Hayley Mace Three of the east coast's lifeboats were called out on Friday night to reports of red flares north east of Lowestoft.Lifeboat crews from Lowestoft, Gorleston and Caister were launched just before 10pm after Yarmouth Coastguard received a call from a service boat working on the wind farm at Scroby Sands reporting seeing red flares.

Hayley Mace

Three of the east coast's lifeboats were called out on Friday night to reports of red flares north east of Lowestoft.

Lifeboat crews from Lowestoft, Gorleston and Caister were launched just before 10pm after Yarmouth Coastguard received a call from a service boat working on the wind farm at Scroby Sands reporting seeing red flares.

The three boats each searched their area of the coast twice, taking more than three hours, but could not find the source of the flares and returned to their bases just after 1am.

A spokesman for Yarmouth Coastguard said: “There was very good visibility that night, so anything which was there would have been seen.

“Obviously as red flares are for use in emergencies, we are obliged and willing to take any reports seriously and launch a full search. Along this stretch of coast, meteorite activity is the thing most commonly confused for flares, and this is what this report has been put down to.”

Lowestoft lifeboat press officer Mike Richford said: “”Red flare reports are always taken very seriously, because the worry is that if you don't see anything straight away, it could have come from a boat which has since gone down.”