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"According to Lemström, the first signs of an artificial aurora appeared the day after the apparatus had been constructed on November 22, 1871, beginning with a column of light apparently directly above Luosmavaara. Lemström admitted, however, that it was impossible to tell whether the column was on or behind the mountain from his vantage point. The light phenomenon gave the common green auroral line in the spectroscope, but the green line was also returned from nearly every object the spectroscope was pointed at, including the “ice of a pond, the roof of a shed and even, faintly, from the snow in the immediate vicinity of the observatory.”These results led Lemström to believe that he was standing within a sphere of electrical discharge, though other scientists explained the strange readings as reflections from a natural aurora or the zodiacal light.From this set of experiments Lemström concluded that a current emanating from the pole of an electric apparatus will produce no light when traversing air of ordinary density, but can produce a luminous phenomenon when it encounters a thin layer of air (for example, air at high altitude)."

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00732753241229147