Phosphorescence

New Research On Old Phenomenon

The Mysteries Of Marine

By Captain Brett Milder

• What is 'phosphorescence? A seafarer may expect to see a brilliant display only once in a life-time, it is said —but bigger and better manifestations have been reported in the last 10 years. Has it. therefore, some connection with man’s modern inventions? In this interesting article, the author attempts to answer some of these questions.

BRILLIANT displays of phos phorescence have been recently r snorted in PIM, one in April (p. 127) another in May (p. 23).

The subject has been of keen in terest to me since September 5, 1954, when I witnessed an in credible display. The night was dark and overcast, with very light rain. We were steering southwards towards the maze of reefs off the eastern erld of Papua, in Malaita, of which I was “Master, under God” as the old legal documents have it.

At 1 a.m. I went on the bridge, where the Second Mate was keep ing the Middle Watch, and soon afterwards we saw the loom of dis tant lights beyond the horizon on the starboard bow.

It looked like a distant city, or a fleet of ships, but we knew it could be neither.

Associate of Coral Reefs

The luminous source was ap parently stationary, for our speed brought the lights closer, until they were abeam. We could then see that the area was a mass of brilliant phosphorescence, much brighter than I had ever seen be fore.

It was a mile or two long, and seemed to be in the same position as some submerged reefs, known to be in that direction. This fitted in with my previous experience, that luminescent organisms were asso ciated with coral reefs. The light suggested great Neon tubes were just below the surface.

As we had to concentrate on the navigation, we had almost forgotten about the phosphorescence when we saw another loom of light spread ing around the horizon on the port bow.

We were approaching the point where we would have to alter course sharply to pass between some reefs, and we were using our newly-fitted Radar set to check the oeanngs and distances. The loom was spreading like a bushfire, com ing over the horizon as bright as and extending right across the bow of the vessel.

There were large reefs in that direction, and it began to look as f™ugh we would reach the luminous area before it was time

to alter course. This meant that if the phosphorescence coincided with the position of the reefs ahead,

we might crash into them, so wve checked and double-checked our position by compass bearings of the islands as, well as by the Radar.

By this time the brilliance of the display had become quite alarming, and added to the tension as we neared our turning point.

Radar Echo

At this critical moment we were clearly going to plough into the illuminations a couple of minutes before we altered course, and as I looked at the Radar screen I noticed an almost unbelievable echo on it.

There on the screen was an exact picture of the phosphorescence, identical in position, size and shape with the illuminated area, which

had a diameter of about two miles!

As the position of the ship on the screen entered the mass of echo, so did the ship cut into the nearest banks of light in the sea.

The illuminations seemed to be at a depth of two or three fathoms, and the breaking bow-wave showed like black lace against the un earthly light from the depths.

The light was in long nebulous clouds, without any movement or fluctuations, and looked like sand banks in an estuary. It was now time to alter course, and being busy with navigation we soon left the un-nerving phenomenon astern, until it was nothing but a vivid memory.

Later that morning I made a water-colour sketch of the display, to go with my official report, and since then a lot of my time has been spent in research and investi gations on the subject.

Increased Brilliance

Recent reports of phosphorescence stress the unusual brilliance of the phenomena, compared with reports in previous years. Most of the available reports are published by the London Meteorological Office, and come from merchant ships chosen as Voluntary Observing Weather ships.

But there must be many cases of unusual phosphorescence which are not reported, largely owing to the difficulty of describing the dis plays accurately in a report.

Some of these are so unusual, so weird and overwhelming, that the observer is unable to give a literal description of what he has seen.

The increase in the brilliance reported in the last 10 years I attribute to the widespread use of Radar at sea.

There also appears, to me, to be a relationship between the phos phorescent displays and the mag netic family of sun-spots, the aurorae, magnetic storms and ionosphere troubles with short wave radio.

The usual marine displays con sist of small soots of light, caused by plankton of various species less than an inch long.

Larger sources of light, called blobs” may be nearly a foot long, and these are mostly jelly-fish or squid. Larger luminous fish, as well as sting-rays, sharks and eels, generally live in the depths of the ocean where it is always night.

What Advantage in

Illumination?

At the other end of the scale we nave luminescent micro-organisms too small to see, except when a mass pi them appears as a cloud of nght in the sea. Some of these animals are as small as bacteria, oi’ , a virus, which makes them difficult to study individually.

While most species make their nght in a special organ, fed with

fuel and oxygen by glands, some of the larger fish are illuminated only by colonies of parasitic bacteria which live around their eyes or mouth.

This may prevent the fish from switching their lights off and on like an aircraft, unless, as is some times the case, they have a special shutter or eyelid to cover up the light.

We don’t know whether lumines cent organisms gain any advantage from their illuminations, though it would be thought that it would be safer to remain invisible in the predatory depths of the sea, like ships blacked-out in wartime.

Another mystery is why only odd species are luminescent in each class of animal life, including fire flies, glow-worms and some types of fungus on dead trees.

In phosphorescence at sea, the usual pin-points of light are stimu lated in most cases by mechanical disturbance, such as the bow-wave of a ship, the propeller race, breaking waves on a reef, the dipping of oars, fishing-lines being pulled, and swimming animals, whether fish, sharks, dolphins or humans.

Another common stimulation is light, either from a ship’s deck lights, searchlight, or simple electric torch. The organisms are also stimulated by light from their neighbours, and this accounts for large patches of luminescence glow ing or flashing in unison, as happens sometimes with fire-flies on a tree.

Stimulated by Radar

Light is an electro-magnetic pro pagation, like radio-waves but of a limited band of frequencies or wave-lengths. It has been sug gested that Radar transmissions have stimulated luminescence in the sea, and I have had only one opportunity of checking this.

The occasion was on March 4, 1955, in the Solomons. The ship was surrounded by large flashing patches of nebulous light, about 30 feet in diameter.

They were flashing at a very regular speed of 94 to the minute, which would have been quite im possible to time but for the fact thfU- the ship’s engines and pro peller were turning at 94 revs, per minute.

After coming to the obvious con clusion that the patches were keep ing time with the beat of the engines, I switched off the Radar set, and the patches faded right out.

On switching on the set again they all *e-appeared, flashing as before, and we were able to repeat the experiment a couple of times before the ship ran out of the luminous area.

It seems always to be the more minute forms of plankton which produce the most interesting pat terns of luminescence in the sea, which is sometimes covered by a

silky sheen of light as far as the eye can see; and at other times by moving bands of light travelling at speeds up to 100 knots.

As there is no question of the microbes or plankton travelling at these speeds through the water, the motion must be caused by moving lines of stimulation, such as fluctuations in the magnetic field, sometimes caused by magnetic storms, and at other times by the variation in the earth’s magnetic field due to the presence of a ship’s magnetic field.

This is quite a new theory of my own, and not yet accepted by the scientists.

The Quartermaster Left the Wheel

Year by year we get more puzzling reports of phosphorescence, in which vast patterns change every few minutes but still show effort less grace and precision of pattern and movement. That their bril liance can be disturbing, even alarming or frightening, is not only due to the feeling that, when sighted ahead of the ship, they sug gest breaking reefs. The following two extracts from published reports are very illuminating: “The whole effect was one of great weirdness and eerieness, so much so that the look-out man came on to the bridge quite scared, believing that he was suffering from hallucinations.”

“The Chinese quartermaster be

came panic-stricken, left the wheel and did not return until he had been called three times.”

Two more extracts from reports in 1953 are worthy of note: “ . . . a band of exceptional brilliance, which illuminated the ship like a greenish-blue search light.”

“None of the observers had ever experienced anything to compare with the phenomenon, although various forms of phosphorescence had been seen in the Gulf (of Aden) on many occasions.”

Most seafarers have only seen one really brilliant display in all their years at sea. Having seen two myself, I can’t expect to see any more, unless they are becoming more frequent. This is quite pos sible, according to my theory, with the frequent use of Radar at night.

There is also a maximum of sun spot activity at present, one of the seasons why this period was chosen as the International Geophysical Year.

Now Scientific Study

Phosphorescence in the sea is always called “marine bio luminescence” by the scientists, and about 240 different species of the luminescent organisms have been identified.

They are of every shape and size, the smallest ones having the longest names. We therefore have shrimp like crustaceans called euphausiids, copepods and ostracods; a squid

called Heteortheuthis; and a lot of dinoflagellates.

Other common types are cteno phores, tunicates and coelenterates.

A lot of these organisms have been collected and studied in laboratories by biologists to see what makes them tick. There is a great gap between these scientists and the radio-physicists who study sun-spots, magnetic anomalies and Radar emissions.

One of the main objections to my theory of magnetic stimulation of bio-luminescence is that it would admit a previously unknown property of living matter.

Just recently the subject has aroused the interest of a well known nuclear physicist in Sydney, Dr. Paul George, who has done im portant work on cancer by means of radio-activity. He is preparing to experiment with plankton and magnetic forces to find some possible support for my theory, in the hope that it will tell us more about living organisms in general, and human beings in particular.

One of the most complete works on phosphorescence is in Russian — Tarasov, NI “Svechenie Moria”.

This was evidently published in 1856 —and is said to be “the first complete monographic survey of every aspect of marine phosphor escence since 1834, with about 500 references —half from Russia and half from Western literature sources, extending from 1819 to 1954.”