A Canadian resident recorded the brilliant scene created by multicoloured columns of light, which easily evokes the moment when aliens landed on Earth.
Timmy Joe Elzinga, a resident of Ontario, Canada, recorded footage of colorful pillars of light at 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 6, according to Live Science.
“When I saw these lights streaking across the sky from my bathroom window, I knew for sure that they were the Northern Lights. I was able to take pictures because the light was so bright,” Elzinga shared. The pillars of light began to fade after about 45 minutes, Elzinga said.
According to NASA, ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere are the cause of the light columns seen by Elzinga. On some cold winter nights, flat ice crystals high in the atmosphere can fall closer to the ground. They reflect light emitted by cars, streetlights and many other light sources, resulting in splendid columns of light shining straight up into the sky.
“Like halos, light pillars are simply collections of light from millions of ice crystals, reflecting light back toward the eye or a camera,” said Les Cowley, an atmospheric optics expert at Atmospheric Optics.
Pillars of light are quite strange, which is why they are often mistaken for UFOs. Many UFO reports are actually columns of light over Niagara Falls, USA, when the mist from the falling water interacts with the lights coming from the city.