"Holy heck, what was that?" is the question hanging over Feilding following "two massive explosions" in the sky on Wednesday morning.
Feilding locals woke to a deafening bang and their homes shaking after what's being described as "two massive explosions in the sky" that caused a "massive bang".
Feilding local Kath Hopping told Newshub she was sitting outside at 6:50am and "heard this massive bang, like it shook the house".
Hopping said she thought it was a car accident so checked her CCTV footage to discover a bright orange explosion shooting through the sky.
"Holy heck, what was that?"
Fellow local Bill O'Donnell was sitting in bed at the time the bang struck.
"There was this almighty bang right up in the atmosphere, 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," O'Donnell said.
The video captured by Hopping's CCTV shows a short, sharp and quite large bright orange explosion shoot through the sky.
Newshub shared the footage with astronomer Ian Griffin, he told Newshub it resembles the scenes seen when a meteor or fireball explodes in the atmosphere.
Griffin said bangs and explosions keep within the characteristics of a meteor or a fireball or even a piece of space junk.
"Very exciting, but hopefully once we get more CCTV footage we will know more about this."
Griffin said when explosions happen they cause a large sonic boom, which causes the ground to rattle.
"Depending on how big the thing is and how close it is it wouldn't surprise me that you can actually hear the sonic boom and feel it."
He urged those with CCTV footage and dashcam that might have captured the sound of the bang and footage of the explosion to share it with Fireballs Aotearoa.
Stardome astronomer Rob Davison said it was "hard to say for sure" what the explosion was because clouds were obscuring the view.
"We can't see that clear movement across the sky, but the combination of a flash of light and a loud bang does suggest it could be a meteor breaking up in the atmosphere."
Newshub has approached GeoNet for comment.
