1492 light sighting

An early explanation was offered by Bartolomé de las Casas, who wrote: "I feel about this is that the Indians at night throughout these islands, as they are temperate without any cold, go out or used to go out from their straw houses that they call bohíos at night to comply with their natural necessities and take in hand a firebrand, or small torch, or a chink of pine or of another very dry and resinous wood which burns like a torch, when it is dark night, and with which they guide themselves back again, and in the manner could be seen the light which Christopher Columbus and the others saw the light three or four times".[1] This version was supported by Morison,[6] despite the fact that it tended to undermine his preferred landfall at San Salvador Island. Others have advanced the hypothesis that the light might have been a Native fishing in a canoe at night, but the very high winds imply that would have been quite unlikely.

These problems have led to the conclusion by some[7] that the light was not on Guanahani, the island of the first landfall, but on another, more easterly island bypassed in the night.

It has been proposed that the light was caused by bioluminescent protozoa on the rocks of Mouchoir Bank. However, this theory is improbable due to the "small wax candle" nature of the light, which suggests a point source.[8] A single female Bermuda fireworm Odontosyllis enopla may have separate short periods of excessive and minor brilliance, perhaps accounting for a candle-like display.[9] But later research has shown[10] that Odontosyllis bioluminescent activity is confined to a few days past the full moon, which would rule out that explanation because the Moon was near first quarter that night.