Dozens of people reported a plane crashing – which turned out to be a meteor breaking up in the sky, expert say.
Police launched an aerial and ground search for a crashed plane after 999 calls about a possible light aircraft crash over Devon.
But it has been stood down after it is believed what was saw was actually a meteoroid breaking apart in the sky.
Units were sent to the Tavistock area after a callers said they saw what looked like a plane crash.
However it is believed what they and many others saw was in fact a meteoroid.
The Force Incident Manager for Devon and Cornwall Police said expert trained search officers made the call to stand down the search at 8.15am today, Sunday.
Insp John Shuttleworth said: “We are as satisfied as we can be that this has not been a light aircraft crash and no persons have been injured.
“The expert opinion of trained search officers is that if there had been an aircraft crash, assets in the air would have seen some debris.
“There have also been a couple of reports from the Cardiff and Dorset areas of people watching meteor showers across the South West.”
There have been hundreds of reports on social media this morning about people ‘glowing objects’ falling from the sky.
The Force Incident Manager for Devon and Cornwall Police has given a further update and said: “We have had further reports of seeing an object in the sky from some distance away with a trajectory towards the ground, with an item falling off it at some point.
“There have been reports it broke into two and this has come from numerous people.
“We’ve got two aircrafts in the air looking and doing aerial searches of the area. At the moment we are saying it is the Yelverton/Tavistock/Prince Town area.
“We’ve got a local inspector now coordinating that search with supporting ground resources which at the moment are police officers but we might look at contacting further resources at some point.
”The best advice for the best way to search when you’ve got no distinct area is the use of aerial observations.
“In principle if it was an aircraft there would be something visible from the sky in terms of smoke and or fire.
“There is still no recorded flights in that area but that’s not to say a small aircraft wouldn’t need to register the flight; it’s possible one could be in the air with no formal authorisation.
“It could also be a meteorite.”
