Lightening is very interesting, you could say it makes use of a built in delay, cannot remember the exact details, but first the bolt moves a certain distance then stops, feelers go out and a return path is established from the ground upwards, after the delay then the bulk of energy then propagates down the streamer.
Makes me wonder if this happens in a spark gap albeit a bit faster due to the much smaller gap to travel.
We already know of an experiment that proves this Dark lightening i think on the bench. A guy did an experiment where he was sparking a gap or something similar and he was getting some sort of puff/burst or movement of air the other side of the spark when a solid sheet of something was placed in between, memories too bad to even think where that experiment was posted, hopefully someone will remember it.
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