This sounds like refraction. Two beams traveling through the cloud. If you use a double prisim, you could achieve the same type of results.
They also stated to using different wavelengths out of sync. Which would cause the angle of refraction to be different.
Different angles of refraction lead to different changes of speed as they enter one medium to another.
Also I'm not sure what you mean "the photon momentarily energizes". The photon has a constant amount of energy. A beautiful balance of kinetic vs potential energy.