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This is the moment a suspected meteorite lit up the Spanish skies with a trail of fire, sparking fears from panicked people that a burning UFO was heading for Earth.

Scores of scared residents and holidaymakers called emergency services reporting sightings of a UFO on fire, while others thought the fireball was a downed plane.

Space experts examining Sunday's fireball have been helped by a swarm of DIY footage posted to social media.

One seven-second clip shows the fast ball of light – thought to be a meteorite – speed across the sky before exploding as it is burnt up by the earth's atmopshere.

It was reminiscent of the stunning moment last year when a 10-ton meteor travelling at 33,000mph blew up over Russia leaving hundreds injured.

Other pictures and video clips posted online showed the space rock cutting a trial across the sky, changing colour and leaving plumes of smoke behind it.

Thousands of people from east to west – in Barcelona and Aragón in the north-east, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León in the centre, Valencia in the east, Andalucía in the south, and Extremadura in the west – reported sightings of the fireball.

It was also monitored by the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Aemet).

(Image: CEN)

Spanish astrophysicist, Jose Maria Trigo, said: "We think the meteorite may have flown over more areas of the country including Aragon, however, because it was pretty cloudy there we believe it may have been widely missed, and was only spotted when it emerged over a clear area that included Barcelona."

The team is now studying footage and adding it to scientific data to work out what it was, where it entered the atmosphere, and where it ended up.

Mr Trigo said: "Calibration requires weeks of research when there is an absence of stars in the images.

"But nevertheless, it has been made easier thanks to all the social media video footage and pictures."

It is believed that the suspected meteorite crashed in a remote location.

Mr Trigo added that, given the size of the fireball, the suspected meteorite was almost certainly too large to have burnt up and therefore would have impacted somewhere – adding: "The question now is to find out where."

A mystery explosion that rocked the Nicaragua capital of Managua over the weekend and left a 40-foot crater was caused by a meteorite, according to experts.

British scientists say it may be linked to the 2014 RC “pitbull” asteroid – and that there could be plenty of other flying rocks ready to crash to Earth.

Dr Dan Brown, an astronomy expert at Nottingham Trent University, said: “The possible meteorite impact in Nicaragua, linked with the asteroid 2014 RC which flew by Earth raises some interesting questions.

“Although the impact occurred roughly 12 hours before the asteroid passed Earth, that part of the planet was facing in the right direction for it to have been a fragment associated with it."