Flashes of blue light and sonic booms shattered the peace of the night when what is believed to have been a meteor flew through the sky last night.

People in Tauranga, Matata, Wellington, Auckland, Whitianga and the rest of the North Island took to social media last night after the event at around 10pm. Read more here.

Many people initially thought it was a bolt of lighting until they took to the internet and read what other people were saying.

The official twitter page for Auckland Civil Defence & Emergency Management said it was 'definitely not lightning, most likely a #meteor”.

YouTube user Josh Sherborne was on his way to the gym when he saw the blue light flash across the sky.

He managed to capture the event on his dash cam and posted the footage on YouTube. Watch his video below.

Near Upper Hutt, Andy Wardle said he saw a "green fireball type light heading in the straight down direction”, reports Stuff.

It 'appeared to explode and split into three distinctive pieces. I believe this would have landed somewhere out in the Tasman Sea. It may have been a meteor or even perhaps a piece of space junk burning up”.

SunLive reader Bev McKinnon got in touch to say: 'At 10pm the whole sky lit up over Tauranga, looking from Welcome Bay, and a straight streak of gold appeared in the middle of the sky.”

Another reader, Nic Rose, added: 'I was driving over the Maungatapu bridge at exactly 10pm and the entire sky lit up with a blue/green light.

'It was the brightest light I've ever seen in the sky in my life.”

The flash in #Auckland tonight was definitely not lightning, most likely a #meteor #nzmeteor MetService image pic.twitter.com/FU2dHzEBhl

— Auckland CDEM (@AucklandCDEM) February 11, 2015