Still confused about past tenses!

[Manuel]

How do you say "What was that?!" when something occurred just a second ago, for example, when something just flew past your head. Is it "qué era eso?" "qué fue eso?" or "qué ha sido eso?" ???

[Rusty]

¿Qué fue (eso)?

[Manuel]

Thanks for the reply, Rusty, but I'm still unclear as to why?

I know that in Spain, for example, they say "Qué has dicho?" when they didn't understand what you just said to them a moment ago. Why is the past tense different for this one then? Because it also deals with something that happened just a moment ago.

[Julvenzor]

There is a regional difference. In Spain and other few countries, we use the "pretérito perfecto" (¿qué ha sido eso?) for an inmediate action/fact. However, native Spanish speakers from most countries prefer to utilize just "pretérito" in the same way native English spakers do in USA.

A pleasure.

[poli]

It's like English in this case. What did you just say? What have you just said?
There's a slight meaning change but often can be interchanged.