Water/Land rescue Laser light

A few evenings ago, I was watching the show on History Channel, "Modern Marvels." I cant remember what that particular episode was about, but it had a segment on Water/Land survival. They went on to show a special suit that most oil rigs and what not have on them for every crewman, and in the suit it had all the esentials. One of which was a handheld, larger (like 2D mag I want to say) sized laser light. It was for sure a laser, but the beam was MUCH larger, and seemed to have quite an angle on it. But it was darn bright. They mention a commercial jet being able to spot this light at 50,000feet. I seemed to have seen one of these in real life though while camping. We were sitting on the edge of a lake, middle of the night, shining my spotlights into, and out in the water. All of the sudden, what appeared to be a simliar beam as to what was explained on the show was vividly bright shining right at us. We couldnt tell if this was from a boat or land on the other side of the lake which was many miles. By morning, me and two others, judging where the light was coming from, decided it must have been from the other side. Any idea's where this light can be seen, or more information about it?

Thanks,
Cameron

http://www.greatlandlaser.com/who.htm
http://www.landfallnavigation.com/sglf1.html
http://www.foxkitsinc.com/wilderness_survival/kits_and_gear/lasers.htm

But none of these are 2D sized....

I saw that same program. Thanks for the tip where to find such a useful beacon/light.
I find myself wandering around off trail and at night sometimes and think about the consequences of getting injured (or snake bit) in the middle of nowhere alone.
I carry an Eternalight with LED strobe for help in getting found, but the laser light looks like a huge improvement for a potential visual sighting.
Not sure if I wanted to buy and carry an aircraft beacon around, but apparently some guys do.

A cellphone (a satellite phone would be better), whistle, GPS and of course letting someone know where to start to look, if I'm not back back by a certain time, are all important safety measures.

In my neck of the wooods, where I go hiking, they use search dogs, which I often come across on mock searches, so I try to leave a good scent trail too

-
Greenjeens

those are cool!

add one of these: EPIRBs (for maritime use), ELTs (for aviation use), and PLBs (used for land-based applications) and you'll be very prepared -http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emerbcns.html

who needs one of them if you could make a light out of this?

http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/m2287.html

Maybe those are the Rescue Laser Flares (or earlier versions of such) that Vic303 provided in the links above. They can be seen from 20 miles away at night.

help me out here. As far as I could see, these are class 3a red lasers. How come they can be seen 20 miles while normal ones can't? Am I missing something here?

They look very interesting though