New Zealand reports of object seen in sky

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New Zealand reports of object seen in sky

New Zealanders have reported rumbling, crackling sounds, a fireball and a huge flash of light streaking across the sky on Thursday afternoon, in what scientists believe is a meteor.

Local media outlets and social media were flooded with reports and queries about the sight, with some witnesses describing rumbles, bangs, a crackling sound in their ears, hair standing on end, rattling windows or a streak or explosion of light, followed by a smoke trail.

Weather scientists for Metservice believe that the object or its smoke trail has been detected by Seismologists at Geonet, and they believe that the object has a presumed sound wave from the object.

The phenomenon was captured by the plumber Curtis Powell on his dashcam while driving north of Shannon at 1.39 pm on Thursday.

We were driving to a job in Shannon when I saw a blue line falling in the sky, then a massive bright light, he said. My dashcam was recording and downloading the video once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. People shared photos and shared stories of their sightings on social media. I'm so glad someone caught it, I thought I was hallucinating, said one commenter.

The rumbling sound of an earthquake was mistook by a number of people.

We thought it was an earthquake, but it didn't sound right, more like a large heavy truck, with a beat, but there were no trucks near our house at the time. One Twitter user said the house vibrated slightly too.

Dr Duncan Steel, a Wellington-based space scientist who has worked for Nasa, said the object was likely a piece of meteor and seeing one in the daytime was a rare experience.

In my lifetime, I have only seen one daytime meteor. They are caused by macrometeoroids in the atmosphere coming in very quickly, typically 30 km per second. He said that to be seen during the daytime it would need to be quite large, something the size of a rugby ball or larger that is what makes them rare.

Some eyewitnesses described hearing crackling as the object moved through the sky, in what Steel described as an electrophonic sound Allan Gilmore of Canterbury University's Mt John Observatory said in a radio interview that meteors, and their accompanying electrical charge, could cause some people's hair to stand on end.

People with frizzy hair often hear it, while people with frizzy hair don't hear it, Gilmore said.

Dr Ian Griffin, the director of the Otago Museum, urged members of the public to keep any photos or videos. He said that we might be able to triangulate the position of the thing, and where it landed if it did land.

It may be quite scientifically important to retrieve meteorites in this country because they are quite rare, so getting one would be quite cool.