curiouskiwiJul 14, 2023
Okay, who in the Wairarapa was outside just now who saw the 2 very bright orange spheres in the sky, moving across north to east, with one eventually "burning out" and the other carrying on for another two minutes toward the eastern horizon before burning out itself!
#sky #freaky
#wairarapa #newzealand #matariki
Show threadcuriouskiwiJul 14, 2023
Here's a photo, which doesn't really show how awesome it was. #sky #wairarapa
Show threadcuriouskiwi
okay, one of my kids actually had managed to get on video, but it really doesn't capture how it was, as there is no scale, and the phone was handheld so they seem to be moving up instead of just across the sky. (also, they weren't flickering... that's a side effect of the video compression). This was a couple of mins (?) after my photo was taken, so the things were already much smaller. Just before one blinked out. #sky #wairarapa #whatarethey
Jul 14, 2023 at 7:56amWeb
Show threadcuriouskiwiJul 14, 2023
latest update! A twitter friend was out taking star photos about 50km south of us, and she and her fam saw them as well. Pretty high up for that to happen, right? (edit... was about 20 minutes later that they saw them)
Show threadcuriouskiwiJul 14, 2023
So after much analysis from many quarters, I think the final decision is that they were indeed Chinese lanterns. I never knew they flew so long so high and so bright. Sorry for what may be a disappointing conclusion!
Show threadsueJul 14, 2023
@curiouskiwi this has been delightful.
Show threadMarkJul 14, 2023
@curiouskiwi
They look like Chinese lanterns.
Show threadcuriouskiwiJul 14, 2023
@zl2tod They were kilometres above us in the sky, and *VERY* bright. Brighter than Venus (if you've ever seen that) and much much larger in the sky. So maybe look like a lantern, but couldn't be.
(the problem of course is there's no real scale on the photo so that makes it hard to interpret if you didn't see in person)