Could this be Xi Wang Mu - Queen Mother of the West?

Xi Wang Mu (Hsi Wang Mu) is the Queen Mother of the West, the Chinese Daoist goddess of immortality. Many legends have been written about Xi Wang Mu; in some, she hands out beautiful ripe peaches to worthy mortals who, when they eat the fruit, attain the gift of everlasting life. In some legends, Xi Wang Mu started out her life as a mortal woman who achieved everlasting life by mastering a series of tests; in still older legends, Xi Wang Mu was a goddess or the instrument of the primary Chinese mother goddess who inflicted terror and vengence on men, a fearsome creature who is part woman, part tiger. Xi Wang Mu shares many characteristics with other goddesses during the ancient times, including the Egyptian goddesses Isis and Hathor, the Assyrian goddess Astarte (Ashtoroth or Ashtoreth) and the Babylonian goddess Inanna.

During the Qin and Han Dynasties in particular (220 BCE - 206 BCE and 206 BCE - 220 CE), the Goddess Xi Wang Mu became closely identified with the board game liubo (literally "six sticks"). Liubo was first mentioned in events in the Shang dynasty (1600-1028 BCE), some six to twelve centuries after the invention of Weiqi ("Go"), but it died out from popular by the 5th century CE.

Some authors have suggested that liubo was an ancestor of Xiangqi - Chinese Chess; others see no connection, and others still say the evidence is insufficient to say either way.

When I saw this photograph, I was reminded of certain depictions of Xi Wang Mu, one of her titles of whom is "Queen of the Heavens." Here is the story of the photograph:

July 3, 2007
Metaphysical China: Buddha/Mary calling?

Some odd news from the nation's favourite English paper today:

A human-shaped shadow in the middle of a rainbow halo appears on Zushan Mountain after a heavy rainfall in Qinhuangdao, North China's Heibei Province, July 1, 2007. The vision, which many tourists believed to be the Buddha, stayed for more than an hour. Meanwhile, it seems a revered shrine in Henan that has attracted 40,000 pilgrims annually on news of Marian apparitions may be torn down for "illegal religious activity". Hmm.

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There is a scientific explanation for the phenomenon called "brocken spectre." But I think I prefer my explanation - it's a manifestation of the Goddess...