Incredible "light pillars" are captured by a photographer in northern Ontario

A northern Ontario man woke, in the middle of the night, to an array of beaming lights, silently shooting up into the night sky. 

"We can blame the two-year-old. He started crying at 1:30 a.m., so I got up and soothed him ... and out the window I had the perfect view of these dancing lights in the sky," said Timothy Joseph Elzinga.

"I had to investigate. I got some pants on and ran outside and took some photos."

According to National Geographic, the phenomenon are called light pillars and are a result of light bouncing off of ice crystals that float low to the ground.  In this case, the ice crystals were forming in the air and were reflecting the city's street and building lights.

"It looked like someone from Star Trek was trying to beam people up," Elzinga said.  "It was very bright in person, like nothing I've ever seen. It almost seemed supernatural."

Here are a mark of the incredible images.