A mysterious red glow across the pacific ocean has baffled pilots flying across it.

JPC van Heijst was flying a Boeing 747-8 aircraft from Hong Kong to Alaska when he spotted the mysterious lights above the ocean half-way through his flight.

The bizarre lights were seen south of the Russian peninsula of Kamachatka and are thought to have originated from a huge volcano explosion under the surface of the ocean.

The glow reportedly came 20 minutes after a vertical lightning strike was seen in the distance.

Van Heijst was left perplexed by the eye-catching lights and described the experience as 'creepy'.

There were no thunderstorms on their route to Alaska which suggests that the lightning bolt was not caused by a storm.

Mystery: The powerful red glow which was evident in the Pacific Ocean (
Image:
Christiaan van Heijst)

He explained on PBASE that the only thing he could think of which was to cause the glow would be a volcano under the surface.

He said: "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."

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

"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!"

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