The balls were 40kg pieces of the rocket used to hold reaction control system propellant or tank pressure gases. (Photo: Pixabay)

First it were the British, followed by Russians and now Peruvians, everyone is spotting fireballs plummeting into their towns within weeks of each other.

Locals from Peru's southeastern Andean community were terrified after finding three mysterious metal objects in nearby fields.

Townsfolk discovered the huge rocks hours after dozens of pictures and videos of a blazing object, taken in Brazilian and Peruvian towns Tingo Maria and Pucalklpa, 115 miles away from each other, were uploaded onto social media.

Romulo Barros, the chief of the fire service in the Brazilian municipality of Cruzeiro do Sul, the object was most likely a meteorite.

But the Peruvian Air Force confirmed the fireball was actually a Russian space rocket re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.

He added, the fireball may have been the re-entry of the SL-23 rocket and the three metal spheres were fuel tanks belonging to a satellite.

Meteorologist Alejandro Fonesca, from the Federal University of Acre in Brazil, said that no meteorites had been predicted to fall in the area.

According to him, the ball was more likely made up of space debris.

The balls were eventually confirmed to be a rare atmospheric re-entry of a rocket that was launched from Kazakhstan on Boxing Day.

The balls were 40kg pieces of the rocket used to hold reaction control system propellant or tank pressure gases, they are often the only surviving parts of the rockets.

It was launched as part of a joint venture between Russia and Angola to put the Angosat-1 into orbit in a bid to improve communications in the African country.

Two years ago similar balls were found in Vietnam.