Shayne Kaschl has contacted us with these images of light phenomena he has noticed on satellite shots of Antipodes Islands' coast. I would suggest from the multi-coloured hues that some kind of refraction is going on, but would be interested to hear readers' views.

Here's what Shayne has to say:

"I just wanted to share this strange phenomena of thousands of multicoloured lights off the coast of the Antipodes Islands that appear to be under water. Hopefully someone may be able to explain. Attached are some screenshots, you may verify for yourself by going to the wiki entry for Antipodes Islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipodes_Islands)

- click on either set of co-ordinates

- take your choice of google map interface

- zoom in to highest resolution and focus on W to WNW coastline.

There are thousands of coloured lights. Some of these lights by scale (e.g., bright green on 4th screenshot) are 10m. This phenomena is focused around Antipodes. There are some less concentrated occurrences around Auckland and Chatham but these images seem to be nowhere else on google maps. So far I've personally confirmed no replication on the coastlines of Australia, SE Asia, Indian Ocean, Africa, South America, Mediterranean, Adriatic or Europe from south up to Scandinavia.

I have had five people check as well, they are still unable to replicate this anywhere else in the world on google maps either.

I'm more interested in any reasons this type of image would occur and avoiding speculation at the moment.

Based on the magnitude, shape, colours and sizes of the lights, I can't explain away as phosphorescent algae or fish. If it is some kind of glitch in imagery (superimposition, etc) it seems too localised and definitely begs the question of what is being superimposed. Based on the diffusion of light, they appear to be under the ocean surface. Reflection and/or refraction of light on the water surface does not account for the images. If it is a hoax, I have yet to see any reference to it on the web. In fact, there are zero references to be found for this using google, yahoo or alta vista search engines.

Myself and five others have been looking into this for a week and we are stymied. We can offer no explanation and even the most skeptical of us has to admit it is unexplained."