On February 24, 1893, at 10 p.m., the officer of the watch of H.M.S. Caroline reported seeing globular lights between the ship and a 6,000 foot high mountain. THe ship was located between Shanghai and Japan. These were seen for about two hours, moving northward, "sometimes massed, but sometimes strung out in an irregular line.“
The next night, the lights were seen again for 7 ½ hours, moving north and moving in the same speed and direction as the Caroline. They cast a reflection. "A telescope,” the account in Nature, May 25, 1893, said, “brought out but few details: that they were reddish, and seemed to emit a faint smoke.”
The captain of another ship also saw the lights at the same time, but when he altered his course toward them, they fled or moved higher in the sky.
–Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned, p. 297 (The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974).