An experiment is described where an anomalously rapid current penetration is correlated with the appearance of strong fluctuations measured with a forward laser scattering technique. In this experiment, the current of a magnetized plasma column (5 eV, 1021m−3) is reversed linearly on a time scale (&mgr;sec) much shorter than the classical time for current penetration toward the center of the column. Strong skin currents are observed to develop followed by a rapid current transport phase. The anomaly level of the current penetration is inferred from a comparison with numerical simulations. Simultaneously with the appearance of strong skin currents, we observe the onset of a large fluctuation level (n˜e/ne∼1%) which persists for the duration of the anomalous current transport phase. The main contribution is from broadband fluctuations at low frequencies (a few MHz) and long wavelengths (a few mm). The nature of the fluctuations is not clear although a low level of ion‐acoustic turbulence appears to be involved.