A Grandfather rushed to grab his video camera after seeing what he thought was a UFO racing through the skies above Pontyclun.

Brian Howells, 64, caught just under a minute of film on Sunday evening in his back garden.

After locking up his summer house, he turned around to walk back into his house - and was startled by the sight of a strange shape in the sky.

Mr Howells, who lives with his wife Mary and son Stephen, saw what he thought was orange flames coming from the object.

He said: "I looked up to the sky and couldn't believe my eyes.

"It was about 5.50pm so it was fairly dark, and I saw this big ball of fire moving quite quickly and silently.

"I called Mary to have a look and then grabbed my video camera."

But as the couple had just returned from a holiday in Belgium, there was only 40 seconds left on the tape to capture any film.

"First of all, we thought it was a plane on fire," said Mr Howells, a retired manager at an upholstery firm.

"We are on the flight path from Cardiff Airport, so it's nothing unusual to see planes coming overhead.

"But as there were flames coming out of the side and back, Mary and I panicked and thought the plane was in trouble."

So he phoned Cardiff International Airport to ask whether there had been any emergencies in the area.

The security department had not had any reports, but told him to try South Wales Police and ask them.

A local police officer visited Mr Howells to see the footage, and got in touch with RAF Kinloss in Scotland, which tracks all objects in the sky. They identified it as a meteor.

When Mr Howells told his 10-year-old granddaughter Jessica, who lives with his daughter Angela and her four-year-old brother Jack in Hereford, the young sci-fi fan didn't believe what her grandad was saying.

He said: "Jessica is mad on Doctor Who, and she kept saying, 'You're fibbing Bamps!' - she was gobsmacked."

But despite the spooky goings-on above his garden, Mr Howells said he was sceptical about there being life in outer space.

"I think there's always an explanation for UFO sightings," he said.

"I've got a telescope and I often have a peep out of it at the stars, but this is the first time I've seen anything like this. I believe in God, but not aliens."

A spokesperson for South Wales Police said: "At around 6pm on January 3, South Wales Police received a call from a member of the public in Pontyclun reporting a large ball of fire in the sky.

"Officers contacted the RAF who confirmed there has been meteorite activity at the time of the call from the member of the public."

Meteor showers are quite common in the first days of a New Year. Quadrantid showers occur on January 3 and 4 every year and are quite visible to the naked eye.

Brian Spink from the Swansea Astronomical Society said: "They are very sharp showers and for amateurs to see them they'd have to be somewhere without street lighting."

Secretary of Cardiff's Astronomical Society, Dave Powell said that meteors - or shooting stars as they are often known as - are shards of debris burning up in the atmosphere at great speed and can often been seen up to 100 times per hour.