#and it was either gonna be this or 5682324 rounds of evil sudoku and “can I get past 400 000 points” tetris and a carpal tunnel syndrome

[spoopy-action-at-distance]

Re: the post I reblogged earlier, a series of Reid Wiseman's cool orbital photos taken on the ISS? Specifically, the first picture that has a bit of a mystery in it? This one:

I think I know what that is, and I am going to tell you how I figured it out (pre-emptive apologies to any South-East Asians who feel the urge to headdesk while reading this post.)

First off, all that green glow? It's on water. Check out a map of the area:

So why are there lights in the sea at night? Well, squid fishing happens at night, and the ships use bright lights to imitate the moon to attract the squid.

Here's a big squid-fishing ship, filmed by a drone off the Argentinian east coast in the Atlantic Ocean. It's got a bit of green going on.

Here's another one, photographed in the Pacific. Also some green here.

Both of those are, however, severely outdone in greenness by this small Thai squid-fishing ship.

Unlike the previous examples, it is in the right place and is, in fact, All Green. Boy, is it green. Look at how green it is. It is So Green.

Before you say that puny ships like that cannot possibly be visible all the way up to the ISS, consider: a) that there might be a bajillion of them, and b) the big ships are also out there in even bigger fleets, and they are bloody bright.

According to the Sea Shepherd organisation, who tracked a 300-strong squid-fishing fleet west of the Galapagos Islands in 2018, "the total luminosity of these vessels is said to rival European soccer stadiums". They waxed a bit poetic about them:

"Suddenly out of the darkness a towering intense white light showed on the horizon. Soon it was followed by others all around us, mostly white but some an iridescent green and others with dimmer yellow light. Looking out from the wheelhouse we seemed no longer to be on the open ocean but in the edge of some great coastal metropolis."

Here's part of a fleet of some 150 ships near Argentine.

And here's that same fleet again, managing to be a magnificent eyesore even at a considerable distance.

Sure, Argentine is pretty far away from Bangkok (though those ships might also be Chinese). But South-East Asia definitely has some of its own night-light activity going on. You can find a handy map at globalfishingwatch.org (go play with it, it's fun). It didn't have night-light satellite data from 2014, but here's a snapshot from August 2022 for comparison.

The map also shows national fishing zones. If I'm interpreting Wiseman's photo correctly, those green lights in it are in the Vietnamese, Malesian and Indonesian waters. So those are likely Vietnamese, Malesian and Indonesian squid-fishings ships (and maybe some other nationalities that maybe aren't supposed to be there; here's that Sea Shepherd page again and an article about the Global Fishing Watch project talking about that kind of thing).

What I sadly couldn't figure out is what kind of squid they're fishing over there. I was hoping it might be the Japanese flying squid, because then I would have a reason to put them in this post. Unfortunately, Japanese flying squids apparently don't live that far down South.

But I'm going to put them on this post anyway, because I just found out about them, and I mean, look at these guys:

Just Look.

They're like if a squid decided it wanted to be a flying fish and instead of making a deal with the sea witch, it went "I can do it! I can! I can!" They're sleek, attention-grabbing and ridonculous. They can fly over 30 metres in 3 seconds. And they're not being caught by the glow-in-the-dark squid-fishing fleet off the Gulf of Thailand because they don't live there, and therefore have nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of this post.

But they're cool.

Finally, a confession: I didn't figure out the lights because I know something about South-East Asian fishing practices (I know nothing, feel free to laugh and correct me), or because did some kind of a systematic elimination chain to eventually arrive at the answer (ahahahaha no). It's because I've watched the Patagonia: Life on the Edge of the World nature documentary no less than three times in less than two weeks, and there's footage in it of this massive unnerving squid-fishing fleet, which you'll definitely remember if you've seen it once, let alone three times.

Why have I seen it three times, then? Obviously for very normal reasons. Not at all because the series is narrated by Pedro Pascal. I mean, who would opt to listen to Pedro Pascal talking very seriously about (occasionally horny) wildlife for 4+ hours while endearingly lisping his Fs and THs here and there? Not me, no. I am very normal about him and not at all soothed by his dulcet tones in my time of stress. Don't look at me.