
According to George Sphrantzes, it disappeared just days before Constantinople fell, ending the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines attributed it to a sign that the Christian God would soon come and destroy the conquering Muslim army.

It was reportedly seen emitting from the top of the Hippodrome. Elmo's fire is reported to have been seen during the Siege of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. Hermes' fire, perhaps through linguistic confusion. Elmo's fire, known as "Saint Nicholas" or "Saint Peter's lights", also sometimes called St. Russian sailors also historically documented instances of St.Elmo's fire as canwyll yr ysbryd or canwyll yr ysbryd glân ("candles of the Holy Ghost" or the "candles of St. Elmo's fire was sometimes associated with the Greek element of fire, such as with one of Paracelsus's elementals, specifically the salamander, or, alternatively, with a similar creature referred to as an acthnici. Elmo's fire was called Helene ( Ancient Greek: Ἑλένη), literally meaning " torch", with two instances referred to as Castor and Polydeuces, names of the mythological twin brothers of Helen. In ancient Greece, the appearance of a single instance of St.Elmo's fire behaves differently in airborne objects as opposed to grounded structures. Recently, experiments conducted at MIT have shown that St.

In 1751, Benjamin Franklin hypothesized that a pointed iron rod would light up at the tip during a lightning storm, similar in appearance to St. Elmo's fire to fluoresce with blue or violet light this is similar to the mechanism that causes neon lights to glow, albeit at a different colour due to the different gas involved. The nitrogen and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere cause St. Sharp points lower the necessary voltage because electric fields are more concentrated in areas of high curvature, so discharges preferentially occur and are more intense at the ends of pointed objects. The magnitude of the electric field depends greatly on the geometry (shape and size) of the object. A local electric field of about 100 kV/m is required to begin a discharge in moist air. Elmo's fire are present during thunderstorms, when high-voltage differentials are present between clouds and the ground underneath. The electric field around the affected object causes ionization of the air molecules, producing a faint glow easily visible in low-light conditions. Elmo's fire is a reproducible and demonstrable form of plasma.
