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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. 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.

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