Waves glow blue in California due to algae (Video)

Beach-goers in Southern California are being treated to a rare light show with waves there glowing bright blue as the crash at night.

The rare phenomena is caused by the presence of a bio-luminescent algae called Lingulodinium polyedrum.

During the day this means the water at San Diego-area beaches appear a brownish red, but at night they look a whole lot more magical.

Boffins say movement of the water causes each organism to flash blue with a chemical reaction - when this happens billions of times as each wave crashes, you get the blue glow.