Being a pilot on the 747-8 Freighter, I flew a regular flight between Hongkong and Anchorage on August 24th.After about 5 hours in flight we left Japan behind us and were cruising at a comfortable 34.000ft with about 4,5 hours to go towards Alaska. We heard via the radio and other aircraft about earthquakes in Iceland, Chile and San Francisco, and since there were a few volcanos on our route that might or might not be going off during our flight, we double checked with dispatch if there was any new activity on our route after we departed from Hongkong. Then, very far in the distance ahead of us, just over the horizon an intense light flash shot up from the ground. It looked like a lightning bolt, but way more intense and directed vertically up in the air. I have never seen anything like this, and there were no flashes before or after this single explosion of light. Since there were no thunderstorms on our route or weather-radar, we kept a close lookout for possible storms that might be hiding from our radar and might cause some problems later on. I decided to try and take some pictures of the night sky and the strange green glow that was all over the Northern Hemisphere. I think it was sort of a Northern Lights but it was much more dispersed, never seen anything like this before either. Probably a typical green 'earth glow', that is related to the Northern Lights due to the electromagnetic field around the earth being influenced by the solar storm of the last week.About 20 minutes later in flight I noticed a deep red/orange glow appearing ahead of us, and this was a bit strange since there was supposed to be nothing but endless ocean below us for hundreds of miles around us. A distant city or group of typical Asian squid-fishing-boats would not make sense in this area, apart from the fact that the lights we saw were much larger in size and glowed red/orange, instead of the normal yellow and white that cities or ships would produce. The closer we got, the more intense the glow became, illuminating the clouds and sky below us in a scary orange glow. In a part of the world where there was supposed to be nothing but water. Since the nearest possible airport was at least 2 hours flying away, and the idea of flying into a highly dangerous and invisible ash-plume in the middle of the night over the vast Pacific Ocean we felt not exactly happy. Fortunately we did not encounter anything like an ash cloud, but together with the very creepy unexplainable deep red/orange glow from the ocean's surface, we felt everything but comfortable. There was also no other traffic near our position or on the same routing to confirm anything of what we saw or confirm any type of ash clouds encountered. We reported our observations to Air Traffic Control but we were the only ones who saw the lights that night.- Three independent lightning-observing agencies have confirmed that there were NO electrical dischargers that night 3 hours before and after the observed lightning flash, and not in a radius of at least 500km/250Nm of the observed flash. Thus very unlikely that it was a lightning strike.- No seismic activity in that part of the ocean measured, this area is not seismically active since the last 10.000 years so a volcano is unlikely.- Possible Russian naval rocket test or salvage operation since its close to Petropavlovsk, home of the Russian Pacific Submarine fleet.- Days later the Russians have closed the airspace North of this location because with the official announcement of rocket/weapon tests.- Red lights are normally not used for fishing, so a fishing fleet is not likely. White/Green lights are used for fishing, and from smaller sources since ships are not that large.- Individual lights were about 100-300 meters (300-1000ft) in diameter, the total cluster/group of lights about 30km / 20 miles in diameter.- Lights did not appear to move, flicker or change intensity. - No abnormalities in navigation equipment, on board systems, radios or GPS-data.- Lights were extremely bright, so bright that they even illuminated the clouds around us and were visible for a good 300km distance.- We were the only two persons on board, since we flew a cargo plane. No other aircraft in the vicinity, nearest aircraft was about 1800km further away.- Airport of Petropavlovsk (enroute alternate) was closed due to maintenance.- Added is a photo for comparison; we overflew the city of Winnipeg a few days later. The city of Winnipeg is about 25km wide from any angle, it shows the relative size of the patch of lights we saw. - Camera used; Nikon D800. Lens; Nikkor 10.5mm Fisheye f/2.8. All manual settings are visible on the photos.