Australia: Flaming Ball Falls from Sky and Crashes 'Like a Bomb'

A flaming object has reportedly fallen from the sky and hit the ground "like a bomb", according to residents in Queensland, Australia.

What seemed to be a massive ball with a blue and orange tail appeared in the sky and then plunged towards the ground.

No debris was found where the object crashed.

"We happened to catch this blazing light that was ... just falling straight down," Mount Isa resident Virginia Hills told ABC News.

"I am actually flabbergasted at the attention at the moment because it was just a complete fluke."

Hills managed to take some pictures of the flaming objects.

"If we hadn't have been up there doing that, if I didn't have my camera pointed in that direction, it would never have happened."

Townsville resident Kim Vega was sitting in her backyard at the moment of impact.

"It was like an explosion but without a sound," she said.

"It [would have been] like an atomic bomb effect when it would have hit the ground and all the trees and the skies lit up."

Another Townsville resident, Terry Robinson, said the fireball looked "amazing", adding: "It was pretty big and this thing hit like a bomb - it was huge.

"I don't know how big it was, but in the sky it looked like half a dozen jumbo jets falling out of the sky at the same time."

Police said officers in Townsville had received one report about the incident, and had investigated to ensure it wasn't an aviation accident.

Astronomer Owen Bennedick suggested the object was not a meteor but more likely part of a satellite re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.

"Each different metal or each different plastic that a satellite's made of will burn at a different temperature and have a different colour spectrum" he said.

"Only the heavier objects make it to ground - the rest of it burns up in the atmosphere."

Bennedick added that falling satellite debris was becoming more and more common.