Kirlian Photography
The corona effect is a well-documented electrical discharge caused by moisture and pressure on the film. The Kirlians themselves made no aura claim in 1939 — that reading was added by a Western book thirty years later.
Semyon and Valentina Kirlian, Krasnodar (1939); Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain (1970)
A high-voltage contact-printing technique from 1939 Soviet Russia, later marketed as photographing the human aura.