I saw the same or similar lights too last year on a flight to Tokyo. I was a passenger on JAL1 from SFO to RJTT. What I saw appeared to be "globular clusters of light" exactly like the photos in the above article. At first I thought of fishing vessels, oil platforms, or even a distant city below? It was eerie though. Blobs of orange, yellow, green light in the ocean. Maybe volcanic activity?