Unknown orange/red glow over Pacific Ocean - August 24, 2014

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Last night over the Pacific Ocean, somewhere South of the Russian peninsula Kamchatka I experienced the creepiest thing so far in my flying career.

After about 5 hours in flight we left Japan long time behind us and were cruising at a comfortable 34.000ft with about 4,5 hours to go towards Alaska.

We heard via the radio about earthquakes in Iceland, Chile and San Francisco, and since there were a few volcanos on our route that might or might not be going off during our flight, we double checked with dispatch if there was any new activity on our route after we departed from Hongkong.

Then, very far in the distance ahead of us, just over the horizon an intense lightflash shot up from the ground. It looked like a lightning bolt, but way more intense and directed vertically up in the air. I have never seen anything like this, and there were no flashes before or after this single explosion of light.

Since there were no thunderstorms on our route or weather-radar, we kept a close lookout for possible storms that might be hiding from our radar and might cause some problems later on.



I decided to try and take some pictures of the night sky and 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 either. About 20 minutes later in flight I noticed a deep red/orange glow appearing ahead of us, and this was a bit strange since there was supposed to be nothing but endless ocean below us for hundreds of miles around us. A distant city or group of typical Asian squid-fishing-boats would not make sense in this area, apart from the fact that the lights we saw were much larger in size and glowed red/orange, instead of the normal yellow and white that cities or ships would produce.

The closer we got, the more intense the glow became, illuminating the clouds and sky below us in a scary orange glow. In a part of the world where there was supposed to be nothing but water.

The only cause of this red glow that we could think of, was the explosion of a huge volcano just underneath the surface of the ocean, about 30 minutes before we overflew that exact position.

Since the nearest possible airport was at least 2 hours flying away, and the idea of flying into a highly dangerous and invisible ash-plume in the middle of the night over the vast Pacific Ocean we felt not exactly happy. Fortunately we did not encounter anything like this, but together with the very creepy unexplainable deep red/orange glow from the ocean's surface, we felt everything but comfortable. There was also no other traffic near our position or on the same routing to confirm anything of what we saw or confirm any type of ash clouds encountered.



We reported our observations to Air Traffic Control and an investigation into what happened in this remote region of the ocean is now started.



Two photos included, hardly edited except for watermark and resize. Note that photos are taken with extremely high ISO (sensor sensitivity) so quality might be a bit poor. Also an overview of our route + marking of the location is included.



Now I'm just hoping that if a new island has been formed there, at least it can be named after me as the official discoverer. :)

That would be pretty cool!



UPDATE: Added 4 new photos and google-earth map with underwater geography

One of the photos shows our landing lights illuminating the sky ahead since we were afraid we might be encountering an ashcloud. We entered a thin layer of clouds 5 minutes after passing the red glow, but no ash was detected or encountered.



UPDATE (Aug 31st):

I've created a little list with all the different scenarios and theories that have been suggested and that are being researched at this moment.

To improve readability of this page, I've included the list in the comments below.





UPDATE (Oct 23rd)

3 weeks after the sighting (September 19th), I flew Hongkon



Clear view on the red lights that glow in the Pacific Ocean

Comparison - Winnipeg and Pacific Lights

Glowing lights illuminating the nightly sky

Glowing lights illuminating the nightly sky

Glowing lights illuminating the nightly sky

Glowing lights underneath the clouds

Glowing lights underneath the clouds

Glowing lights illuminating the nightly sky

Landinglights illuminate a thin layer of clouds after passing the lights

The location of the sighting, as indicated by our navigation equipment

Location of observation/possible eruption

Location of observation/possible eruption

Location of observation/possible eruption

Ocean chart with plot

Ocean chart with plot

The Ring of Fire - Pacific Rim

Alaskan Magnetometers (sensing the earth magnetic field)

West-Greenland Magnetometers (sensing the earth magnetic field)

Position and use of my camera during night photography

September 2014 - Russian Missile test NOTAM

Navigation chart - September 2014.

SE signal readings from Petropavlovsk at time of our sighting.