Police phone lines around the country, and especially the Coromandel Peninsula are running hot with calls from people reporting distress flares at night.
The calls are bugging the police because the flares are not flares at all; they're small lantern-type fliers powered by small candles and apparently being sold on Coromandel beaches and elsewhere.
But released at night they can resemble flares.
Northern police communications Inspector Cornell Kluessien told NZPA the novelty items were bag-like and made of flimsy paper.
When the candle is lit its heat fills the bag, just like a balloon, and it lifts off to float away, higher and higher.
Mr Kluessien said police had taken six calls from the Coromandel last night, three the day before and one from Auckland on Boxing Day.
"I'm sure the lanterns are pretty but they're causing us big problems, Mr Kluessien said.
He added police thought the lanterns were being sold on beaches and appealed for a halt to sales.
Mr Kluessien said every reported "flare" sighting had to be taken seriously and the Coastguard alerted.
He described continued sales and lantern launches as "bloody minded and stupid".
The lanterns may also be behind strange lights reported in the Taranaki night sky.
Numerous reports have now been made by people who have seen up to seven bright orange lights mysteriously moving across the skies above New Plymouth in the past week,
There have also been similar reports of strange lights in Auckland, Christchurch and Tauranga, the Taranaki Daily News reported.
A New Plymouth Airport control tower worker had witnessed the lights himself, but did not know what they were.
The first sighting was reported to the newspaper last week by Liam Heslop, who said he and his wife saw a single light moving in a west to east direction on December 23 about 9.45pm.
"It looked like a fireball and then it flickered out," he said.
"Then about half an hour later there were another two following the exact same path. It looked to me like a plane on fire really high up."
New Plymouth astronomer Rod Austin said he didn't know what the lights were but he thought they could be balloons with LED candles attached.
"That's my feeling, but I can't prove it," he said.
The paper also speculated the lights could be Chinese sky lanterns, he said, released to mark the fifth anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami.
The lanterns are readily and cheaply available on TradeMe.
One listing says "folklore has it the lanterns carry away with them bad spirits and misfortune high into the sky and far away, leaving behind only good luck and fortune for the releaser".
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