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Anyone up early on Saturday morning would have witnessed a rare event from outer space.
Neil Hart and his 10-year-old son Jayden left in the dark to go pig-hunting around 5.50am at Matawai.
As they were heading towards Ormond, they saw in the direction of Patutahi an extremely bright meteorite that lit up the early morning sky and all the hills around them.
Mr Hart's wife said the four of them in the car watched as it cut horizontally across the sky.
"It was quite spectacular - you could make out the rock with the sparks coming off it, it was very, very clear."
When the hunting group arrived at Matawai, the people they were meeting said they had heard a boom.