Seeing these pillars with the moon overhead reminded me of the Disney movie Fantasia. In the short with Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice, the are hundreds of brooms carrying buckets of water in the middle of the night in a non-stop march to fill the cistern where the Sorcerer is conjuring spells.
Seeing the short stubby "arms" dangling at right angles immediately recalled the animation, even though I hadn't seen it for at least a decade. Coupled with the angle of the pillars seemingly moving single file across the frame and for me the image is a good approximation of a still frame from the short.