The "Buddha's Light" at Emei Mountain's Golden Summit: Stand with the sun at your back and watch your haloed shadow appear in the clouds

A lot of people who make the trip to the Golden Summit of Mount Emei are there for one reason: to see the Buddha's Light.

It usually shows up in the afternoon, though sometimes at dawn. The conditions are picky: the sun has to be behind you, a sea of clouds in front, and the light dim. Get lucky, and a circular rainbow halo appears in the clouds—concentric rings of color with your own shadow smack in the center.

The ancients took it for a manifestation of the Buddha, hence the names "Buddha's Light" and "Treasure Light." Legend says some viewers were so shaken they tried to leap into the ring, which is why the railings on the summit were added later.

Scientists have studied the phenomenon. The clouds are full of tiny water droplets. Sunlight from behind you enters the cloud, gets diffracted by the droplets, and reflects back as a colored halo. Your shadow sits at the center, the halo encircling it, so it looks like the light is radiating from you.

The same thing happens elsewhere—on mountain peaks and from airplanes—where it's called a Brocken spectre.

Even knowing the physics, people still stand at the Golden Summit and press their palms together toward the halo. After all, how many times in a lifetime do you get to see it?

(Compiled from accounts that circulate online; the details cannot be checked one by one.)

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