Unknown orange/red glow over Pacific Ocean

[1stspotter]

A Dutch pilot flying for an unnamed airline saw an unknown orange/red glow over Pacific Ocean while enroute from Hong Kong to Alaska.

No idea what it is. Looks like a vulcano eruption.

Here the pilot's story and more photos
Unknown orange/red glow over Pacific Ocean - August 24, 2014 Photo Gallery by Flying Dutchman at pbase.com (http://www.pbase.com/flying_dutchman/pacific_eruption)


http://m1.i.pbase.com/t9/23/582523/4/157113241.BeCtINyg.jpg

[bushveld]

A top-secret weapon being developed by the US military was destroyed four seconds after its launch from a test range in Alaska early on Monday after controllers detected a problem with the system, the Pentagon said. The Advanced Hypersonic Weapon is part of a program to create a missile that will destroy targets anywhere on Earth within an hour - traveling at speeds in excess of 3,500 miles-an-hour or Mach 5. The mission was aborted to ensure public safety, and no one was injured in the incident, which occurred shortly after 4 am EDT at the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska, said Maureen Schumann, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Defense Department.

[wiggy]

Despite the pilot's doubts about the green glow: "the strange green glow that was all over the Northern Hemisphere. I think it was sort of a Northern Lights but it was much more dispersed, never seen anything like this before.." I reckon from the photographs that it is indeed Aurora ( you can get "all sky" aurora if you're in the right place at the right time, sometimes it's diffuse.., sometimes it isn't and is very impressive).

That said I really have no idea about the red glow.

[TWT]

The glow event was 4.5hrs flying time from Alaska,so unlikely to have been the failed rocket.

[Mr Mac]

TWT
Rocket was destroyed shortly after launch - 4 secs but who's to know how far it flew given the speeds the poster says there trying to achieve. The aurora I would say is the mostly lightly suspect on some of the photos. I have seen it quite often Salmon fishing in northern latitude's as well as flying up there, but the multi coloured dots have me beat less it is said rocket , or possible gas burning as I have heard of gas being released before earthquakes. Will be interested to see what others think.

[mad_jock]

Glowing lights underneath the clouds photo - Flying Dutchman photos at pbase.com (http://www.pbase.com/flying_dutchman/image/157113241/original)

That isn't aurora, its under them.

And the exposure is 8s at F2.8 at 12800 ISO with a 10.5mm fish eye. Which will screw with things somewhat.

[wiggy]

That isn't aurora, its under them.

Yep, I think we're agreed on that.

And the exposure is 8s at F2.8 at 12800 ISO with a 10.5mm fish eye. Which will screw with things somewhat.

As reference ('cos I'm not up to speed on this) when I used to dabble in astrophotography a 30s/1 min exposure on a standard 56mm lens at ISO 400 would give decent picture of aurora without any obvious start trails. Don't know how the bloggers numbers fit in with that, I'll leave it to the experts.

(are you smelling "Photoshop"??....closest thing I've seen to lights on the ground like that is the Dutch greenhouses you see coming towards Lambourne from the east at O dark thirty AM in the winter....Cynic? Me???)

[Bushfiva]

I'm smelling a fishing fleet.

[Facelookbovvered]

The Mach 5 weapon has no warhead just kinetic energy, the explosion was the launch vehicle

[SLFguy]

Ian,
Wrong rocket methinks.

[Ian Corrigible]

SLFguy - Mea culpa, thanks for the correction. Vid removed.

[despegue]

Some plankton has fluorescent properties and can be seen as a glow on the oceans.

[Gove N.T.]

I would have thought an 8 second exposure would have caused some light trails. an earlier picture has a 30 second exposure and the image is very clear. To hold a D800 camera rock steady for 30secs without a tripod and a remote shutter releases is quite a feat especially in an aircraft that is flying into the night at +/- 500MPH. My canon 5d mk2 is about the same weight and i can't achieve that type of steadiness for 30 secs with a fisheye.... but the exif is there so I wonder how it was achieved. Interesting series of pictures though.

[Intruder]

There are many active volcanoes on Kamchatka. Could be one...

[Maxan_Murphy]

Earthquake Lights?

Bizarre Earthquake Lights Finally Explained (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140106-earthquake-lights-earthquake-prediction-geology-science/)

[thcrozier]

part of a program to create a missile that will destroy targets anywhere on Earth within an hour

But I wish it weren't.

[wiggy]

I would have thought an 8 second exposure would have caused some light trails.

IMHO no, from experience with a standard lens/wide angle you can get away with anything up to perhaps a minute without obvious trailing. Clearly it's a different matter with a long lens/telescope.

. To hold a D800 camera rock steady for 30secs without a tripod and a remote shutter releases is quite a feat especially in an aircraft

Again from experience if you're lucky, and it's a smooth night it's just about possible. I used to photograph aurora by jamming an SLR (OM-10 or even a Zenith :eek:) up against the number 2 or 3 flight deck window. The piccies wouldn't be exhibition quality -the star images would be slightly trailed due to aircraft motion (usually in roll) but the aurora images good enough for basic logging/research purposes. I would post one as an example but they're still on slides and in a box..somewhere safe..:sad:

All in all I reckon the aurora images look like the real thing, still no idea about the red lights/glow other than a guess that it's down to fishing of some sort???

[Airbubba]

All in all I reckon the aurora images look like the real thing, still no idea about the red lights/glow other than a guess that it's down to fishing of some sort???

Don't think those streaks are auroral, they look to me like sensor noise brought out by post processing. I sometimes do star shots with RAW files on a D800 as well and when you play with the sliders and curves to bring out low contrast features like the Milky Way you get similar artifacts.

Like others, I'm more than a little skeptical that you can do a 30 second exposure from a plane on a NOPAC route and still get sharp star images, even with a 10.5 mm lens. And, if the exposure was actually 1/30th of a second instead through an EXIF data typo, I don't think you would see the Andromeda Galaxy even with the great sensor on the D800 (M31 is high in the center of the first picture in the gallery linked in the first post on this thread).

The Dutchman's other picture galleries are very nice and the site seems to be legit. I've seen some odd things over the years on that route including staging rockets, noctilucent clouds and satellite glints. And, we've all seen those surprisingly bright fishing fleet lights glowing under a cloud layer.

Still, not sure what the red glow would be. :confused:

[mad_jock]

the shorter the focal length the longer the exposure can be without trails. 11mm I have taken 90 second exposures and no trails visible.

http://www.grelf.net/star_trails.html

[wiggy]

Don't think those streaks are auroral

Well to my eye those streaks could well be a coronal form of the aurora, and on closer inspection there's also some evidence of red patches, which you do get with the higher energy auroral displays.

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora)

https://www.google.fr/search?q=coronal+aurora&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=z-L8U9fYBIWd0AX204GoAw&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1013&bih=632

Like others, I'm more than a little skeptical that you can do a 30 second exposure from a plane on a NOPAC route and still get sharp star images, even with a 10.5 mm lens. And, if the exposure was actually 1/30th of a second instead through an EXIF data typo, I don't think you would see the Andromeda Galaxy even with the great sensor on the D800 (M31 is high in the center of the first picture in the gallery linked in the first post on this thread).


Well from the NAT tracks I believe ;) it is perfectly possible to capture images that the professional aurora researchers can use...perhaps using a standard lens, ISO 400 film, 30 second exposure....You do however need to adopt a bit of a scatter gun approach (lots of frames, hope 1 or 2 are OK).

I would however agree that M31 might well be a stretch, must have a look at some of my old "work" when I can find it to do a comparison :bored: but it's very much old tech....

the shorter the focal length the longer the exposure can be without trails. 11mm I have taken 90 second exposures and no trails visible.

:ok: Like wise.

Now, about the red low level glows............

[Mr Mac]

All
Would think about fluorescing with regards the spots, but my experience of extensive (wife will explain Game/ Sport fishing) lights is normally green. I have being do this for a long time world wide, and have not seen bright colours such as this and not from 30k + ft . Squid lights I have seen many times fishing , night diving, and from 30k+ ft all over South China sea , Indian Ocean and other areas but not like that. Lightning Sprites / gas from earthquakes would be my guess although when I did my mining engineering degree, this stuff was all Tomorrow's World, I was more worried about 14000ft of Carbon Leader Reef / Van Reef above, than gas escapes to the atmosphere.


Interesting photos though, and I can not believe that the "cabin" will not have some one on board who has not seen similar, given amount of air travel currently going on, that's why you should be able to keep the blinds up, to link with another thread !.


Regards
Mr Mac

[FLCH]

I have no idea what it could be but, I think the TEPCO Godzilla is coming alive ;)

[ZOOKER]

The green glow at the top of the pictures is almost certainly auroral, given the present level of solar activity.
Could the orange glow be caused by the release, (and ignition), of 'gas-hydrates' from the sea floor?

[EEngr]

I'm smelling a fishing fleet.
From 34,000 feet? ;)

[Intruder]

Fishing fleets are easily seen at night from 34,000' -- or 43,000'. many of them use VERY bright lights to attract the fish. The ones in the Sea of Japan often resemble cities, they are so dense.

Recently I have seen several fleets under the NOPAC routes FAR away from Japan or Anchorage...

[1stspotter]

The pilot who reported this story responded on some questions:
Unknown orange/red glow over Pacific Ocean - Airwork (http://www.airwork.nl/bulletinboard/showthread.php?p=282933#post282933)
About (squid)fishing fleet and why I think they are not the cause of the red lights/glow;

-First of all; these fleets fish with relatively small vessels and the lights we saw were HUGE. If they were a fleet of ships, I expect them to be very large military vessels, or even oil platforms, and not fishing ships. I have seen many of those fleets in many parts of the world and the lights are very small normally.

- Fishing boats always use bright green or white lights since those lights penetrate the seawater deepest. Red light (or orange) is never used for fishing, since it does not attract any fish and the second problem is that the light frequency of red (and orange) does not penetrate deep into the blue seawater. It is therefore unusable for fishing at sea. The color as seen in my photos is the same color we saw with the naked eye.

- Fishing boats (especially fishing for squid) are hunting on the continental shelf, or preferably on the edge of the shelf where the continental plate plunges into the deep sea, since this is the place where most fish come to breed and eat. Fishing with such a large fleet in the deepsea so far from the continental plate does not make sense and for as far as I know and could find out, never happens. Please look into this and you'll see my point.
Check my last two uploaded maps with the coordinates of the sighting and you'll see that the location is very far away from the nearest continental shelf.

Please note that I am not drawing any conclusions here, though the cause being a fishing-fleet can almost immediately be dismissed.
Me and my colleague have a lot of experience with nightflights and flying over those fishing fleets in Asia and the (South-)Atlantic.. What we saw here was according to our observation absolutely not a (squid) fishing fleet but possibly a large military Russian fleet during a (possibly secret, since the airspace was not closed) salvage or missile-test (might explain the flash 20-30 minutes before). The same day, a large US military exercise took place South of Japan. More information to follow soon probably.

[W P Butcher]

The green light does look like Aurora to me but there are other phenomena that can look similar to that in the picture,as explained at Spaceweather.com, there are some pics here-
Sprite, Air Glow Gravity Waves, Stars, Storms (http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=101211)
no idea about the red lights though.

Another pic and explaination of Airglow Ripples here-
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

[Soursop]

A cargo pilot named JPC van Heijst reported this a few weeks ago. A large multicolored display of lights lasting about 30mn. Not sure which section of the forum it should go in; if it's already been posted please delete!
Probably not aliens, but a pretty cool story with amazing pictures!
Unknown orange/red glow over Pacific Ocean - August 24, 2014 Photo Gallery by Flying Dutchman at pbase.com (http://www.pbase.com/flying_dutchman/pacific_eruption)

[wiggy]

Looks like CNN haven't been paying attention, it was indeed discussed here on Pprune a couple of weeks back:

http://www.pprune.org/spectators-balcony-spotters-corner/546342-unknown-orange-red-glow-over-pacific-ocean.html

[Soursop]

Oops, thanks wiggy!

[Mr Good Cat]

30 mins before the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China - YouTube

[JammedStab]

Flew nearby the area 3 nights ago. Saw nothing but pitch black. A voice popped up on guard asking if anyone else was out there. Being a gentleman, I replied. The voice asked if I was seeing a bunch of red. I thought she meant on the weather radar, so I said No. Another voice came up and said that there was something on the internet about this and it was perhaps an underwater volcano. Her last words were about how cool it looked.

I was on R220 and saw nothing. She gave her coordinates as around N45 E154.Looks like A590 is the airway to be on based on her report and the website location.

Maybe the Russkies are up to no good again.

[PH-JPC]

Hi, Im the pilot in question and the photographer of the photos.

To quickly answer a few questions I came across here;

- The photos are sharp and without startrails because I always use a 10.5mm Fisheye lens for my night-time cockpit photos. The wider the lens, the more margin you get for very slight movements. With a normal smooth ride the photos always come out sharp, up to shutter times of 30 seconds.
I have many more examples of night-time cockpit photography on the rest of my site, if you follow the link to the pbase gallery as posted below.

- I have heard from other pilots that they have spotted large groups of red lights over the Pacific since last 2 months. Never heard from pilots who saw those lights before, neither have the other pilots who saw the lights recently. Although I believe it very well could be a fishing fleet, red light does not make sense since it doesn't attract fish, its wavelength is absorbed very quickly (in comparison to white/green lights) and is thus unusable for fishing.

- Lots of military activity in the Pacific at the moment. Could indicate a military fleet or possibly some sort of exercise since military ships often use red lights to illuminate the ship and keep night vision, but the brightness of the red lights doesn't make sense... they would even blind their own personnel.

- My photos are currently being analyzed by a Frenchman who is trying to make some exact calculations on the photos and estimate its size and its origin. When anything new comes up I'll try to let you know.

- Any feedback, ideas or thoughts from pilots who have seen those lights too, or are flying there often are welcome!