On clear and cold nights this week beams of light appeared to be coming from the ground and shooting skyward in Mansfield, Ohio.
But the mystifying and beautiful lights are perfectly logical, according to National Geographic. It says light pillars are vertical columns of light that form when artificial or natural light bounces off the faces of ice crystals floating relatively close to the ground. The University of Illinois' Weather World 2010 project explains that these ice crystals typically fall horizontally to the ground and have hexagonal plate-like shapes.
