Mysterious light poles appeared over Russia

Residents of Belgorod, Moscow and Murmansk think that Batman or aliens have settled in the city. We're figuring out what it could be.

On the night of October 4, residents of Belgorod began to actively publish strange photos. A yellow glowing pillar appeared in the sky of the city, which comes from the earth and stretches to space.

There are several guesses that it could be: light from greenhouses, city floodlights, UFOs or satellite launch. On the web, this phenomenon is jokingly called "the eye of Sauron", "the call of Batman" and "a portal to another world".

Soon light poles appeared in Moscow and Murmansk.

According to forecasters, mysterious pillars of light in the sky appeared due to weather conditions. Mikhail Leus, a leading specialist at the Phobos Weather Center, explained to RBC that such columns are a common atmospheric phenomenon that is created by refraction of light on ice crystals.

"Usually light pillars are observed in the winter period of the year, when at negative temperatures the moisture in the atmosphere is just in the form of ice crystals. It would seem that it is not frost outside the window now, but it is near the earth, and at an altitude of about 1 kilometer and above, as the atmospheric sounding data show, the temperature is already below 0 degrees and the formation of ice crystals there is quite possible," Leus said.

The formation of a light column can cause a bright light source: the sun at sunrise or sunset, car headlights, spotlights, a greenhouse (users from Belogor noted that the pillars were observed near greenhouses).