Mystical Light Column in Florida Sparks Online Frenzy

Over the past couple of weeks, social media was abuzz with extraordinary images snapped in Florida: pictures featuring what seemed to be a column of light in the center, gaining the name "The Divine Light Beam." The initial viral images were taken amidst a thunderstorm in Florida, but soon similar photographs surfaced from various locations. The common element in all the pictures? They were all captured during thunderstorms.

Initially, various speculations arose regarding this unique light beam: It's a sign from above! It's an alien signal! It's a secret weapon! But, as is often the case, scientists and technology experts were soon asked to weigh in on "The Divine Light Beam," and, as they often do – they brought things back down to earth.

It turns out this phenomenon is purely technical, resulting from taking pictures with a digital camera. Most digital cameras operate with a system called rolling shutter. This means the camera doesn't capture the whole image at once but scans it horizontally or vertically, sometimes taking fractions of a second. Because of this scanning, not all parts of the image are captured simultaneously by the camera.

How does this affect lightning photos? Well, when photographing with a digital camera using this method, and a lightning bolt strikes, there are changes in image brightness between the moments before the lightning, the lightning strike itself, and the after. The result of this inconsistency is the light column in the center of the picture.

The picture on the right was taken with a rolling shutter, the one on the left - without

To prove this explanation, you only need to photograph the same scene with both a camera using the "rolling shutter" technique and a camera using a "global shutter" that captures a single moment all at once. In the first photo, the mysterious light column will appear, but not in the second.

Rolling shutter effects aren't just apparent in photos with flashes of light but also in images capturing very fast movement. For example, you can find helicopter photos taken this way, showing rotor blades far from where they should actually be.