Were the Freaky Light Rays Sucked Up By Some Spirit Force?

Photo date: January 26, 2016. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below shows the Schwartzman branch of the New York Public Library. We see the strange effect I call the light metamorphosis, in which light rays rise way up from their source, often bending in weird ways. Here we see the light rays rising very high and bending to the right.

Notice that all details in this photo are sharp and non-streaked, except for the light rays, showing that the effect was not produced by a moving camera (which would have caused everything to be streaked).  The exposure time was only 1/30 of a second on this flash photo (normal camera settings were used, no "Night Photo" settings)..