Signals
Night lights (VIIRS Day/Night Band) and dark-ship candidates. Both are leads to check, not findings. Night lights last run .
Night lights 5 places flagged
- Sevastopol Naval Base (Black Sea Fleet)1 flagged night · latest 2026-10-23
Night Ratio Lit area Clear Flag 2026-10-23 0.51 0.09 36% BLACKOUT (VNP46A1, partial cloud) - Bandar Abbas Naval Base & Shahid Rajaee port1 flagged night · latest 2026-10-20
Night Ratio Lit area Clear Flag 2026-10-20 0.35 0.42 57% BLACKOUT (VNP46A1) - Sudan — North Kordofan around El Obeid1 flagged night · latest 2026-10-20
Night Ratio Lit area Clear Flag 2026-10-20 0.46 — 53% BLACKOUT (VNP46A1) - Crimea — peninsula-wide (coarse)1 flagged night · latest 2026-10-19
Night Ratio Lit area Clear Flag 2026-10-19 0.40 0.18 44% BLACKOUT (VNP46A1, partial cloud) - Hmeimim Air Base1 flagged night · latest 2026-10-18
Night Ratio Lit area Clear Flag 2026-10-18 0.15 — 61% BLACKOUT (VNP46A1)
Cloud, moonlight, snow and aurora all affect the Day/Night Band. A flag means: look closer.
How flags are set
Ratio = night's net radiance (box mean above its own 20th-percentile background) ÷ median of the previous 30 usable nights of the same product (baseline from ≥ 50% cloud-free nights). Lit-area ratio = bright pixels (net > 5) per cloud-free pixel vs baseline. BLACKOUT: ratio < 0.5 or lit-area < 0.3; on 30–50% cloud-free nights both must drop. SURGE: ratio > 2 on clear nights only, and not from VNP46A1 when the moon is more than 60% lit (A1 is not moonlight-corrected). VNP46A2 is moon/BRDF-corrected but lags ~7 days; VNP46A1 covers the latest nights.
Dark ships 0 in the last 14 days
Radar ship ≥ 40 m, AIS logger hearing the site within ±30 min, no AIS position within 500 m. NO-COVERAGE means the logger wasn't listening — not evidence of anything.
| Site | Radar ships | AIS-matched | Dark | No coverage | Small |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barksdale AFB | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| CFB Esquimalt | 15 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 9 |
| CFB Halifax (Dockyard + Shearwater) | 43 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 13 |
| CFB Trenton (8 Wing) | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Naval Station Norfolk | 32 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 15 |
No dark-ship candidates in the last 14 days.