Thousands of Chinese Ships Form Strange Shape in Ocean

"Something didn't look right to me because in nature very rarely do you see straight lines. We've seen like two, 300, up to a thousand [Chinese fishing boats congregate], but anything exceeding a thousand I thought was unusual. - Jason Wang, chief operating officer at satellite analytics firm ingeniSpace"

"The strange formations have raised the eyebrows of plenty of China hawks in the US, who argue that the People's Republic is running de-facto naval drills with civilian vessels - likely in preparation for a confrontation with Chinese Taipei, otherwise known as Taiwan."

Over recent months, thousands of commercial fishing boats off the coast of Shanghai have assembled in highly organized formations, including inverted-L shapes, rectangles spanning 240 nautical miles, and parallel lines. These coordinated displays are extraordinarily unusual, as fishing vessel activity typically appears chaotic and scattered. In December, over 2,000 boats formed two inverted-L arrangements, followed by approximately 1,000 vessels creating a dense rectangle in January that forced cargo ships to navigate around them. Similar formations reappeared in February and again recently with around 1,200 boats. Satellite analysts note that such organized straight-line formations rarely occur naturally. U.S. analysts suggest these coordinated activities may represent de-facto naval drills by China using civilian vessels, potentially preparing for confrontation with Taiwan.

Read at Futurism