By Tim Binnall
Residents of a South Korea community were taken aback by the sight of several spooky pillars of light that appeared in the night sky and lingered in the air. The eerie scene reportedly unfolded late last month in the city of Jeju which is on the country's Jeju island. Witnesses to the wondrous event quickly took to social media to share photos and accounts of the peculiar pillars that had seemingly suddenly appeared in the sky and, according to one observer, remained there for "over an hour."
As one might imagine, the aerial anomaly sparked all manner of speculation online with the usual suspects, such as aliens or some kind of clandestine technology, put forward as a possible source for the strange lights. However, it would seem that the odd illuminations have a down-to-Earth explanation. Experts say that the pillars are likely the result of a meteorological optical illusion wherein ice crystals in the atmosphere reflect lights from the ground and the result is an elongated beam in the sky.