Sighting record / 1492
October 11, 1492. About 10 p.m. Christopher Columbus stood on the sterncastle of the Santa María, sailing west toward an island the Lucayans called Guanahani. Then he saw it. A light. So indistinct that he would not affirm it was land. He called Pedro Gutiérrez, who saw it too. Once or twice more it appeared, like a little wax candle rising and falling in the dark. Four hours later, land was sighted. The light was never explained. Some blamed a native torch. Others, a glowing marine worm. Centuries later, ufologists argued it was an unidentified aerial phenomenon.
The night of October 11, 1492. Three ships, the Santa María, the Pinta and the Niña, were sailing west toward the island the Lucayans called Guanahani. Columbus's original log is lost. What survives is an edited abstract made by Bartolomé de las Casas. Almost everything known about that night comes from it.