Unexplained 'Ghost Lights' Appear over Jeju City in South Korea

Ghost lights were seen over Jeju City, South Korea, becoming viral on social media for almost a week now as of Tuesday, November 1.

People in the city captured the floating lights, which reportedly occurred during one unusual night in South Korea.

In addition, the wide pillars were captured on camera as they vertical pillars of light gazed through the night sky of Jeju, a place where the event is not common.

Mysterious Ghost Lights

The shocking, yet mysterious ghost lights were thought by many as coming from aliens.

In a Reddit post by user "snap2" captioned an uploaded photo that the incident strange lights which showed over the Jeju City skies.

The Reddit photo received over 18,000 upvotes with comments of more than 1,000.

A light pillar is commonly known as an 'atmospheric optical phenomenon' which involves a vertical beam of light floating into the air.

These columns seem to reflect lights caused by tiny ice crystals that are suspended in the atmosphere of a particular area, especially in place with relatively cold weather and climate like the US and its adjacent countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

What are Light Pillars?

According to EarthSky.org, the pillars of light literally reflects sunlight or other bright light source through the surfaces of millions of falling ice crystals linked with thin, high-level clouds such as the cirrostratus clouds in the sky.

The crystals have roughly horizontal faces and fall through Earth's atmosphere, slightly rocking sideways.

While light pillars can occur at any time of the night, one is likely to often see the sun pillars when the Sun is low in the western sky and in the eastern sky after dawn break.

There are instances where these lights can be seen below the horizon, EarthSky.org explains.

With this, current knowledge of light pillars are common in regions where tiny, frozen ice crystals can form in the first place.

Jeju City is not one of them.

Pillars of Light Worldwide

In the past, light pillar-related incidents have occurred in different parts of the world.

While many people are astounded by the sight of these rare spectacle, scientists and experts deemed them as a natural night sky phenomenon seen and recorded several times in decades and recent years.

In December 2016, otherworldly light pillars appeared floating over the city of Blackfalds in Alberta, Canada.

The event looks like the entire city will be abducted by aliens at that time but the phenomenon has a simple explanation for it, according to The Washington Post.

This occurred after temperature plummeted in Canada and other parts of North America during its 2016 winter season.

In January 2018, the vertical pillars of light also covered a large swaths of North America, ranging from Ohio in the US and all the way into Canada.

At that moment, the light pillars changed its colors from orange to green, as well as to red, yellow, and white.

The phenomenon occurred amid an extremely cold weather, according to Forbes.