4 ms·

Red lights over the Pacific – August 2014 (2014)

15 points by gone35 3y ago

dvh 3y ago
Chinese fishing fleet. The final stage before the last fish is caught. The "correction" will be very steep.
- blincoln 3y ago
  The author even suggests as much near the beginning of the article. Are red lights on those ships common? I found lots of articles[1] about their fleets, but the photos always seemed to show green or white lights. [1] e.g. https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/china-illegal-fishing-fleet/ https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/china-illegal-fishing-fleet..., https://seashepherd.org/2018/12/22/tracking-the-chinese-squid-fleet-in-the-south-pacific-part-2-a-city-on-the-high-seas/ https://seashepherd.org/2018/12/22/tracking-the-chinese-squi...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - NikkiA 3y ago
    Red and green lights are the global navigation standard, red on port, green on starboard. The ships with the red light will be facing with port to the photographer, the ships with green starboard, the few that you can see a mix, will be head on or head away. The lights are designed to be easily seen at up to the horizon limit, so it's no surprise that you can see them a handful of miles up and at a low angle (it's generally easy to see lights in the dark from miles away anyway as anyone that has done scouting/girl-guiding will likely know since it's a common thing to do)
    - blincoln 3y ago
      The lights I'm referring to aren't navigation lights. They're arrays, usually on arms that stick out from the side of the vessel, for attracting squid. They completely overwhelm the navigation lights in the photos I linked to. Since the author of the post is an airline pilot and an experienced photographer, I have to image he'd seen ships' navigation lights from the water before and these were significantly brighter. You can also see in the blog post photos that the shape of the lights is in keeping with being arrays, rather than a few point sources on each ship. They're rectangular or square, and remember that the photos were shot from about 34,000 feet (about 10km). I'd expect navigation lights to be a pinpoint at that distance. Anyway, I was able to answer my own question: red lights are used by fishing fleets for attracting saury, as discussed in this article about a separate "surreal collection of red lights observed from an aircraft" incident: https://observers.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220805-debunked-mysterious-red-lights-pacific-fishing-boats https://observers.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220805-debu... The author of the blog post even used the term "saury" in their explanation, but I didn't realize at the time that that was a type of fish.
barbegal 3y ago
Definitely vessels of some kind. I think the author overstates the brightness which is hard to judge in such dark conditions

15 points by gone35 3y ago

dvh 3y ago

Chinese fishing fleet. The final stage before the last fish is caught. The "correction" will be very steep.

blincoln 3y ago
The author even suggests as much near the beginning of the article. Are red lights on those ships common? I found lots of articles[1] about their fleets, but the photos always seemed to show green or white lights. [1] e.g. https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/china-illegal-fishing-fleet/ https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/china-illegal-fishing-fleet..., https://seashepherd.org/2018/12/22/tracking-the-chinese-squid-fleet-in-the-south-pacific-part-2-a-city-on-the-high-seas/ https://seashepherd.org/2018/12/22/tracking-the-chinese-squi...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- NikkiA 3y ago
  Red and green lights are the global navigation standard, red on port, green on starboard. The ships with the red light will be facing with port to the photographer, the ships with green starboard, the few that you can see a mix, will be head on or head away. The lights are designed to be easily seen at up to the horizon limit, so it's no surprise that you can see them a handful of miles up and at a low angle (it's generally easy to see lights in the dark from miles away anyway as anyone that has done scouting/girl-guiding will likely know since it's a common thing to do)
  - blincoln 3y ago
    The lights I'm referring to aren't navigation lights. They're arrays, usually on arms that stick out from the side of the vessel, for attracting squid. They completely overwhelm the navigation lights in the photos I linked to. Since the author of the post is an airline pilot and an experienced photographer, I have to image he'd seen ships' navigation lights from the water before and these were significantly brighter. You can also see in the blog post photos that the shape of the lights is in keeping with being arrays, rather than a few point sources on each ship. They're rectangular or square, and remember that the photos were shot from about 34,000 feet (about 10km). I'd expect navigation lights to be a pinpoint at that distance. Anyway, I was able to answer my own question: red lights are used by fishing fleets for attracting saury, as discussed in this article about a separate "surreal collection of red lights observed from an aircraft" incident: https://observers.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220805-debunked-mysterious-red-lights-pacific-fishing-boats https://observers.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220805-debu... The author of the blog post even used the term "saury" in their explanation, but I didn't realize at the time that that was a type of fish.

barbegal 3y ago

Definitely vessels of some kind. I think the author overstates the brightness which is hard to judge in such dark conditions