Editing Aurora (section)

== Historical views and folklore ==
The earliest datable record of an aurora was recorded in the ''[[Bamboo Annals]]'', a historical chronicle of the history of ancient China, in 977 or 957 BC.<ref>{{Cite web|url= http://www.sci-news.com/space/bamboo-annals-aurora-10703.html|title= Earliest Known Report of Aurora Found in Ancient Chinese Chronicle|date= 12 April 2022|work= SCI News|access-date= 5 June 2022|archive-date= 5 June 2022|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220605152345/http://www.sci-news.com/space/bamboo-annals-aurora-10703.html|url-status= live}}</ref>
An aurora was described by the [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] [[explorer]] [[Pytheas]] in the 4th century BC.<ref>Macleod, ''Explorers: Great Tales of Adventure and Endurance'', p. 21.</ref> [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] wrote about auroras in the first book of his ''[[Naturales Quaestiones]]'', classifying them, for instance, as {{lang|grc-Latn|pithaei}} ('barrel-like'); {{lang|grc-Latn|chasmata}} ('chasm'); {{lang|grc-Latn|pogoniae}} ('bearded'); {{lang|grc-Latn|cyparissae}} ('like [[cypress]] trees'); and describing their manifold colours. He wrote about whether they were above or below the [[clouds]] and recalled that under [[Tiberius]], an aurora formed above the port city of [[Ostia Antica|Ostia]] that was so intense and red that a cohort of the army, stationed nearby for fire duty, galloped to the rescue.<ref>Clarke, J. (1910), [https://archive.org/stream/physicalsciencei00seneiala#page/38/mode/2up ''Physical Science in the time of Nero''], pp. 39–41, London: Macmillan, accessed 1 January 2017.</ref> It has been suggested that [[Pliny the Elder]] depicted the aurora borealis in his ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]'' when he refers to {{lang|grc-Latn|trabes}}, {{lang|grc-Latn|chasma}}, "falling red flames", and "daylight in the night".<ref>Bostock, J. and Riley, H. T. (1855), [https://archive.org/stream/naturalhistoryof11855plin#page/62/mode/2up/search/aurora ''The Natural History of Pliny''], Vol. II, London: Bohn, accessed 1 January 2017.</ref>

The earliest depiction of the aurora may have been in [[Cro-Magnon]] [[cave paintings]] of northern Spain dating to 30,000 BC.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Peratt |first1=Anthony L. |title=Physics of the Plasma Universe |date=2014 |publisher=Springer |location=New York|isbn=978-1-4614-7819-5 |edition=2nd |page=357 |doi=10.1007/978-1-4614-7819-5 |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7819-5 |url-access=subscription |language=en |access-date=18 March 2024 |archive-date=12 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240512201045/https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-7819-5 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The oldest known written record of the aurora was in a Chinese legend written around 2600 BC. On autumn around 2000 BC.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Administrator|first=NASA|date=7 June 2013|title=The History of Auroras|url=http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/aurora_history.html|access-date=22 May 2022|website=NASA|language=en|archive-date=29 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329082101/https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/aurora_history.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> 

In [[Japanese folklore]], [[pheasants]] were considered messengers from heaven. However, researchers from Japan's Graduate University for Advanced Studies and National Institute of Polar Research claimed in March 2020 that red pheasant tails witnessed across the night sky over Japan in 620 A.D., might be a red aurora produced during a magnetic storm.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://phys.org/news/2020-03-modern-science-reveals-ancient-secret.html|title=Modern science reveals ancient secret in Japanese literature|website=phys.org|date=30 March 2020|access-date=3 April 2020|archive-date=1 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200401084459/https://phys.org/news/2020-03-modern-science-reveals-ancient-secret.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Aurora australis.jpg|thumb|The Aboriginal Australians associated auroras (which are mainly low on the horizon and predominantly red) with fire.]]
In the traditions of [[Aboriginal Australians]], the Aurora Australis is commonly associated with fire. For example, the [[Gunditjmara people]] of western [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]] called auroras {{lang|la|puae buae}} ('ashes'), while the [[Gunai people]] of eastern Victoria perceived auroras as [[Wildfire|bushfires]] in the spirit world. The [[Diyari|Dieri]] people of [[South Australia]] say that an auroral display is {{lang|dif|kootchee}}, an evil spirit creating a large fire. Similarly, the [[Ngarrindjeri]] people of South Australia refer to auroras seen over [[Kangaroo Island]] as the campfires of spirits in the 'Land of the Dead'.  The [[Diyari|Dieri]] and [[Ngarrindjeri]] communities  in southwest [[Queensland]] believe the auroras to be the fires of the ''Oola Pikka'', ghostly spirits who spoke to the people through auroras. Sacred law forbade anyone except male elders from watching or interpreting the messages of ancestors they believed were transmitted through an aurora.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Hamacher|first=D. W.|title=Aurorae in Australian Aboriginal Traditions|journal=Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage|year=2013|volume=16|issue=2|pages=207–219|doi=10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2013.02.05 |url=http://www.narit.or.th/en/files/2013JAHHvol16/2013JAHH...16..207H.pdf|arxiv=1309.3367|bibcode=2013JAHH...16..207H|s2cid=118102443 |access-date=19 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020181951/http://www.narit.or.th/en/files/2013JAHHvol16/2013JAHH...16..207H.pdf|archive-date=20 October 2013|url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=updated |first=Daisy Dobrijevic last |date=2023-06-20 |title=Aurora myths, legends and misconceptions |url=https://www.space.com/aurora-northern-lights-myths-legends-misconceptions |access-date=2025-05-19 |website=Space |language=en}}</ref>

Among the [[Māori people]] of [[New Zealand]], aurora australis or {{lang|mi|Tahunui-a-rangi}} ("great torches in the sky")<!-- based on https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=tahu https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=nui https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=rangi --> were lit by ancestors who sailed south to a "land of ice" (or their descendants);<ref name="steel-2018">{{Cite book|last1=Steel|first1=Frances|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wluwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA46|title=New Zealand and the Sea: Historical Perspectives|last2=Anderson|first2=Atholl|author2-link=Atholl Anderson|last3=Ballantyne|first3=Tony|last4=Benjamin|first4=Julie|last5=Booth|first5=Douglas|last6=Brickell|first6=Chris|last7=Gilderdale|first7=Peter|last8=Haines|first8=David|last9=Liebich|first9=Susan|date=2018|publisher=Bridget Williams Books|isbn=978-0-947518-71-4|page=46|language=en|access-date=1 June 2022|archive-date=18 April 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240418135330/https://books.google.com/books?id=wluwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Best|first=Elsdon|url=http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BesAstro-t1-body-d1-d9.html|title=The Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori, Genuine and Empirical|publisher=Dominion Museum|year=1922|location=Wellington|page=58|via=Victoria University of Wellington|access-date=13 September 2021|archive-date=13 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210913001358/http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BesAstro-t1-body-d1-d9.html|url-status=live}}</ref> these people were said to be [[Ui-te-Rangiora]]'s expedition party who had reached the [[Southern Ocean]].<ref name="steel-2018" /> around the 7th century.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Wehi|first1=Priscilla M.|author-link1=Priscilla Wehi|last2=Scott|first2=Nigel J.|last3=Beckwith|first3=Jacinta|last4=Pryor Rodgers|first4=Rata|last5=Gillies|first5=Tasman|last6=Van Uitregt|first6=Vincent|last7=Krushil|first7=Watene|year=2021|title=A short scan of Māori journeys to Antarctica|journal=Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand|volume=52|issue=5 |pages=587–598|doi=10.1080/03036758.2021.1917633|doi-access=free|pmid=39440197 |pmc=11485871}}</ref>

[[File:Utsjoki.vaakuna.svg|thumb|upright=0.7|Aurora is pictured as a wreath of rays in the coat of arms of [[Utsjoki]]]]
In Scandinavia, the first mention of {{lang|non|norðrljós}} (the northern lights) is found in the Norwegian chronicle {{lang|non|[[Konungs Skuggsjá]]}} from AD 1230. The chronicler has heard about this phenomenon from compatriots returning from [[Greenland]], and he gives three possible explanations: that the ocean was surrounded by vast fires; that the sun flares could reach around the world to its night side; or that [[glacier]]s could store energy so that they eventually became [[Fluorescence|fluorescent]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.irf.se/norrsken/Norrsken_history.html|title=Norrsken history|publisher=Irf.se|date=12 November 2003|access-date=26 July 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721215920/http://www.irf.se/norrsken/Norrsken_history.html|archive-date=21 July 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Walter William Bryant wrote in his book [[s:Kepler|''Kepler'']] (1920) that [[Tycho Brahe]] "seems to have been something of a [[Homeopathy|homeopathist]], for he recommends [[Sulfur#History|sulfur]] to cure infectious diseases 'brought on by the sulfurous vapours of the Aurora Borealis{{'"}}.<ref>Walter William Bryant, {{Ws| [[s: Kepler|''Kepler'']]}} Macmillan Co. (1920) {{Ws| [[s: Kepler/Chapter 3#23|p. 23]]}}</ref>

In 1778, [[Benjamin Franklin]] theorized in his paper ''Aurora Borealis, Suppositions and Conjectures towards forming a Hypothesis for its Explanation'' that an aurora was caused by a concentration of electrical charge in the polar regions intensified by the snow and moisture in the air:<ref>The original English text of Benjamin Franklin's article on the cause of auroras is available at: [https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-28-02-0150 U.S. National Archives: Founders Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190731005858/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-28-02-0150 |date=31 July 2019 }}</ref><ref>A translation into French of Franklin's article was read to the French Royal Academy of Sciences and an excerpt of it was published in: {{cite journal|last1=Francklin|title=Extrait des suppositions et des conjectures sur la cause des Aurores Boréales|journal=Journal de Physique|date=June 1779|volume=13|pages=409–412|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015077781162&view=1up&seq=439|trans-title=Extract of Suppositions and conjectures on the cause of auroras borealis|language=fr|access-date=31 July 2019|archive-date=27 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427100326/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015077781162&view=1up&seq=439|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor=Goodman, N.|title=The Ingenious Dr. Franklin: Selected Scientific Letters of Benjamin Franklin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wojw-wmYrNwC&pg=PA3|year=2011|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|isbn=978-0-8122-0561-9|page=3}}</ref>

{{blockquote|text=May not then the great quantity of electricity brought into the polar regions by the clouds, which are condensed there, and fall in the snow, which electricity would enter the earth, but cannot penetrate the ice; may it not, I say (as a bottle overcharged) break thro' that low atmosphere and run along in the vacuum over the air towards the equator, diverging as the degrees of longitude enlarge, strongly visible where densest, and becoming less visible as it more diverges; till it finds a passage to the earth in more temperate climates, or is mingled with the upper air?|author=|source=}}

Observations of the rhythmic movement of compass needles due to the influence of an aurora were confirmed in the Swedish city of [[Uppsala]] by [[Anders Celsius]] and [[Olof Hiorter]]. In 1741, Hiorter was able to link large magnetic fluctuation to the observation of an aurora overhead. This evidence helped to support their theory that 'magnetic storms' are responsible for such compass fluctuations.<ref>J. Oschman (2016), ''Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis'' (Elsevier, Edinburgh), p. 275.</ref>

[[File:Aurora Borealis by Frederic Edwin Church.jpg|thumb|[[Frederic Edwin Church]]'s 1865 painting ''[[Aurora Borealis (painting)|Aurora Borealis]]'']]
A variety of [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native American]] myths surround the spectacle. The European explorer [[Samuel Hearne]] travelled with [[Chipewyan]] Dene in 1771 and recorded their views on the {{lang|chp|ed-thin}} ('caribou'). According to Hearne, the Dene people saw the resemblance between an aurora and the sparks produced when [[caribou]] fur is stroked. They believed that the lights were the spirits of their departed friends dancing in the sky, and when they shone brightly it meant that their deceased friends were very happy.<ref>Hearne, Samuel (1958). ''A Journey to the Northern Ocean: A journey from Prince of Wales' Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean in the years 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772''. Richard Glover (ed.). Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada. pp. 221–222.</ref>

During the night after the [[Battle of Fredericksburg]], an aurora was seen from the battlefield. The [[Confederate Army]] took this as a sign that God was on their side, as the lights were rarely seen so far south. The painting ''[[Aurora Borealis (painting)|Aurora Borealis]]'' by [[Frederic Edwin Church]] is widely interpreted to represent the conflict of the [[American Civil War]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/aurora-borealis-4806|title=Aurora Borealis &#124; Smithsonian American Art Museum|website=americanart.si.edu|access-date=18 April 2024|archive-date=27 February 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227070127/https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/aurora-borealis-4806|url-status=live}}</ref>

A mid-19th-century British source says auroras were a rare occurrence before the 18th century.<ref>''The National Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge, Vol. II'' (1847), London: Charles Knight, p. 496</ref> It quotes [[Edmond Halley|Halley]] as saying that before the aurora of 1716, no such phenomenon had been recorded for more than 80 years, and none of any consequence since 1574. It says no appearance is recorded in the [[French Academy of Sciences|''Transactions of the French Academy of Sciences'']] between 1666 and 1716; and that one aurora recorded in ''Berlin Miscellany'' for 1797 was called a very rare event. One observed in 1723 at [[Bologna]] was stated to be the first ever seen there. [[Anders Celsius|Celsius]] (1733) states the oldest residents of [[Uppsala]] thought the phenomenon a great rarity before 1716. The period between approximately 1645 and 1715 corresponds to the [[Maunder minimum]] in sunspot activity.

In [[Robert W. Service]]'s satirical poem "[[wikisource:The Ballad of the Northern Lights|The Ballad of the Northern Lights]]" (1908), a Yukon prospector discovers that the aurora is the glow from a [[radium]] mine. He stakes his claim, then goes to town looking for investors.

In the early 1900s, the Norwegian scientist [[Kristian Birkeland]] developed a theory foundational to the current understanding of geomagnetism and polar auroras.

In [[Sami people|Sami]] mythology, the northern lights are caused by the deceased who bled to death cutting themselves, their blood spilling on the sky. Many aboriginal peoples of northern Eurasia and North America share similar beliefs of northern lights being the blood of the deceased, some believing they are caused by dead warriors' blood spraying on the sky as they engage in playing games, riding horses, or having fun in some other way.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-12-02 |title=What the Sami traditionally thought of the Northern Lights |url=https://aurora-nights.co.uk/aurora-academy/what-are-the-northern-lights/sami-view-of-the-northern-lights/ |access-date=2025-05-19 |website=aurora-nights.co.uk |language=en-US}}</ref>