These eerie light pillars appeared in the sky of Minsk on December 30, 2015.
And transformed the capital of Belarus into an science-fiction metropole.
These amazing pictures were captured by photographer Alexander Tarasevich in his beautiful city of Minsk.
These pillars of light beaming directly upwards are sometimes visible during very cold weather.
These columns of light result from the reflection of light on plate shaped ice crystals, normally only present in high clouds.
The horizontal facets of these ice crystals floating in the air close to the ground reflect light back downwards.
The resulting pillars are collected light beams from all the millions of crystals which just happen to be reflecting light towards your eyes or camera.
Artificial light pillars, as those in these pictures, can be much taller than their natural counterparts.
Because rays from the lights are not parallel and plate crystals with small tilts can still reflect them downwards.
Some other insane light pillars were captured over Russia last month.
You can follow Alexander Tarasevich on VK or watch more of his awesome work on his photography webpage.
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