By Tim Binnall
Guests at a popular ski resort in Turkey were stopped in their tracks by the sudden appearance of an eerie pillar of light that burst forth from the sky and remained in place for several hours. The strange scene reportedly unfolded last week at the Zigana Gümüşkayak Yaylakent Hotel & Bungalow, which is located in the country's Pontic Mountains. While exploring the slopes, visitors were taken aback by the heavenly beam that shone down from the clouds. Visible on the horizon for a staggering three hours, the mysterious illumination was likened by some observers to a tractor beam being deployed by a UFO.
After sharing video of the anomaly on their social media and joking that an alien ship was visiting the resort, the ski resort's wondrous footage went viral in Turkey and wound up making national news in the country (as seen in the video below). In response, the facility's spokesperson Abdullah Eroglu told reporters that "guests at our center were very surprised they saw the scene and immediately reached for their phones to immortalize the moment." He went on to marvel that "it was like something from a sci-fi movie. Some people also compared it to a vertical rainbow."
Fortunately, visitors to the resort did not wind up having to share the slopes with any out-of-this-world tourists nor, sadly, was the sight some kind of spiritual sign 'from above,' as the puzzling pillar of light is actually a natural phenomenon. Known as a Crepuscular ray, these shafts of light are known to appear around sunrise and sunset when a combination of dust in the air and clouds in the sky create the conditions for a sunbeam to appear as a solid pillar in the sky.