On a dark still night on October 10, 1492, Christopher Columbus, on his fabled voyage across the ocean on the Santa Maria, drifted across what is now known to be the deepest part of the Atlantic ocean into waters we now know as the Bermuda Triangle.

Suddenly Columbus and another man, steward to the king, Pero Gutierrez, noticed bright lights coming up from under the water. And they watched as an enormously bright light flashed and erupted out of the water into the sky,  supposedly terrifying the crews of his three ships. The event was recorded in the ship’s log and described what many believe can be interpreted to be a UFO sighting. What Columbus described beyond the horizon was like “the flickering of a wax candle going up and down in the night.”  But, as bewildered as they must have been, by morning light, a mere five hours later, he and his crew of 120 reached the New World. So, what happened?
This is Columbus’s log entry verbatim:

“After sunset steered their original course west and sailed twelve miles an hour till two hours after midnight, going ninety miles, which are twenty-two leagues and a half; and as the Pinta was the swiftest sailer, and kept ahead of the Admiral, she discovered land and made the signals which had been ordered. The land was first seen by a sailor called Rodrigo de Triana, although the Admiral at ten o'clock that evening standing on the quarter-deck saw a light, but so small a body that he could not affirm it to be land; calling to Pero Gutierrez, groom of the King's wardrobe, he told him he saw a light, and bid him look that way, which he did and saw it; he did the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the squadron as comptroller, but he was unable to see it from his situation. The Admiral again perceived it once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down, which some thought an indication of land. But the Admiral held it for certain that land was near; for which reason, after they had said the Salve which the seamen are accustomed to repeat and chant after their fashion, the Admiral directed them to keep a strict watch upon the forecastle and look out diligently for land, and to him who should first discover it he promised a silken jacket, besides the reward which the King and Queen had offered, which was an annuity of ten thousand maravedis. At two o'clock in the morning the land was discovered, at two leagues' distance; they took in sail and remained under the square-sail lying to till day, which was Friday, when they found themselves near a small island, one of the Lucayos, called in the Indian language Guanahani.”

But this event was not an isolated incident. Strange events had happened before.  Over the course of his voyage, according to his logs, Columbus and his crew experienced a series of similar events such as stars that seemed to move in the sky while the needles on their navigation instruments mysteriously remained still. Here is a passage from September 15, 1492:

"They sailed that day and night 27 leagues and a few more on their route west. And on this night, at the beginning of it, they saw a marvelous branch of fire fall from the sky into the sea, distant from them four or five leagues."

This is has been interpreted by modern researchers as a meteor falling toward earth,  though Columbus interpreted this as a signal that land was near. But why he made that assumption isn’t clear.  The light is said to be brighter than any light that was known at the time. A man-made light of that degree of brightness in 1492 doesn’t seem likely. So, what was this strange light?

This may have been an unsettling event and Columbus may have struggled with what he had seen, but, nevertheless, he recorded the events as he saw them. And many copies of the journal have been made since and many determinations have been made about the details. And of course, some believe some details of this journal to be totally fabricated. But he had no real reason to fabricate these details.  Not to mention how important it was to document the voyage in the most honest way he could, since he had to know history was being made.

This all being said, it’s important to note that Columbus’s original log is lost to history.  What we have now are copies made in later years by a man name Bartalome de las Casas (1484-1566). So the document was open to his personal interpretation years after the actual event without having been on the voyage himself. 

But UFO researchers have latched onto this story and  suggest that extraterrestrial beings may have been observing and tracking Columbus’s path across the Atlantic.  Rumors of extraterrestrial activity have been suspected for years in the region of the Bermuda Triangle where strange events, sightings, and disappearances have been recorded by other mariners in the area since the time of Columbus. So this is not beyond the realm of possibility.

Some believe these events served as a guide for Columbus to find the New World, as if it may have been predestined or planned by otherworldly beings. I don’t know about that, and maybe we’ll never know the truth, but in the meantime, we can all speculate as much as we like.


You can read Columbus’s full log HERE



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