For the first time in a long time, Feilding's had the country's most exciting start to the day.
It was a humble Wednesday morning in the small town when suddenly an exploding fireball lit up the sky, caused a huge booming sound, and even shook residents’ homes.
Kath Hopping captured the celestial moment on her CCTV camera, posting it to the riveting Facebook group ‘Everything Feilding’ just two hours later.
“That was some wake-up call this morning,” Kathy, who heard the boom while sitting outside, wrote in the caption. “There’s no sound because it’s our internal camera but the boom shook the house!”.
Another Feilding-ite, Bill O’Donnell, was in bed when the explosion occurred. He said that it rocked his house before sharing his initial theory.
“There was this almighty bang right up in the atmosphere,” he told Newshub. “The whole house, my headboard behind me, the wall shook just once."
“'Oh god, don't tell me it's Taupō' was my first thought.”
No one knows what the thing was yet, but astronomer Ian Griffin told the news outlet the incident resembles a meteor exploding.
Rob Davidson, an astronomer at Auckland’s Stardome, would have a better idea of what it was if there were fewer clouds in the way but agrees with Ian.
“We can’t see that clear movement across the sky,” he said. “But the combination of a flash of light and a loud bang does suggest it could be a meteor breaking up in the atmosphere.”
Fireballs Aotearoa, whose whole deal is getting to the bottom of this exact kind of situation, is currently investigating what the Feilding fireball is and whether it left any debris in the area.
No one seems to be suggesting an alien invasion… yet.
