I was removing one of two light fixtures in my shed. It's an old 8 foot fluorescent that hasn't worked since I've lived here. I intended to unwire it from the junction box.

I turned off the switch and removed both wire nuts. There are six wires entering the box: two from the source, two from the fluorescent fixture, two from the other light. Three black, three white.

Checking them with a meter, I got roughly 20 volts from white to black, 40 volts from white to ground (assuming an aluminum ladder on a concrete floor is close to ground), 20 volts black to ground.

That's with a radio shack digital multimeter, and they're notorious for some phantom voltages, especially with me checking. So i thought about coming down the ladder and getting out the Simpson. But it's a pain to dig it out of the basement and untangle the leads and I had other chores after this one.

So I turned off main power to the shed and checked again. No voltage present, finished removing the wires.

But I stayed curious about those readings. Any ideas?