Pics of strangely bright light, I saw from cruise ship...

Was going to title the thread "I got pics, so it must have happened"...

So - in early October I was on a cruise out of NYC, it was the last night and the ship was about 100 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean, headed due West to reach port by morning...

A bit before 8:00pm EDT, I went out on the balcony of my stateroom and saw this huge, extremely bright light way out on the horizon, right where the water meets the sky.

In the first photo (which I hope shows up) you can see the light of the moon shining behind clouds - above and slightly left of the moon is the planet Saturn and slightly below, to right of moon is Jupiter...









The object never moved - in the last two pics, the position is different due to the movement of the cruise ship and me repositioning the camera..

I realize it doesn't look like much in the photos, but if you look at them on a large screen, and compare the brightness of the object in the first two shots with the brightness of the moon in the last shot, you can get a feel for how 'weirdly', glowingly bright the thing was..

It was not another ship (if it had been anyone on board would have been blinded by that light), and it wasn't a lighthouse, as there was no land for hundreds of miles in that direction..

So, I'd love to hear ideas as to what this thing could have been..

It's stationary. It looks like it is at sea level. Get a map and figure out where you were. Could be a buoy.

a reply to: lostgirl

I know you say it wasn't another ship....but it probably was. Let me explain: Commercial night fishing is a thing. The ships have set ups with floodlights that can be seen over the horizon. (Have seen it with my own eyes on the Pacific many years ago.) Usually it's a small fishing fleet with lights though. The other possibility is an oil rig/platform. Usually these also have a flame on the top doing some sort of a burn off of gas though.

Lights on the ocean are cool though, and always interested me. I can't tell you how many times in my 2 West-Pacs that I saw all kinds of lights that I thought were odd but later turned out to be a Korean fishing fleet, an oil platform, some sort of research ship, and markers to show a sunken vessel.


Good pics though.

Cool that you saw an odd light and got a cruise.

Was it the wine and shuffleboard type of cruise or the type where people swap 'first mates' every night? You don't have to answer.

originally posted by: Baddogma
Cool that you saw an odd light and got a cruise.

Was it the wine and shuffleboard type of cruise or the type where people swap 'first mates' every night? You don't have to answer.

Don't be so freakin' mean to another 'Greenie'...

And - it is a lovely light!

A buoy?

A reef light?

Who knows!

But if I'd of seen it I'd of posted it to...

At least there are pics!

All things considered a memorable evening indeed!
I always appreciate pics with when a UFO sighting comes up.

Nah, expert trained observer here chiming in

You saw a light that was too big to be real huh.... looks like it to me

Unexplainable unless it was really close....what was your feeling on that!

3 to 5 miles I figure.....final answer...it was so big....too big to be a refraction or mirage effect...none of those apply. Am .i right?a reply to: lostgirl

Shrimping boat? They use bright lights at night.

a reply to: lostgirl

ok - obvious questions first :

1 - did you ask your vessels crew for assistance - in regards the ID of the light ??

your sole " argument " for the premise " it was not another vessel " is preposterous - to put it mildly . have you ever been to a night time football or baseball game ??? - the stadiums have lights - but everyone is not blinded by them

worklights - are designed to illuminate the work area - it does not take a great deal of light to create an effect that is as bright as the moon from a distance - but they certainly do not blind the crew

due to your reported position - a vessel laying " seaward " from yours - you say - you were steaming direct to NYC and 100 miles out - a vessel would almost certainly have AIS . if you had asked the right people promptly - it would have been easy to determine what - if any vessels were out there that night but now .................. [ yes a paid account can search back through historic logs ]

i am not sure what you expect ATS to contribute ...............

a reply to: lostgirl
Well...of course it happened...you got pics, afterall.!! It's just "what"...it was or "is"...is the question! I've no clue....

Yes, OP, that's another vessel. I grew up in Florida with shrimpers in the extended family, that's exactly what a fishing/shrimping boat lit up like a Christmas tree, busy luring catches in, can look like from a few miles out.

My sister-in-law's brothers are shrimpers and their lights can lead the armada here from Andromeda Galaxy. It's one of the easiest ways to catch a haul, many species are drawn to extremely bright lights like moths to a flame and it's incredibly effective.

Your pics are fishers/shrimpers luring via light if ever there was an example to look at.


Edit: Well, to be fair, they may be trawling and not luring, but either way, those lights are hard to miss.

This thread jogged my memory of a sat pic of tons of fishing boats off the South American coast I saw years ago. It goes to show that they can be damn bright. The lights in the middle of the picture are offshore, they're fishing boats, a LOT of them.


earthobservatory.nasa.gov...

From the same link, this is what I mean by light luring. Pretty bright, isn't it, OP?



There's more pictures on the linked page, but I think I made my point.

Sure, it could be a fishin' boat... but it also could've been a being made of coherent light or a high tech craft piloted by crypto intelligence or an unclassified deep sea fish large enough to swallow a cruise liner dangling a bio-luminescent bait light bright enough to light a stadium... hard to know.

Thanks so much for your kind replies everyone!!
(well, except one person who was a bit mean - to you, I will apologize for having wasted your time by being too busy taking photos of the weird light to go and ask the crew to research what other vessels might be out there)


I was hoping that one of our members who analyze photographs professionally would weigh in, as the 'object' looks particularly odd on a large screen with the brightness turned up -

- especially in the first photo where it actually looks as if part of the reflection of the moon's light on the water is further away than the object, and it seems that if it were shrimping boats or something you would be able to see some form 'within' the light...

Anyway, I'm sorry if the thread has disappointed anyone - I spent a month working up the mental energy to do the OP, which I honestly thought would be contributing some interesting ATS content here, as I know there are some members interested in 'possible' USO's...
...and I thought about how often people 'see stuff', make a thread, and get complaints that they didn't get pictures, so it kinda seemed a shame 'not' to share these in a thread...
...then I almost gave up when I couldn't get the photos to load -
- but finally I decided to ask my husband for help, and it took him two tries to get the files converted to where they would load to ATS, so now I guess I've wasted his time too.

So, considering that I did not take posting the thread 'lightly', and it was in fact, not easily done -

- I hope it's okay for me to express (here) my appreciation to the Moderator who gave me the "Applause" for the thread!

Also, 'thank you' to The GUT for your patience with my PMs and emails!

I'd like to congratulate the OP for taking good photos of what she saw, showing context - rather than just close-ups of a bright light which would have been meaningless.

I agree that a shrimping boat looks most likely.

a reply to: ignorant_ape

You know what? You piss off!!!

Clearly you've never suffered severe, "Treatment Resistant Clinical Depression", and have no idea what it feels like to spend 20 years watching life pass you by - while trying everything ever known of medical, natural, therapeutic treatments -

- while pretending for the sake of your child's wellbeing that everything is fine - while being utterly unable to 'feel' the joy of having that child...and unable to feel any sense of enjoyment, even on a family vacation -

- because the only thing you ever really get to feel is 'tired of being alive', because it hurts, just being alive hurts.

And then you think it might be worth the effort to post this one experience, as people might enjoy seeing these pictures, so despite the fact that the last thing you have the energy to do is compose a coherent explanation of the experience and work out the logistics of getting the photos into the right format - you do it anyway -

- not even really for yourself, but because you think there are people who might appreciate the 'photos of the mysterious object' -

- then you have to deal with finding out that you and everyone you know who has seen the pictures are just idiots, because apparently it's nothing but a fishing boat!!

You know what else? The only reason I even saw the damn thing is because I was too bloody tired and depressed that night to go to dinner with my family -

- and now you're going to chastise me for not running out of my stateroom in search of a crew member to harass with demands that they go and find out what 'strangely bright lighted' "vessel" I saw from my balcony and report back to me...

- so excuse me for getting a little boost from thinking I had seen and photographed something anomalous, and for not even realizing that there was no point bothering to post it on ATS, because no one really cares anyway!!!

ATS is quite far down the scale of safe spaces.

Always has been.

a reply to: lostgirl

oh deer .

wow - you now " know " my mental health status - thats brilliant - could you tell me my physical health too ?

i shall ignore all the whining

my issue with your claim is - you made no attempt to investigate it yourself

asking the crew questions is not " harrasment " - the entire crew is there for your benefit

you had a deck steward - whos ONLY job is to assist you and the other passengers in your section

but no .............

and to compound it - you are not interested in valid answers - only the perpetuation of your delusion

i am not mocking or ctiticising your mental health - but FFS - if i am not allowed to point out that it was your inaction that missed the best oportunity to identify the light - then you should retreat to the safe space of a personal blog - where you can block comments

a reply to: lostgirl

It was not another ship (if it had been anyone on board would have been blinded by that light)

Nice pics,

How did you rule this out that it wasn't another ship/boat?

If what is in the brackets is your reasoning for why it wasn't a another boat then I have no more questions concerning your reasoning.

Anyway, I'm sorry if the thread has disappointed anyone - I spent a month working up the mental energy to do the OP, which I honestly thought would be contributing some interesting ATS content here, as I know there are some members interested in 'possible' USO's...

are you saying the light came out of the water and was submerged prior to that?


Or is this just wishful thinking and creative writing?

I guess anything pictured at night on the horizon out at sea could be a "possible" USO however without seeing it submerged its just a baseless assumption about what it possibly could be.

anyway thanks for sharing.

I think it was as many have suggested another boat.