ELKINS, W.Va. (WBOY) — Light pillars or ice pillars are an optical phenomenon where the illusion of beams of light are created by flat ice crystals.
Light pillars appear to be a beam of light pointing up into the sky from a light source, but they do no physically exist. When light reflects off millions of tiny ice particles in the air, your eye or camera processes it as a beam or pillar.
Light sources like street lights can cause light pillars but only in very specific conditions, according to AccuWeather. In order for the beams to appear, the temperature must be extremely cold—usually below 0 degrees—and conditions must be calm with no wind.
A light pillar takes on the color of the light shining into it. The phenomenon which is rare to see and ever rarer to photograph was captured by viewer Dustin George in Elkins around midnight Sunday.
The photographer said that the photos were taken around midnight when the temperature was approximately 1 degree. He said when the pillars appeared, he could also see what looked like glitter floating in the air, which was likely the ice particles that caused the pillar.
Sun pillars are formed in the same way but with the rising or setting sun as the light source.
