yesterday morning.

Gido Simmons, who was fishing off the West End on his friend's boat, the Sea Star said he saw "a huge, white thing streak across the sky''.

He added: "It left a long smoke trail behind it, like a jet-plane trail but only much bigger.'' Asked what he thought it was at first, Mr. Simmons said: "A bomb. I couldn't think of anything else because it lit up the whole area of the Island on the South Shore, from the reef to Daniel's Head.

"It was something to see.'' And Dorris Wade, of Mount Hill Road, Pembroke, described how, at around 6 a.m., she was disturbed by a "real bright light'' shining in her window from the direction of the sky over the North Shore.

"It was like a flashlight shining in my window,'' she said. "I looked outside and I saw a long stream of smoke had been left behind whatever it was, and it took a good few minutes to disappear.

"I don't know what it was. The first thing that comes to mind is a falling star, but I really don't know because it completely lit up my room.'' A Harbour Radio spokesman said no marine alerts had been put out because the owner of the Sea Star reported that the light did not look like a flare, which are normally red.

The spokesman said the object was, probably, either space debris burning up in the atmosphere or a missile launched from a military ship.