Welcome Bay residents were given a special Christmas light show in the weekend when a flurry of orange lanterns lit up the night sky.

About 15 glowing orange lanterns floated through the sky from Mount Maunganui to Welcome Bay estuary between 8.30pm and 10.30pm on Friday, December 16.

Lanterns lit up the sky over Welcome Bay on Friday night courtesy of lanterns; their wreckage pictured right.

Tauranga Boys' College student Daniel Hines, 15, was outside with his two sisters when he first noticed the glowing lights floating high in the sky above the estuary.

'I was outside and all of a sudden I saw a bright orange light come across.

'They were really bright and they came across from Mount Maunganui direction, then they just dropped in front of us.”

At first Daniel thought the glowing lights were stars, it was not until the lanterns got closer to his home on Welcome Bay Road that he identified them.

'I didn't really know what they were at first, I thought they were stars or something and then I saw they were lanterns.”

Lauren and Olivia Hines with lantern wreckage.

Daniel was joined in the garden by his elderly neighbours to watch as the 1.1metre long lanterns made their journey from the Mount, before falling into the estuary.

'They just started dropping in front of us. I was amazed at how high they got in the sky.”

Daniel and his sisters Lauren, 14, and Olivia, 12, made their way down to the estuary to retrieve the lanterns.

'We walked down and picked up three of the lanterns. They were broken because the paper got wet as the tide came in. They are in our garage now.”

The origin of the lanterns is unknown.

Daniel's plot map of the lanterns' flightpath. Image: Google Earth.