Dedicated experiments in ion cyclotron range heated enhanced D-alpha (EDA) H-mode and I-mode plasmas have been performed on Alcator C-Mod to identify the location of edge fluctuations inside the pedestal and to determine their plasma frame phase velocity. For this purpose, measurements from gas puff imaging (GPI) and gas puff charge exchange recombination spectroscopy (GP-CXRS) have been collected using the same optical views. The data suggest that the EDA H-mode-specific quasi-coherent mode (QCM) is centered near the radial electric field (Er) well minimum and propagates along the ion diamagnetic drift direction in the plasma frame. The weakly coherent mode (WCM) and the geodesic acoustic mode observed in I-mode, on the other hand, are found to be located around the outer shear layer of the Er well. This results in a weak plasma frame phase velocity mostly along the electron diamagnetic drift direction for the WCM. The findings in these EDA H-mode plasmas differ from probe measurements in ohmic EDA H-mode (LaBombard et al 2014 Phys. Plasmas 21 056108), where the QCM was identified as an electron drift-wave located several mm outside the Er well minimum in a region of positive Er. To explore if instrumental effects of the optical diagnostics could be the cause of the difference, a synthetic diagnostic for GPI is introduced. This diagnostic reproduces amplitude ratios and relative radial shifts of the mode profiles determined from poloidally and toroidally oriented optics and, if instrumental effects related to GP-CXRS are also included, indicates that the measured location of the QCM and WCM relative to the Er well reported here is only weakly affected by instrumental effects.