© ReutersA shooting star photographed by an astronaut in space.
The sight of a giant shooting star left a North Taranaki man shaking after his early morning run.
Lance Howarth, a mobile mechanic, was out running around the back roads of Lepperton this morning when he saw the star around 5:45am.
''It was that bloody spectacular I had to stop and watch it.''
He said the star had completely lit up the dark moonless sky and surrounding countryside.
''It was early and still dark and the only reason I noticed it was because all of a sudden I could see where I was going and I thought, 'hang on, it's just got light really quickly' and looked up and there it was.''
He described the shooting star as a massive 'fireball' with a long tail and said it seemed to travel from the north east to south west before disappearing into cloud over the ranges.
''It was just frickin' huge. For a while I thought it might crash into the ranges.''
The star almost passed right above his head, and was completely silent, he said.
''It was the best thing I've ever seen, and the most frightening.''
Stunned, his mind ran to the possibilities of what it could mean.
''I did think for a second, ''are we about to be invaded by aliens?'''
The star also left a vapour trail which hung in the sky for at least half an hour, he said.
''I had to keep looking back.''
Comment: Pretty rare thing?! Somebody isn't doing his job properly...
Check out SOTT.net's 73 pages of archived fireball sightings from the past few years:
Fire in the Sky
Meanwhile, "coming from Honduras and moving northeast" takes this meteor or comet fragment (with train of meteors) over Florida on Monday night, which coincided with the explosions that hit the gas plant in Lake County, Florida.