WOW!! Outstanding! That is a great title for it, as the rays do look like lights from the mother ship!

No words will do...
Except AWESOME!

Praise God for his creativity. The Master painter has done it again. Great picture.

that's beautiful!

Thanks everyone for your compliments.

That's a one-in-a-million shot - wow!

Bernadette

Awesome halo! It's a glorious shot!

Nancy

Wonderful, gorgeous shot!

~Rosemarie

That is astonishing!

Too cool for words! Thank u for making my day! (sigh 'n smile)

You all have been so kind. I am glad I could share this shot and that so many have enjoyed it. I have lived here for almost 20 years and this is the first time I saw the sun like this. Thanks again.

A truly awesome picture! How very beautiful...just stunning! Thank you for sharing this with us. Missy

I've wondered for years what causes this effect. The sun is over 90 million miles away, so all rays should appear completely parallel, but I've never seen parallel rays in real life or in photos. From the angle of the rays in your photo the sun appears to be 30 feet behind the trees.

I could guess that reflection from clouds or objects caused the sun ray effect, but once I saw such an effect coming down through trees, and there were no clouds or objects, although there was a light morning fog.

This is not the type of optical illusion, like a rainbow. If you move, an apparent rainbow moves with you. You can experiment with spray, as from a garden hose, to look at rainbows. Natural rainbows are actually complete circles, but half is obscured by the ground. You can also see white circles around streetlights through foggy windshields.

But the sunray effect is not an illusion. It does not move with you. As you move it continues from the same point, and strikes the same point on the ground.

Maybe it really is the sun lensing through an invisible alien ship.

The angle of the rays is absolutely impossible after all.

mistercross - What an interesting observation. I learned something new. Thanks.

"I've wondered for years what causes this effect. The sun is over 90 million miles away, so all rays should appear completely parallel, but I've never seen parallel rays in real life or in photos. From the angle of the rays in your photo the sun appears to be 30 feet behind the trees."

I think that the rays are parallel, but they don't look parallel to the eye (or the camera) because some parts of the rays are much closer to the viewer than others, and look wider. It's the same reason that a road of uniform width seems to get narrower and narrower and its sides converge as one looks further and further away, even though the sides are actually parallel.

Keep in mind that although some of the rays appear to be going almost straight up from the tree, they are actually pointing at an angle toward the viewer. The closer they get, the wider they appear.

Awesome, and very beautiful, Aptos!

Absolutely stunning!

the effect might have been magnified by the wide angle lens used.

Springa7's explanation seems to be the standard theory. Bad Astronomy explains it that way. And here are some pictures with the explanation.

I don't know. It still might be aliens.

Thanks again everyone! No wide angle lens used, just the one that comes with the Nikon Coolpix 8800. And it was in standard automatic mode.

you may have inspired me to get up before nine :)