This may be more pronounced, but this has been going on for at least 15 years and probably longer. I only say 15 years because that is how long I have been working with satellite imagery that easily shows these boundaries. They show up as obvious lines of light in nighttime visible satellite imagery.
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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Even in the article Jason Wang says he's seen this before, but this represents a massive scaling up, from hundreds of boats to thousands
Do you have a pic you can share?
The only pic I can find disappears when I click on the article (and I've used 6 different browsers).
Go to https://asiatoday.co/2026/01/16/cdt-2025-year-end-roundup-cdtv-video-compilation/ then scroll down a bit and you will see it.
"What are they intending to do with this capability?", I asked when going to read the archived link.
The masses of the smaller boats could also act “as missile and torpedo decoys, overwhelming radars or drone sensors with too many targets,” said Thomas Shugart, a former U.S. naval officer now at the Center for a New American Security.
This seems a reasonable explanation. Provide cover for those who must travel undetected. Obstruct those who must be prevented from traveling or seeing stuff.
A mass of fishing vessels loitering some miles away may actually blind a surface-based radar to things beyond them. Too much reflective metal, one would have to dial down sensitivity or only look high.
They could do worse, though - they could add wind generators to fishing boats for Doppler effect. Radars look for quick moving objects by detecting Doppler shift. The tips of wind generators move at drone-like speed.
So they're using fishermen as human shields?
Anyone got a non paywalled source?
Here's a Wayback Machine archive, albeit with the interactive element at the start seemingly not working.
I was able to view by opening in desktop mode
Just so you know, you can do this yourself. Take the article link and visit https://archive.is/ and enter it into the bottom box.
~~TIL!~~ all nyt pages I can find are missing the actual article.
Doesn't work for me, no article visible.
Works with 3rd-party js and frames disabled.
Don’t they also do this with fishing vessels somewhere in international waters near South America? I read somewhere that there’s so many of them that they light up the night sky.
Did they have a word count to fill?