strange phenomenon

[New4cruise]

Has anyone ever experienced seeing glowing, sparkly, glittering,white balls of light swooping over the water right off the ship's balcony in the middle of the night? I HAVE! I searched the internet about this topic as soon as I got home. There was a post in January, 2013 about this by "lightbender". His wife woke him up around 2:00 am and they both saw the same phenomenon of lights. Unfortunately, "lightbender" is no longer an active CruiseCritic poster. I regret not taking a picture or video of it. I joined CruiseCritic specifically to search this topic. 

I just returned from a pleasant cruise on The Norwegian Sky to Cuba and the Bahamas. Has anyone ever experienced this?

[Langoustine]

Sounds like St. Elmo's Fire. Very common at sea.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Langoustine

[Sancho_proudfoot]

The OP also asked this on the "ask a question" forum. I answered it there before l saw this here. I also suggested St Elmo.

[dogs4fun]

My guess would also be St. Elmo's fire. You can read a brief summary from the links below and see if it describes what you witnessed (it often appears on the masts of ships & wings of planes);

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo's_fire

https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/st-elmo-fire.htm

 

[ggtjr]

Aliens?

[navybankerteacher]

On 5/9/2019 at 10:36 AM, Langoustine said:

Sounds like St. Elmo's Fire. Very common at sea.

Sounds more like ball lightning —— St. Elmo’s fire most frequently occurs around a particular object - a ship’s mast or spar,  perhaps an antenna. That “ball of light” does not fit .

[Greg4502]

Flying fish, reflecting the ships light, as they fly across the water, before diving back into the water, to get out of the way of the ship.

[Aquahound]

St. Elmos Fire isn't in the water.

 

My guess is it's bioluminescent plankton.  

[sparks1093]

I believe ball lightning was suggested in a duplicate post in another forum and the OP confirmed that is what she saw after following the provided link.

[Langoustine]

Ball lightning or plankton sounds good, and better than my original suggestion.