(Original headline: UFO mystery of flashes in the sky )
Emergency services were inundated by dozens of calls from people who reported a mass of coloured objects falling from the sky.
Sussex Police and the Dover and Solent coastguards began receiving calls just before 10pm on Saturday night, reporting huge numbers of red and green objects falling from the sky.
Calls came from members of the public from the Brighton and the Pevensey Bay areas of the Sussex coast where most sightings were made.
A Sussex Police spokesman said: "People were calling us to say they had seen objects falling from the sky.
"They described them as red and green lights falling to the earth."
A spokesman for the Dover coastguard, which monitors part of the Sussex coast, said: "We had between 40 to 50 calls from people. It appears it was a meteor shower which travelled from west to east and started in Wales and travelled as far as Dover."
The coastguard said the sight was so spectacular that even experienced merchant seamen were calling in to report the night-sky spectacle off the Sussex coast.
Mike Feist, co-ordinator of astronomy at the Foredown Tower, Foredown Road, Portslade, said he did not see the event but said it may have been space debris falling to earth as no meteor showers were expected.
Mr Feist said: "It is not a meteor shower we would have expected.
"There is one expected at the end of July and August. Meteor showers are generally predictable in that they are remnants which have fallen from a comet."
