Unexplained lights in the sky on Monday night had Carterton’s mayor sparking intense online debate about possible causes.
By Sue Teodoro of Local Democracy Reporting
Carterton mayor Steve Cretney noticed the strange lights when he went outside with his dogs about 8.30pm.
He said he saw about five or six unusually behaved lights in the distance towards South Wairarapa.
“They were in the general direction of the Featherston-Western Lake area,” he said.
“These things were going up and down, to the side and to the diagonal. It was certainly not an aircraft.
“It was hard to count them because they were fading in and out.”
He said they were high in the night sky.
Cretney’s wife and daughter also saw the unexplained objects.
The sighting prompted Cretney to ask others in Carterton’s online notice board if they had seen them, sparking a wave of speculation.
The online chat lit up with more than 150 comments and more than 115 reactions, suggesting everything from an imminent alien invasion to comets, drones and more.
A contributor who had also seen them said they were “definitely UFOs not lanterns”.
“They blow up in orange light and then glow yellow then white. And they are all darting around each other,” they said.
They were also spotted further north.
“We saw three tonight driving along Takapau toward Dannevirke. Was wondering if they were drones (or UFOs). Almost looked like helicopters searching. Wasn't the Starlink satellites,” said the post.
Not all the comments added to the debate.
“I'd imagine the aliens are looking for any signs of intelligence and have now moved on from Featherston towards Carterton,” said one.
“Oh dammit I missed my ride,” said another.
Cretney said he had no idea what caused them.
“I’d be interested to find out what the lights were,” he said.
Astronomer Sam Leske, part-owner of Star Safari observatory in Carterton had a scientific explanation.
Leske, who also has a Masters degree in astro-physics, had also seen the lights.
"They are satellites," he said. "They are low on the horizon, so the light gets refracted by our atmosphere."
A few hours after sunset, the satellites would be reflecting the sun.
"The direction you see these satellites is to the south-west and west. We are going to see more and more of these as there are already more than 14,000 in the sky, and the number is expected to increase dramatically."
He said the ones we see are the low earth-orbiting ones.
"We are seeing the reflection of sunlight on them. They disappear when they move into the earth's shadow.
"You can see four or five in the sky at once, which can make it seem like they are moving around."
Leske said it was highly likely the lights were caused by Starlink satellites.
Another donut-shaped light above New Zealand caused a stir a few days ago, but an Earth Sciences spokesperson said afterwards it was probably the exhaust plume from a rocket launch.
The region itself is no stranger to sightings of unusual aerial things.
Last year, an object seen in the Wairarapa sky sparked similar debate online and turned out to be a super pressure balloon launched from Wānaka Airport by the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).
– Local Democracy Reporting is local-body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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