Clarence Chant

Clarence Augustus Chant (1865–1956) was a Canadian astronomer and professor at the University of Toronto — mathematics and physics degree Toronto/Harvard, physics PhD Harvard 1901 — regarded as the "Father of Canadian astronomy". He documented the Great Meteor Procession of 9 February 1913, a formation of luminous objects that travelled in a stately procession across the sky, visible from Saskatchewan to Bermuda, and derived a prominent paper from eyewitness accounts.

• Canadian astronomer and professor at the University of Toronto (1865–1956)
• Studied at the University of Toronto and Harvard; mathematics and physics degree 1890, physics PhD Harvard 1901
• Documented the Great Meteor Procession of 9 February 1913 — formation of luminous objects in procession across the sky, visible from Saskatchewan to Bermuda
• President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (1904–1907); founded the JRASC Journal and the Observer's Handbook in 1907 and edited them until 1956
• Founded the astronomy department at the University of Toronto in 1920, sole professor until 1926; 1922 expedition to Australia for the solar eclipse and Einstein relativity verification
• Key figure in establishing the David Dunlap Observatory (opened 1935)
• Published Our Wonderful Universe (1928), translated into five languages; died on 18 November 1956 at age 91 during a lunar eclipse at Observatory House
• Honours: asteroid 3341 named after him; RASC Chant Medal endowed in 1940
• Known as the "Father of Canadian astronomy" for training nearly all early Canadian astronomers

For the UAP timeline, Chant is the first Canadian scientist to process a mass-observed anomalous sky event — the Great Meteor Procession of 1913 — into a peer-backed paper. His case shows that anomalous formation phenomena were objects of university attention long before the UFO age and that the academic reputation he built made his record of the procession a primary source cited again and again in later UFO historiography.