The mystery surrounding a reported explosion heard across Manchester and Salford has been the talk of the town since it happened last night.

The mysterious bang was reported by residents from Rusholme to Eccles at around 10.30pm .

Firefighters were scrambled to Hessel Street in Salford - a small industrial estate - to investigate the sound.

A fire service spokesman said that after an hour of searching for the source of the noise, they found no evidence of an explosion or fire.

They only received one report of an explosion, he added.

But that didn't stop M.E.N. readers from speculating wildly about what might have caused the blast - here's a selection:

Man City Fan:

"UFOs. The same bangs were heard across Arizona a few years ago, believed to be spacecraft crashing. If it was our own Roswell, expect top secrecy. Thus no reports of anything."

UFO Watcherz:

"If it is visitors from outer space, the military will pretend it is just regular military spacecraft. The picture most clearly seems to show the smoke trails of an airborne disaster, whether man made or not. If something has crash-landed in Manchester, there must be debris."

DavetheRave:

"It was sound waves from David Moyes' United career catching up with him...it went past so quick".

Tygz:

"Explosives are usually used for digging big holes quick and considering all that is going on warwise it's probably air raid shelters being made."

NorthernShadow:

"Chances are it's just some clowns with a bin bag, car fuse and a mix of Oxy Acetylene. They produce a very deep and extremely loud explosion. There are numerous videos of stupid people using these on YouTube. I believe some use water containers from the office dispensers and should imagine these would produce a very large boom."

NeilT:

"Probably a small meteorite burning up and exploding as it passed through the atmosphere. The bang is the sonic boom produced by these things since they move faster than the speed of sound, and the vapour in the photograph is the debris trail it left as it exploded. Scary, but not a conspiracy!"