On a recent afternoon, Kenyan villagers were startled by an eerie whistling sound followed by a loud bang as they relaxed with family and friends.

Stephen Mangoka, a 75-year-old farmer from Mukuku village in Makueni County, told the BBC: “It sounded like a bomb and I was shocked. I started looking around and also wondered if it was gunshots.”

“I looked up at the sky to see if there was any smoke. There was nothing.

“I quickly ran to the side of the road to see if there was an accident. There was nothing unexpected. At this moment, someone told me that something fell from the sky.”

In fact, a large round metal object fell from above and landed on farmland near a dry river bed, and it was very hot.

“We found a large piece of metal that was very red, so we had to wait for it to cool down before we could get close to it,” said Ann Kanuna, who told CNN she owns the land where the object fell.

The giant ring took about two hours to cool down and turn gray, but it’s already causing a stir.

For the rest of Monday afternoon – because it was the day before New Year’s Eve, almost no one was working – people came to see the giant metal ring.

It was like a selfie hub, people came and posed next to it and had heated debates about what it could be.

Local authorities in Makueni County, about 115 kilometers (70 miles) southeast of the capital Nairobi, were informed of the incident.

After the Kenya Space Agency (KSA) learned of the incident, it arranged to come to investigate the next day.

But the item’s reputation is such that Mukuku villagers fear it could be stolen overnight.

Some of them took turns standing guard with local police, lighting fires nearby. They want to avoid potential scrap dealers and others out of curiosity who want to make money.

It is said to weigh over 500 kilograms (1,102 pounds), about the same as an adult horse, and is about 2.5 m (8 feet) in diameter, roughly the size of a children’s four-seat carousel.

After dawn, there were more and more onlookers on New Year’s Eve, followed by the Saudi team and the media.

Mukuku had never seen such activity. Later in the day, as the object was removed by Saudi Arabia’s National Security Agency, concern about what had happened to the villagers replaced the uproar.

Saudi Arabia’s National Security Agency said preliminary assessments suggested the object was a “detachment ring” from a space launch rocket.

“These objects are often designed to burn up upon re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall in uninhabited areas such as oceans,” a statement the next day said.

No one was injured in the fall, but some people in Mukuku began complaining about damage to nearby homes caused by the impact of the crash.

Christine Kionga, who lives about a kilometer from the crash site, showed us concrete cracks in some of the buildings at her home. She said they showed up after the accident.

Other neighbors claim the structural integrity of their homes has also been affected, but those accusations have not been proven.

“The government needs to find the owner of the object and obtain compensation for those affected by it,” Mukuku resident Benson Mutuku told the BBC.

Local media reported that some residents began complaining of discomfort after coming into contact with the metal rings, but this was not confirmed by the people we spoke to during our visit, nor by the authorities or the Saudis.

Still, Mr Mutuku said there were concerns about the long-term effects of possible space radiation.

“This is a space object and we’ve heard in other similar incidents that the effects of radiation are going to be felt even for future generations and there’s that fear in this community.”

However, subsequent tests by the Kenya Nuclear Regulatory Authority showed that while the ring’s radiation levels were indeed higher than in the area where it was found, they were not at levels that would be harmful to humans.

Engineers at the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which was established in 2017 to promote, coordinate and regulate space-related activities in the East African country, are continuing to conduct additional tests to learn more about the object.

The Saudi director-general said that fortunately, the object did not cause major damage when it hit the Earth.

Brigadier General Hilary Kipkosgei told the BBC: “Ultimate responsibility for any damage or injury caused by this space object lies with the country within the jurisdiction of which the operator launched the object.”

According to the Outer Space Treaty, which is overseen by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, “States are responsible for damage caused by their space objects.”

“(The ring) is a common item in many rockets and many space objects, so it’s difficult to attribute it to a specific rocket or space object, but we have clues, but as I said, our investigation is not conclusive yet. ,” Brigadier General Kipkosgei said.

The BBC showed photos of the object to the British Space Agency to find out what its experts thought.

“The most likely object is the upper stage separation ring of the 2008 Ariane rocket,” said Matt Archer, its launch director.

“The satellite is fine, but the actual main body of the rocket has passed through and deorbited.”

Ariane is Europe’s main rocket launch vehicle, helping more than 230 satellites into orbit. It will be retired in 2023.

The detached ring appeared to have been orbiting Earth for 16 years before unexpectedly appearing at Mukuku.

This is not the first space debris incident in East Africa.

Just a year and a half ago, some suspected space debris fell over several villages in western Uganda.

A few days ago, on January 8, there were unconfirmed reports of what was believed to be space debris burning over northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia.

As the space industry grows, such events are expected to become more frequent – and African governments may need to invest in better methods of detecting this speeding space debris.

NASA estimates there are more than 6,000 tons of space debris in orbit currently.

There are many different estimates of the likelihood of such trash hitting someone, But most of them are within the range of one ten thousandth.

Such statistics are of little comfort to residents of Mukuku, who are left thinking about the damage that could have been done if the ring had landed in the center of the village instead of on farmland.

“We need assurances from the government that this will not happen again,” Mutuku said.