What you see is a fluorescent light bulb being lit up wirelessly by the Slayer Exciter.
No, not THAT Slayer!!
A Slayer Exciter is essentially a transformer that steps up the primary voltage from the driver circuit (in this case, a high frequency oscillator) and creates a varying electric field that can light up fluorescent light bulbs. I found instructions on an Instructables article here.
The article calls for a pipe about 1″ in diameter, but all I could find was a 1.5″ pipe, so having about 400 turns on the secondary called for about 150′ of 30 AWG magnet wire. I winded the primary about 8 times, but found that it actually took 6 turns for the exciter to work. Since I decided to supply the circuit with 18 V, I attached a heat sink onto the TIP31C transistor.
If you do plan on making one of these, exercise caution since there are high voltages involved in the secondary winding.
Measuring out wire
More wire!
Oscillator circuit
All wired up and ready to go!