For hundreds of years sailors have told stories about miles of glowing ocean during moonless nights. This phenomenon is known as "milky seas," but the only scientific sample was collected in 1985. So atmospheric scientist Justin Hudson, a PhD candidate at Colorado State University, used accounts spanning 400 years to create a database of milky seas. By also using satellite images to visually confirm the tales, Justin hopes his research brings us one step closer to unraveling this maritime mystery. Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.Got a question about a scientific mystery? Let us know at [email protected]. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. It's 1849. You're on a ship coasting through the middle of the ocean at night. It's calm, glassy waters and a clear sky full of stars. Then you see off the side of the boat a glow. Not from another ship or the night sky, but from the surface of the sea. It's coming from the water.
I cannot permit this opportunity to pass by without describing to you, in the best way I am able, a most extraordinary phenomenon.
There's a miles-long swath of glimmering milky water.
The vessel shortly after entered a vast body of water of the most dazzling brightness and of highly phosphorescent nature. In fact, it looked as if we were sailing over a boundless plain of snow or a sea of quicksilver.
This is just one of many written accounts of Milky Seas that goes back 400 years, according to Justin Hudson, an atmospheric science researcher at Colorado State University. He compiled a database of recent satellite images and all the reports of Milky Seas he could find from over the years as part of his PhD thesis.
And a lot of them were written off as just, you know, drunks, drunk sailors at the bar trying to impress each other with more, you know, better tall tales than someone else had.
Justin's research advisor, Stephen Miller, says it wasn't until about 100 years ago that tales of glowing seas began to be taken more seriously.
I think in the 1900s, we started receiving more reports from sources such as navies, commerce vessels. These are trustworthy accounts. These aren't pirates and sailors of yore spinning their tall tales like Justin was just mentioning.
One group definitely not spinning a tall tale, the lone research vessel that accidentally wandered into a milky sea and took the only scientific sample in 1985.
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