Sun halo in Sweden shared as Mani Darshan in Himalayas

This phenomenon is actually a sun halo happened in Sweden not in India.

The Himalayas have always attracted travellers with their many myths and even more amazing realities. A video claiming to be footage of a rare sunrise in the Himalayas is going viral on social media. The visuals show a beautiful sunrise over snow-capped buildings in a rainbow of colours. The accompanying description claims that this is the most spectacular sunrise ever seen in the Himalayas.

However, Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the video to be False.

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Fact Check- 

The reverse image search on Google with the frames of the video brought us to a tweet from 2018. As per the tweet, the video is of a natural phenomenon called a sun halo or sun ring in Sweden. The caption states, “This is a natural phenomenon that occurred in Sweden. It is called Parahelio”.

Seeing a ring around the sun, moon, or stars is commonly known as a halo, and this phenomenon has occurred in many countries around the world before. NASA, the American space research center, has explained the solar halo phenomenon that occurred in Sweden. As per the article, ‘Water may freeze in the atmosphere into small, flat, six-sided, ice crystals. As these crystals flutter to the ground, much time is spent with their faces flat and parallel to the ground. An observer may find themselves in the same plane as many of the falling ice crystals near sunrise or sunset. During this alignment, each crystal can act like a miniature lens, refracting sunlight into our view and creating phenomena like parhelia, the technical term for sundogs.’ 

These breathtaking visuals were captured by Ludvig Lundin, a skier at the Vemdalen resort in central Sweden.

This viral video has been circulating on YouTube since 2018 with the caption “Sun ring seen in Sweden 

The halo is formed by the presence of high, thin cirrus clouds that float above our heads at an altitude of 20,000 feet (6 km) or more. These clouds contain millions of tiny ice crystals. The sunspots are caused by the refraction, or splitting, of light, and the reflection, or glare, of light from these ice crystals.”

This phenomenon is not Mani Darshan which occurs on the Mani Mahesh Kailash peak in the Himalayas, it is actually a sun halo seen in Sweden. 

Conclusion- 

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral video to be Misleading. This is a sun halo, an optical phenomenon caused by sunlight refracting off ice crystals in the atmosphere. This happened in Sweden not in India.