On February 9, 1913, a major meteor event was seen from many places in Canada, the northeastern United States, Bermuda, and from ships at sea as far south as Brazil. The meteors traveled a path across Earth covering more than 11,000 kilometers (7,000 miles), and this event became known as the Great Meteor Procession of 1913. This event was unusual because the meteors did not appear to come from a single point in the sky, which is typical for meteor showers. Later that year, astronomer Clarence Chant studied the observations and concluded that the meteors came from a small, temporary satellite of Earth that existed briefly.

John A. O'Keefe, who studied the event, suggested the meteors be called the Cyrillids, named after the feast day of Cyril of Alexandria, which was celebrated on February 9 in the Roman Catholic calendar between 1882 and 1969.

Events of February 9

On the evening of February 9, clouds covered much of the crowded northeast United States, so about 30 million people who could have seen the event were mostly unaware of it. However, more than 100 reports were later gathered by Clarence Chant, mostly from remote areas of Canada. Additional observations were found by later researchers. Around 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, witnesses saw a group of 40 to 60 bright, slow-moving fireballs moving from one horizon to the other in nearly the same path. Each fireball was visible for at least 30 to 40 seconds, and the entire group took about 5 minutes to cross the sky. An observer in Appin, Ontario, described the event as it appeared in one of the easternmost parts of its path across Canada:

A large meteor appeared moving from northwest by west to southeast. As it approached, it looked like two separate pieces of burning material, one following the other. They continuously released sparks, and after passing, they shot out balls of fire that moved faster than the main parts. The fireballs seemed to move slowly and were visible for about five minutes. Immediately after they disappeared in the southeast, a bright, clear ball of fire, resembling a large star, passed across the sky behind them. This ball had no tail or sparks and appeared white, unlike the yellow meteors.

Later observers also saw a large, white object without a tail trailing behind the group. However, the different parts of the meteor procession broke apart and moved at different speeds. By the time observations were made in Bermuda, the leading parts were described as "like large arc lights, slightly violet in color," followed closely by yellow and red pieces.

In the 1950s, Alexander D. Mebane found a few reports from newspaper archives in the northern United States. In Escanaba, Michigan, the Press reported that "many people thought the end of the world was happening" as numerous meteors crossed the northern sky. In Batavia, New York, some people saw the meteors and heard a loud noise. Other reports came from Nunda-Dansville, New York (where several residents again thought the world was ending) and Osceola, Pennsylvania.

February 10

Mebane noted an interesting detail in the reports: some suggested there was a second meteor procession moving along the same path about five hours after the first one. However, Earth's rotation made it unclear how this could happen. One observer, A. W. Brown from Thamesville, Ontario, described seeing both the first meteor procession and a second one moving along the same path at 02:20 the following morning. Chant's original report also mentioned three groups of "dark objects" that moved along the same path as the earlier meteors, traveling from west to east over Toronto on the afternoon of February 10. He proposed that these objects might be related to meteors.

Accompanying sounds

William Henry Pickering observed that at eight locations in Canada, shaking of buildings or the ground was felt. In many other areas, loud, thunder-like noises were heard, sometimes by people who had not seen the meteors. Pickering used the reports about these sounds to determine the height of the meteors, which he calculated as 56 kilometers (35 miles).

Analysis

The first detailed study of the meteor reports was created by Canadian astronomer Clarence Chant. He wrote about the meteors in volume 7 of the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Later, Pickering and G. J. Burns discussed the orbit of the meteors and concluded it was likely related to a satellite. However, this idea was later challenged by Charles Wylie, who argued the meteor shower had a radiant point. Further research by Lincoln LaPaz (who called Wylie's methods "unscientific") and John A. O'Keefe showed that the meteors probably came from a body or group of bodies that had been temporarily captured into Earth's orbit before breaking apart.

O'Keefe later proposed that these meteors, which he named the "Cyrillids," might have been the last pieces of a ring around Earth. This ring, he suggested, could have formed from material ejected by a volcano on the Moon. This idea was based on O'Keefe's earlier theory about the origin of tektites.