For those whose bucket list includes viewing Northern Lights, 2017 might be the best bet to witness the gorgeous phenomenon as they are appearing less frequently over the next decade.

With only half a year to go, fret not, because there might be a good alternative.

Some photographers witnessed an equally spectacular atmospheric phenomenon known as Light Pillars in Kudat, Sabah on June 22, that looked like this:

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Night Sky Series Captured date: 22nd Jun 2017 Captured a NEW phenomenon which I think are LIGHT PILLARS which is an atmospheric phenomenon in the band of vertical lights which appeared above lights sources. The effect is created by the reflection of lights from tiny ice cyrstal suspended in the clouds. Location : Kudat, Sabah #lightpillars #nightsky , #kudat , #sabah , #island

A post shared by AERIAL-NIGHT Sky (@mentorgraphy) on Jun 21, 2017 at 11:17am PDT

The vertical bars of orange, red, green, yellow and white lights lasted past midnight till about 1am, according to Andrew JK Tan who took this photo at 9pm.

Typically seen in the polar regions, light pillars are an atmospheric optical phenomenon formed when light from natural or artificial sources refracts off the floating crystals near the ground. The light pillars tend to take the colour of the light source.

This wasn't the first time that light pillars appeared in Sabah.

This phenomenon was spotted previously at Kota Kinabalu in 2014 and visible from the east coast of Sabah in 2006.

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Top photo from Andrew JK Tan's instagram

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