescue and police officers in the city went out to check the surrounding areas where calls were made, Klein said, but found nothing.

Social media was abuzz with the idea that either an underground cave collapsed or a large explosion of some sort occurred. According to Klein, there are numerous caves under the city, and it's a "huge caving area." But there is no evidence that a cave collapsed.

In situations like this, Klein said, officers check their districts and talk to people to see if additional fact-finding or emergency response is needed.

The calls started to flood into the Branch County 911 Center around midnight. Each one reporting deafening loud booms and everyone believed the boom happened somewhere close. "We just heard a really loud bang outside our house and me and my kids are really scared, I don't know what it is and now we're afraid to outside," says one caller. "I didn't see anything but I heard a big boom...it was like a big boom like someone was kicking in the door," says another caller. It was the talk of the town in Union City Wednesday, everyone with their own theories on what caused it. "It sounded like a cannon going off is the only way I can describe it, kind of like a thunder boom but it was only the one time," says Michelle Reincke who lives in Union City.

"I think it's aliens to tell you the truth, I think it's aliens coming down to earth see us," says Tomika Dow. And adding to the mystery, this is not the first time. One night last may the booms woke people up in Branch County and were heard all the way to Calhoun and Kalamazoo counties. "It's the same time as last year, we had these loud crashing noises like either an explosion or a sonic boom kind of an earthquake," says Cynthia Shattuck. There were no earthquakes recorded in the area overnight, the National Guard base in Battle Creek says there were no flights there last night.

Video

Emergencies Ministry stuff are trying to ascertain precise location of crash of unidentified celestial object wrecked near town of Tosno in Leningrad Region.

Life News publishes this exclusive eyewitness's photo that depicts falling of an alleged meteor.

Local resident was first who had reported about falling of an unidentified flying object from sky. He says this event happened at evening 6 April.

Evgeniy Galiev is resident of small town Tosno located in Leningrad Region. Нe turned to local Emergencies Ministry office and told that he had seen 'dark stripes that turned into bright and rushed down, supposedly from unidentified flying object'.

He provided Emergencies Ministry' stuff that arrived at site of the event photos that had been shot during the event as a proof.

At present personnel of Emergencies Ministry are trying to figure out origin of the effect that has been shot by eyewitness. They are checking flights of light aircrafts that had been performed from local airfields around time of the event.

Spokesman of Emergencies Ministry of Leningrad Region says that they still can't find any fallen object in outlined quadrant as result of preliminary search. Search is complicated because of the area is very swampy.

Source: Life News Online, in Russian (Translated by forum member)

A reader sent in this video filmed from Te Atatu Peninsula.

[Google translation]: Paper Deliverer witnessed the fireball that flew over southern Norway very early Wednesday morning. - Very interesting, says Knut Jorgen Roed Odegaard about the pictures she took.

Tove Haveland is still exhilarated by the experience very early on Wednesday morning. While most of Norheimsund was asleep, the paperboy was out driving today's deliveries. Then she saw something in the morning sky.

- It was a little before half past five and I saw the moon in the top right corner of the eye. Then it happened: It was as if something exploded in the sky.

- Then it was just like a ball of fire fell from the sky, it fell straight down and slid slowly down. The color was the same as the moon, but it is not lit up in the same manner, says Haveland.

The cause of the mystery booming noises Flint residents had complained about may be explained by the secret bomb range Flint police recently confirmed.

For months, years even, residents have reported random loud noises, like thunder or fireworks.

Flint isn't the only place where people have reported noises like this. All over the country are reports of strange noises and loud booming sounds. Usually, nobody seems to know where they're coming from.

Let's take a look.

Utah

In January, a television station out of Salt Lake City reported that "hundreds of people from Weber County to Utah County, and some as far north as Rock Springs, Wyoming reported that they felt shaking or heard loud booms." Experts reported seismic activity in the area, but there was no record of any earthquakes.

Massachusetts

Last November, reports out of Salem, Mass., indicated that "police responded to a report of loud explosions in the area of Bridge Street."

Oklahoma

In January, a local Oklahoma City television station reported that residents in the town of Guthrie had been reporting a mysterious noise around town.

Manitoba, Canada - With her camera set to a shutter speed of eight seconds, a local woman managed to capture a spectacular meteor display.

Shannon Bileski was on the east side of Lake Winnipeg late Friday night with her astronomy club.

"We saw a bright flash with green explosions ... it was a meteor!" she wrote in an e-mail.

"(I) managed to capture the entry and explosions (look closely and you can see them)!" she wrote.

Flashes of green in the sky turn out to be meteors less often than you'd think, Planetarium spokesman Scott Young has previously told QMI Agency. Winnipeggers get treated to this kind of spectacular skyward event about once a year, Young said.

"I think people are excited to see things that are outside their normal experience," Young said. "We get a lot of calls about 'that light in the sky' which turn out to be meteors, planets, the Space Station, etc. but people are still excited because they just 'discovered' them themselves.

"Humans love to discover things."