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Fill in the captain's log about the mysterious abandoned spaceship you just discovered.
We found the ship drifting in orbit. The engines were completely dead, but the emergency lights ____________________________ for months, according to the ship's computer. Based on the half-eaten space-waffles in the cafeteria, it was obvious that the crew _____________________________ for a sudden evacuation right before they disappeared.
The correct answers are had been blinking and had been preparing.
When we tell a story in the past tense ("found," "were," "was"), we use the Past Perfect Continuous to look further back into the past at actions that were ongoing.
The lights were blinking for months before the ship was found, and the crew was preparing to leave right before they vanished.