MYSTERY surrounds a 'big bang' in the Newton Abbot area which shook houses and buildings late on Thursday afternoon. (OCTOBER 18)

At the Newton Abbot police station windows rattled around 4.15-4.30pm and officers received a number of calls from worried residents in the area, including Seale-Hayne.

In the Bradley Lane industrial units in Newton Abbot, every building shook.

Mike Knight, the owner of Drive-in Auto Care, said everyone in the units and residents in nearby houses came out to see what was happening. 'The mezzanine floor I was on shook violently and the office swayed, and in a warehouse across the road the shelving fell over.

'One of the lads leaving a car in the car park felt it in the car,' said Mr Knight, who believed it was an earthquake because it did not make sense that it was sonic.

In Abbotskerswell, Pam Winkley, of Wilton Way, said she had never heard anything like it before.

'I suppose it was between 4.30-5pm and I was in the kitchen. The radio was off and suddenly there was just this amazing sound. The windows did not rattle but for a moment I was worried the side of the house was coming down,' she said.

Mrs Winkley said her neighbour had thought her boiler had blown up in the garage.

A spokesman for the British Geological Survey office said it had received information from Newton Abbot police, along with three emails, two telephone calls and one from a resident in Cornwall on Thursday afternoon.

'They reported that they felt what they had thought to have been an earthquake at sometime around 16.15 BST. Reports described a loud bang and windows and doors trembling,' said the spokesman.

He added that data from the BGS seismic networks in the region were examined and a signal consistent with a possible sonic origin was recorded at 4.15pm at Carnmenellis, Falmouth.

'The reports were also consistent with historical observations received for previous events with a sonic origin. RAF Henlow was contacted and it advised that there were no military jets on exercise in the area at the time,' he said.