Shooting star streaks across the night sky - Telegraph.co.uk

A number of people posted footage of the meteor online, including George Simonds, 26, of Walton, Liverpool, who managed to record it on his iPhone.

"I was in the garden just having a smoke outside. It just shot across my vision," Mr Simonds said.

Scientists said that while meteors were not uncommon, it was rare for such a bright shooting star to appear and to do so during the night when it could be so easily spotted.

The meteor, thought to be about the size of a fist and travelling at about seven kilometres per second, first appeared 150 miles above Scotland before descending to an altitude of about 80 miles over Birmingham and Oxfordshire.

Many meteors burn up as they hurtle down through the atmosphere but it is thought that due to the size of this one it stood a good chance of surviving intact before reaching the Earth's surface.

However, the chances of finding it were thought slim, particularly if it had splashed down in the Bay of Biscay, as appeared likely.

Adrian West, of Meteor Watch, an online astronomy group, said he had spotted the object in Berkshire and it had been seen as far south as Devon. He aded: "It had a very bright orange nucleus and a green tail. It was seen by hundreds, maybe thousands of people."

Reports of a "bright light" were received by police forces across the country. Strathclyde Police was "inundated" with calls while police in Durham received reports including what appeared to be a powerful flare over the sea.

Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary said numerous calls had been made about a "large ball of fire in the sky" across Annandale and Eskdale.

Because the meteor was unexpected it went unobserved by many scientists but a group attending a seminar at Kielder Observatory in Northumberland were lucky enough to see it.

Gary Fildes, the director of the observatory, said: "I've never seen anything like that in my life."