An Artificial Aurora

http://books.google.com/books?id=mh8CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA169&dq=Lemstrom+aurora+oratunturi&lr=&as_brr=4&ei=_TDwSuCeD5WczgT6nemXAw#v=onepage&q=Lemstrom%20aurora%20oratunturi&f=false

Karl Selim Lemström worked a quiet miracle in 1882: He strung conducting wire over the summit of a Lapland mountain and watched it draw down a shaft of light from the night sky — poetic proof that the aurora borealis is an electrical discharge from the upper atmosphere.

See Charged Words.