I saw this in a documentary where this was a town, Hessdalen in southern Norway that was experiencing odd lights on a regular basis. Locals called it UFO Valley. There seemed no explanation. But some scientists came up with a great theory. Plasma caused by a naturally occurring battery. Well somewhat natural, you could say a pollution made battery.
"The battery hypothesis has its origin in all the old sulfur mines in the valley. Every time it rains the mine shafts are filled with water, so it's pouring out sulfur into the river Hesja almost every day."
The river then functions as an electrolyte, with the sides of the valley acting as electrodes.
"It's just like a normal battery," Hauge said. "Sulphur makes acid in the river; the mountain sides to the west are zinc and the mountain sides to the east are copper. And just like an old battery, that causes charges in the air."
Source https://www.thelocal.no/20140514/norway-ufo-valley-could-work-as-a-giant-natural-battery-report
So what is Plasma? We all know the 3 states of matter solid, liquid, and gas. Plasma is unique and is considered by many to be a 4th state of mater.
"A plasma is a hot ionized gas consisting of approximately equal numbers of positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons. The characteristics of plasmas are significantly different from those of ordinary neutral gases so that plasmas are considered a distinct "fourth state of matter."
The documentary also showed this nifty experiment you can do to create plasma with a grape and a microwave. So of course I had to try it.
I had mixed results. I think this had to do with how much skin was holding the grape together. Placing to grapes very close would probably work better. Still it did work on the third try.
So whats happening in the microwave?
"In ordinary use, the electric fields inside a microwave are too low to generate plasmas, which are made when electric fields tear apart molecules into electrically charged ions. Two grapes placed close but not quite touching will produce a large field between them, sometimes enough to make a plasma." Or as I did a small grape cut in half with a tiny bit of skin keeping them together. I did find size maters in this case. The smaller the grape the better results. Or at least that was my experience. Give it a try!
Other sources
https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=818
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