Months at sea can make you crazy and start “seeing things”.
Sea Moths?
Males?
Could those be he moths?
My dad was in the 1920s merchant marine. Told of a WTF moment in the Indian Ocean, when he saw what looked like spokes of light from a distant wheel slowly flashing across the water.
It was shrugged off as phosphorescent plankton being stimulated by the beat of the engines.