I can claim (along with thousands, hundreds of thousands of others) to have seen a meteorite – it was in 1993, during a warped visit home, suffering from depression (generally run down), walking over the yellow harvested fields on a glorious cloudless day towards the river at the back of Newport Pagnell and, suddenly, a flash, incandescent, it could have been 20 yards away, 100 yards, a mile, 10 miles .. impossible to calibrate. This is the point. One has no sense of distance at all. Hence, nothing to fear. Just an intensely bright, lingering flash. I thought, ‘a flare’, fired by some people on a training exercise. A farmer. Kids. It was all I could picture. Then gone. Was it just me? A mind vulnerable and susceptble to wild imaginings? Certainly, my father's tactical withdrawal to the study had to be considered. But later, on the news, 'Meteorites sighted over the East Anglian coast, several bright orange flashes ... ' Had it been at night, I think the effect would have been different. Somewhat. 
Sitatunga
