People have reported seeing bright flashes of light and hearing thunderous booms as a fireball crossed over the lower North Island.
Fireballs Aotearoa director Steve Wyn-Harris said the fireball, or large meteor, crossed the lower North Island at 10.26pm on Tuesday.
Wyn-Harris said many people who had heard it told them the fireball got low enough into the earth's atmosphere to potentially drop a meteorite or meteorites onto the ground.
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He said members of their team were currently going through the data that their cameras collected last night.
"Once that is done, we will have a much clearer idea whether this meteoroid got low enough and slow enough to stop burning up, go into dark flight and also where it may have landed," he said.
"However, early analysis has the north facing cameras in the lower North Island looking into a nearly full moon and the south facing cameras are inundated with the size of the terminal flash making gathering useful data to identify where a meteorite may have fallen difficult."
People across the country posted on social media that they had seen or heard the fireball.
"It was huge, the ball was orange with a purple tail," one person from Tūrangi said.
"Saw a bright green ball falling down and turning orange at the end," said another in Auckland.
A person from Ruby Bay said it sounded like "someone hit a wheelie bin with a stone".
"Sounded like a cross between a train not running on the track with a bit of thunder mixed in," said a person in Carterton.
"My cows went nuts," said another.
