What was that? Loud bang and bizarre flash of light stun locals in Melbourne

A loud bang was heard and a bizarre flash of light was reported on Wednesday night in Melbourne's northeastern part, stunning the locals.

CCTV captured a mysterious flash of light, which was followed by a bang boom. The footage was posted on a social media forum by a resident from Doreen.

The intriguing post then went viral. The resident who posted it said he heard the sound while getting out of his car at about 9:00 pm(local time).

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People who couldn't record it rushed to social media to find answers regarding the late-night explosion.

One user wrote, "Ok, a massive explosion wasn't how I expected tonight to go! What in the world was that?!" The user hails from the Mernda area.

Another user wrote, speculating the "loud af" sound came from the roadworks. Another resident said, "Our whole house shook".

Posting the CCTV footage, one local said on a local page that they guessed "Maybe a meteorite?"

There's no confirmation, but astrophysicist Clare Kenyon told the Herald Sun: "The culprit? Most likely space junk or a meteor."

She added, "When a piece of space junk – or even something natural like a chunk of space rock – is pulled towards Earth, it's moving really quickly and then basically slams into the atmosphere, creating a kind of sonic boom."

"The friction from Earth's atmosphere is immense and causes the material to break apart and burn causing lingering bright streaks of light across the sky," she added.

Dr Brad Tucker, who is an astronomer from the Australian National University, also hinted at a meteorite. He said that the "flash associated with this boom" hints at it likely coming from a meteor.

"It would have been a bit of an astroid broke off, travelled through space, [and] hit the Earth's atmosphere," Tucker said.

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