A meteor procession was observed along a great circle arc from Canada to Brazil, leading astronomers to conclude that its source was a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.

A meteor procession occurs when an Earth-grazing meteor breaks apart, and the fragments travel across the sky in the same path. According to physicist Donald Olson, only four occurrences are known:

• 18 August 1783 Great Meteor
• 20 July 1860 Great Meteor; believed by Olson to be the event referred to in Walt Whitman's poem Year of Meteors, 1859–60
• 21 December 1876 Great Meteor; sighted over Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania
• 9 February 1913 Great Meteor Procession; a chain of slow, large meteors moving from northwest to southeast, sighted over North America, particularly in Canada, the North Atlantic and the Tropical South Atlantic

On February 9, 1913, a significant meteoric phenomenon was reported from locations across Canada, the northeastern United States, Bermuda, and from many ships at sea as far south as Brazil, giving a total recorded ground track of over 11,000 km, and becoming known as the Great Meteor Procession of 1913. The meteors were particularly unusual in that there was no apparent radiant, the point in the sky from which meteors usually appear to originate. The observations were analysed in detail, later the same year, by the astronomer Clarence Chant, leading him to conclude that as all accounts were positioned along a great circle arc, the source had been a small, short-lived temporary satellite of the Earth.

In mathematics, a great circle or orthodrome is the circular intersection of a sphere and a plane passing through the sphere's center point.

A natural satellite is, in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body. Natural satellites are colloquially referred to as moons, a derivation from the Moon of Earth.