I saw a sun pillar today, for the first time. They are well-named: a pillar of light coming up from the setting sun, straight and stark as the track of a paint roller. Red pink orange. Bright. Strange.
I'd never heard of sun pillars. I mistook ours for a crepuscular ray -- though you rarely see just one, they are common enough. But those paralell sides made me second guess that, and after a bit of digging I found the explanation and description. And this picture. It looked quite a bit like this, only with Columbia Lake instead of Lake Tahoe. And, you know, office buildings instead of mountains.
Ooh - beautiful and educational. Thank you so much for the link, which I followed from that one to their source for the sunset, finding even more cool sun light trick pictures.