From aliens, to falling stars and fireballs, the search is on to find answers to the mystery ‘explosion’ in North Lismore at 7pm on Tuesday night. Read more: Mysterious explosion rocks parts of Lismore last night

As the cause of the loud boom and bright light baffles Essential Energy and local service stations, Lismore App readers have been keen to share their experiences of the event and what they think might have happened. 

Shooting star?

Two Lismore residents told the Lismore App they saw a slow moving, very bright shooting star – moving from east to west, not long before dark.

Geoff O'Malley said the light was low in the sky and moved in a descending trajectory toward the west.

“I was in the northern end of Diadem Street, looking south,” Geoff said. “The light seemed to be not much above the line of Girards Hill.

“If it was shooting star it would have been much further away than other parts of Lismore. 

Drone?

“It could conceivably have been some kind of flying object, perhaps a drone, that crashed, and Terania Street would potentially have been on its path. 

“The light did look more unnatural, like a LED, than a shooting star and it seemed to be moving more slowly.”

Starlinks?

Another Lismore resident, William J Goode said he thought the brief shooting star he saw might have finally burnt up over South Lismore.

“We’re gonna have all Elon Musk’s little starlinks coming back like that one day,” William said. “I think he (Elon) said five years, but he’s putting them up at the rate of 60 a fortnight.”

Another North Lismore resident said her power went out at exactly 7pm, when she heard a noise that she thought was the power box blowing up.

“But within two seconds the power turned back on again,” she said.

Aliens?

“This was very weird and I would like to know what it was: Aliens? A spacecraft falling? Maybe even just a power breaker blew up.”

Twilight Zone?

Lismore resident Neville Feltcha said he noticed the power go out briefly after a loud bang and a bright flash near the old rail bridge crossing over Terania Street.

Neville said it was not the first time this has happened – that the same thing has happened “at least four or five times in the last two years or so”.

Fireball?

The Lismore App did some research and discovered that falling meteors and fireballs are common space objects that can enter the earth’s atmosphere and cause noise and light.

The main difference between them is that a meteor is commonly heard as a crackling or sizzling sound, while a fireball makes a ‘sonic boom’.

According to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory senior scientist, Don Lincoln, fireballs are generally not dangerous and usually burn up in the atmosphere. Apparently only a few actually land.

Mr Lincoln said a fireball is a meteor with a brightness of the planet Venus, or greater - and can make a loud bang. In 2019, a fireball caused a loud bang over central New York.

He said sonic boom sound released from the fireball is caused when an object travels faster than the speed of sound (about 767 mph at sea level). 

“Because of their speed, they emit sound in an unusual way. Rather than producing sound waves in a spherical way like the ones that are created when a pebble is tossed into a pool of water, an object moving faster than the speed of sound emits waves in a cone-like pattern. It's similar to the wake of a fast motorboat as water is pushed to either side,” he said.

“When that cone of waves passes over an observer, they hear a sharp report, like a very loud and brief explosion. 

“Since objects from space can hit the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 mph, which is far faster than the speed of sound, sonic booms are inevitable.”

The truth is out there

Is this the end of the quest for answers into Lismore’s mysterious explosion? 

The truth is out there.