Meteor near miss for Hamilton friends

A "blinding" flash, intense explosion and sonic booms experienced over much of the country last night were probably caused by a meteor, experts agree. About 10pm, the flash, described by many as a burst of blue and white light, was seen from Whangarei to the upper South Island. Footage: YouTube/Josh Sherborne

Two Hamilton friends had a close encounter last night with a meteor, which lit up skies over the North Island.

Bright flashes in the sky and sonic booms were reported around the North Island just before 10 o'clock on Wednesday night. Auckland Civil Defence and Emergency Management's Twitter page said it was most likely a meteor.

Fletcher Hodge, 33, and Michael Mckee, 30, were travelling back from Rotorua having purchased a possum plucker off TradeMe when they noticed the sky getting "bluer and brighter".

Mr Hodge, 33, said he looked out the driver's side of the vehicle they were travelling in to view what he thought was a shooting star.

"The next minute it was practically at the right hand side... like only 200-300 metres away. It came in slow then sped up. There were big bright blue flashes and then it went straight down into a gully," said Mr Hodges.

"I was quite freaked out. I was like, what the hell... this is the end. I've seen shooting stars and comets break up but I have never been so close in my life. It was like looking out at a street light from your house and it looked closer than a street light."

The pair pulled over near an effluent dump station, located near the "Hobbiton turn off" and said they heard a person "come roaring around" on a motorbike.

They were joking about cashing in on the find, and Mr Hodges suggested he should mark the location in his smartphone's GPS.

"The timing was impeccable," said Mr Hodge. "If we'd been a couple of minutes earlier we would have seen it shoot past us... this big blue flame for a short while going straight down with a trail of looked like what sky rockets let off and that stayed in sky for about 10 seconds."

The pair didn't hear a bang to indicate the meteorite landed but because they were still driving at the time they say they may not have felt that.

Mr Mckee was driving when he saw "the really bright light".

"I could see the whole countryside. I saw a streak in the sky and bits of like fireworks but thought it was too bright to be fireworks. It didn't hit me till after that it was cosmic. I've never seen anything like it in my life."

He said the light seemed to head down into a gully.

"I think it landed pretty close to us. It was almost blinding."

Mr Mckee said he had no idea the sighting over the North Island's skies had also lit up social media with speculation as to what the light was.

When Hamilton News spoke with Mr Mckee he had just got home and was "just chilling out with a cigarette".