At New England latitudes, sightings of northern lights do not occur at random. Among the nonrandom patterns are two of similar period caused by solar rotation and lunar revolution. From the 1880's to the 1950's controversy persisted regarding the mechanism by which aurorae recur at intervals that are multiples of about one month. Observations from northern Vermont are used to explore the influences of Sun and Moon on sightings of ``low'' latitude aurora with an eye to answering this question: with geomagnetic disturbance under strong solar control, and with aurorae associated with geomagnetic disturbance, why is the Sun's influence on auroral recurrence so weak?