Bari Duncan says the cloud had an amazing rainbow effect around it which didn't show on camera. Photo / Bari Duncan
Eggs sunny side up was on the menu in the Hawke's Bay as locals marvelled at the way the sunset scorched the clouds in the sky.
Photographer Brad Wyatt Molenaar said he didn't realise exactly what the cloud resembled until later on Thursday night, but he knew it was a picture perfect shot.
"My first reaction was holy s*** a huge eye in the sky, I have to get this shot," Molenaar said.
"I looked out the window and saw what seemed to be this egg-shaped cloud."
He said although the photo was great, it couldn't catch its full beauty. "I stopped the car in the middle of the road, jumped out and had a great clearing through the surrounding houses," Molenaar said.
"It had these amazing colours around the edges of the cloud that the camera didn't quite pick up."
Facebook reaction suggested people weren't just seeing an egg. Some saw Sauron's eye and even a mother holding a baby in her arm.
Ruth Philps was making sure she was staying focused on the road driving home in Napier but said the cloud made it a little distracting.
"I had just taken my 16-year-old daughter for a driving lesson and we were heading home when we saw it," she said.
"It had a rainbow effect around the edges. I don't remember ever seeing a cloud like that before and we pulled over down Georges Drive to take a photo."
She said she half expected a UFO to appear.
"We joked that it looked like 'The Aliens were Coming', but in less than a minute it was gone as the sun was setting."
Bari Duncan had been watching the clouds change formation and colour all day and said the photo she got on sunset doesn't do it justice.
"As we watched the whole edge of it was rainbow colours, very strange, kind of spooky," she said.
"I tried to get my phone to pick up the rainbow colours but it wasn't very successful."
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