UFO? Meteor? Sonic Boom?

Social media has been buzzing this week with reports of a mystery “ball of light” followed by a “loud grumble of thunder” in our skies on Monday night.

Shaun Berwyn posted that he was walking around Lymore, Montgomery, at about 8pm when “it seemed as if someone turned a light on”.

“We looked up to see a huge white ball move over us and disappear!” he posted on a town Facebook page. “Around one minute later there was a brief deep, loud grumble of thunder, then nothing. It freaked out my 14-year-old daughter!”

He dismissed lightning as the “huge white ball of light seemed to slowly disappear into the distance. It was travelling North West”.

Within minutes of posting, dozens of people confirmed seeing or hearing something unusual at the same time from Welshpool, Forden, Trewern, Llansantffraid and Churchstoke.

One commented that they “felt the bang in Guilsfield and thought there had been an explosion”, while another said that “a big explosion sound in Llanfyllin shook the timbers in the house about 8pm. Pheasants woke up screaming”.

We have contacted the Ministry of Defence to ask whether there were any fighter jets that may have caused a sonic boom at around that time, and one physicist told us that it could possibly have been a fireball meteor.

While some jokingly speculated that we could be in for an alien invasion, given the year we have just had, it would be unwise to rule anything out!