Steve Hornsby, 61, was walking to his garage last Thursday when the sky turned a peculiar dark yellow colour.  A freak hail storm then hit and he rushed to shelter under the eaves.  Only after the intense downpour had finished did he notice the odd, silicone-like balls that had dropped on to his lawn in Bournemouth.  The transparent, marble-sized objects had a blue tinge and were too slippery to pick up by hand so Steve scooped some into a jar for a closer look.  He estimated that about 20 had come down and while most were broken some remained intact.  Each one is about an inch across and no one has any explanation as to what they are.  Steve believes they are some sort of pollution in the atmosphere that blew across from the continent.  A scientist at his local university suggested they may be eggs that were taken from the sea by a bird that dropped them over Steve's house in the hail storm.  Mystery ... the jelly-like balls do not melt like hailstones  But this seems unlikely as they are transparent and there are no signs of eggs or an embryo inside.  Steve, an aircraft engineer, said: "I was just about to pop into the garage to get some logs for the fire when the sky went very dark and then a strange yellow colour.  "There was then a short, sharp hail storm that lasted for about 20 seconds.  "I rushed to stand by the wall out of the way and it was all over very quickly. I had seen the hail come down and it looked like rock salt.  "But then I spotted something on the lawn and it looked like broken glass and I thought it must be the kids.  "But then I put my foot on it and it disappeared and I thought it was strange. Then I looked around and there were lots of others.  Strangely beautiful ... Steve scooped up the 'marbles' where they fell in his garden  "They were definitely not there before the storm. They are circular and must have broken on impact.  "They were almost impossible to pick up, they were very jelly-like. I had to get a spoon and flick them into a jam jar. They had an exterior shell with a soft inside.  "They only landed in our garden in an area of a couple of hundred square metres. I've checked the neighbours' gardens.  "It is the most peculiar thing I have ever seen - there must be about 20 complete spheres.  "They don't smell and they don't float. I've been an aircraft engineer for many years and I've never seen anything like it.  "I thought it could have been some kind of atmospheric pollution like a chemical that has been released into the atmosphere, got sucked into a storm cloud and solidified and then released in droplets with the hail stones.  "The winds that day were blowing from the east.  "Ideally I'd like to get them chemically analysed to find out what they consist of."  The Met Office has said the jelly-like substance was "not meteorological".
BOURNEMOUTH man ran for cover when little jelly-like balls fell on him - scientists are baffled by the freak shower