Watch it: Home video of 1986 Challenger shuttle explosion

The first and only known home video of the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle has surfaced, showing a horrifying new vantage point from the crowd as the aircraft blew apart in midair.

Jeffery Ault shot the Super 8 film footage while watching with the crowd at Cape Canaveral, Fla., that tragic day. He was a 19-year-old space geek at the time.

"The excitement leading up to the launch was something I had never felt before." Ault told The Huffington Post, the site he released the footage to after letting it sit in a box at his home for years.

In the video, the crowd doesn't appear to initially realize that the shuttle exploded as the sky lit up in flames. But later a voice over a loudspeaker can be heard saying, "The vehicle has exploded."

Six astronauts and a school teacher vying to be the first "citizen in space" died in the explosion.