Instead, he closed his response to my own article in 1979 with a brushoff: "In my view it is pointless to attack someone in print unless you can substantiate what you are saying. What about the fact that Sirius was recorded to be red in ancient records? (Photo by John and Keturah. [6] The claims about the Dogons' astronomical knowledge have also been challenged. Sagan, star" (Sirius B) and describe its density and rotational Another claim: that in Egypt the oasis of Siwa and the ancient Nile City of Thebes are both equidistant from the shrine city of Behdet, in the delta -- and the same exact distance, too. In their original findings, Griaule and Deiterlen make no comment about the Dogon knowledge of Sirius B. According to Robert Temple (The Sirius Mystery), the Dogon had Ancient astronauts entrepreneur Erich von Daniken endorses and adopts Temple's explanations in his latest book, Von Daniken's Proof. different civilizations thousands of miles or thousands of years apart and to other equally questionable tactics. WebThe star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. Swift appears to have taken the idea of two close (although not necessarily small) moons of Mars from Voltaire's novel Micromegos in which an The bad news is that the pseudoscience websites were in seventeen different languages. The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. [8][9], In 1978, astronomer Ian Ridpath observes, in an article in the Skeptical Inquirer, "The whole Dogon legend of Sirius and its companions are riddled with ambiguities, contradictions, and downright errors, at least if we try to interpret it literally. mystery resurfaces." The "mystery" that is central to the book is how the Dogon allegedly acquired knowledge of Sirius B, the white dwarf companion star of Sirius A, invisible to the naked eye. Since Sirius B is a very dense white dwarf star about the size of Earth, it can only be seen in dark skies with medium-sized telescopes. The book presents the hypothesis that the Dogon people of Mali, in West Africa, preserve a tradition of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings from the Sirius star system. The Dogon. The difference in brightness between Sirius A and B is a factor of 10,000! (And presumably, that the Egyptians then located their river deltas, eases, and river ports deliberately on geometric rather than purely geographical grounds, I'm tempted to ask?) WebThe star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. the sky and the center of Dogon mythology. The main problem with the alleged antiquity of the Dogon "Sirius secrets" legend is that they are reminiscent of European Sirius speculations of the late 1920s. The Dogon beliefs about Jupiter and Saturn sound familiar too. One unproven aspect of the reported Dogon knowledge of the Sirius system is the assertion that the Dogon knew of another star in the Sirius system, Emme Ya, or "larger than Sirius B but lighter and dim in magnitude." Encyclopedia Galactica,, Benest, D. and J. L. Duvent. this about a star that cannot be seen without telescopes, and he made no WebAlso there is the fact that they described the Nommo as fish people and you find all kinds of half man/half fish - serpent imagery all over the Mediterranean. In other words, the Dogon tribe would not only need the knowledge but also a telescope in order for them to have the information they already seemed to possess. You dont have to watch too many Fantasy Channel (formerly known as the History Channel) specials on ancient astronauts before youll be told about the primitive African Dogon of Mali and their advanced astronomical knowledge bestowed, of course, by extraterrestrials. They all have one thing in common: enormous monsters. It has a mass of 2.35 times the mass of the Sun. The diagram that Temple presents, however, is not the Seriously: The Dogon and Sirius? Seeking Clarity? %PDF-1.4 Journalist and skeptic James Oberg collected claims concerning Dogon mythology in his 1982 book UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries. No other anthropologist supports their opinions. Sagan, Carl. seem to have done little else than give the earthlings some useless Temples response to criticism has so far been evasive. Griaule, Marcel. Myths and legends that are passed through generations are thousands of years old. Furthermore, there had been a Sirius. He points out that Griaule and Dieterlen stand alone in their claims about the Dogon secret knowledge. by Philip Coppens. In explaining his role Asimov reveals another dimension of Temple's scholarship. The Skeptics Society is a non-profit, Sagan, Carl 1980. A teacher named Marjorie Fish tried to corroborate Hills map by matching it to the Sun and nearby stars like Tau Ceti and Zeta Reticuli 1 and 2. for some unknown reason from a planet orbiting pieces of evidence is the tribe's alleged knowledge of Sirius B, a companion to the star October 1977 saw Marvin Luckermann's "More Sirius Difficulties," on ancient calendar systems and an alternate, non- extraterrestrial explanation for the ancient fascination with the number fifty (the article quotes Michael Astour's book Hellenosemitics as saying, "This exorbitant figure, very popular in Greek myths, has its explanation: it is the number of seven-day weeks in one lunar year. ", British astronomy popularizer fan Ridpath, writing in the quarterly Skeptical Inquirer (Fall 1978), blasted Temple's "brain-numbing excursions into Egyptology." The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. [7] Others, such as Marcel Griaule's daughter Genevive Calame-Griaule and an anthropologist, Luc de Heusch, came to criticize Van Beek's dismissal as "political" and riddled with "unchecked speculation", demonstrating a general ignorance of Dogon esoteric tradition. Temple's book is indeed extremely long and many other researchers have echoed Asimov's assertion that it is "unreadable." All agree, however, that they learned about the star from Griaule. Van Beek states that this creates a major problem for Griaules claims. "The ancient peoples were not concealing information from us out of spite," he writes. The only mystery is how anyone could take seriously either the notion of You dont have to watch too many Fantasy Channel (formerly known as the History Channel) specials on ancient astronauts before youll be told about the primitive African Dogon of Mali and their advanced astronomical knowledge bestowed, of course, by extraterrestrials. sources for Temple's story. var d=new Date();var n=d.toLocaleDateString();var t=d.toLocaleTimeString(); document.write(n + "
" + t); Want to know your future? Fishs map and Hills map look similar only because the lines connecting the stars look the same. And does the Dogon mythology ever really say that Nommo, the founder The Dogon and Sirius. To be specific they sound like the kinds of astronomical conclusions one might draw from studying the heavens through a small portable telescope. He soon multiplied to become six pairs of twins. ), Another example: "The Dogon also mention a period of rotation of Sirius- Bone yearthis that by the time Griaule arrived, the Dogon may have had a grounding in 20th For instance, the anthropologist Walter Van Beek, who studied the Dogon after Griaule and Dieterlen, found no evidence that the Dogon considered Sirius to be a double star and/or that astronomy was particularly important in their belief system. On top of that, there is another star, Sirius B, orbiting at an average distance of about 20 AU (1 AU is the distance between the Earth and Sun). Temple sees the existence of Sirius C as a vindication of one of his claims, although it should be remembered that multiple star systems are common (like Alpha Centauri, with its three stars). In September 1980, Dr. Philip C. Steffey did an in-depth analysis of Dogon astronomical traditions in "Some Serious Astronomy in the 'Sirius Mystery,' " which criticized Temple's book as "inadequate and full of factual errors and misrepresentation of critical material. Furthermore, most Dogon symbology already has multiple levels of meaning; the sketches used to illustrate the Sirius secrets are also used in puberty ceremonies. Whew! by Liam McDaid. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. History Debunked then goes on to demonstrate the type of pseudo-scientific nonsense this has lead to by providing a link to an Ethnomathematics paper and reading out its conclusion. [18], He also used the second edition of his book to complain about what he said was "the extreme and virulent hostility towards me by certain security agencies, most notably the American ones."[19]. Ancient Of those websites, over 400 had been updated within the last three months. To penetrate this supposed disguise (which might not be a disguise at all, other classical scholars maintain), Temple resorts to ancient puns, to hidden meanings, to "garbled versions" which he must amend to fit the theory, to the exchange of consonants in innocent-looking words, to similar-sounding words from Indeed, in view of the Dogon fixation with Sirius it would surely be more surprising if they had not grafted on to their existing legend some new astronomical information gained from Europeans. As the brightest star in the sky it was known and worshiped by ancient civilizations. Mysteries (Ballantine Books, 1999). If a European had visited the Dogon in the 1920's and 1930's, conversation would likely have turned to astronomical matters, including Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and the center of Dogon mythology. Saturn is not, as the Dogons insist, the farthest planet in the solar system. To recapitulate: Griaule claimed to have been initiated into the secret mysteries of the male Dogon, during which they allegedly told him of Sirius (sigu tolo in their language) and its two invisible companions. We may never be able to reconstruct the exact route by which the Dogon received their current knowledge, but out of the confusion at least one thing is clear: in elliptical orbits of astronomical phenomena. The stars in this group are too young only a few tens of millions of years for planets with life and civilization to have developed. If a European had visited the Dogon in the 1920's and 1930's, conversation would likely have turned to astronomical matters, including Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and the center of Dogon mythology. It's fascinating. He soon multiplied to become six pairs of twins. Randi, James. based his account on an interview with one person, Ambara, and an As anthropologists have known for a long time, primitive tribes have a remarkable talent for absorbing interesting new stories into their traditional mythology. WebThe Dogon, the Nommos and Sirius B Artist's conception of the Dogon's legendary Nommos. Inevitably one must ask, if the Dogons had heard good stories about Sirius from other sources, would they ignore them or would they quickly adopt them into their own cultural myths? by Philip Coppens. Europeans too talked about the discovery of a third star in the Sirius system; later investigations, however, ruled out that possibility. This is only a stellar stone's throw by galactic standards and Sirius is only twice as far away from our solar system as are the nearest The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. to other visible stars near Sirius as recognition of the invisible Carl. Temple has made very few verifiable assertions about mythology (and The Sirius Mystery is overwhelmingly about ancient myths, not about the Dogons or modern astronomy). The Nommos descended from the sky in a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. The introduction to his second edition is so full of paranoid theorizing,2 that although it is quoted extensively and interpolated with favorable comments by Michael Bara (or possibly Richard Hoagland), the most extreme conspiracy claims are omitted.3. Its second, 1998, edition is called The Sirius Mystery: New Scientific Evidence of Alien Contact 5,000 Years Ago. Though Temples work was challenged, at its core lay the original anthropological study of the Dogon by Griaule and Dieterlen, who describe the secret knowledge of Sirius B and Sirius C in their own book The Pale Fox. On this episode of MonsterTalk we chat with archeologist Dr. Ken Feder about giants, biblical archeology and one of the biggest hoaxes in American history. Classical mythology has been a Rorschach test into which people have projected nearly any notion that appealed to them. Or, Griaule's account may reflect his own interests more than that of Oberg also says that the Dogon were not an isolated tribe and that a member might have acquired knowledge about Sirius B while abroad and later passed it on to the tribe. It would appear that the Dogon had extensive knowledge of the Sirius star system before the outside world had a chance to give it to them. The inspiration for this claim was a star map produced by Betty Hill while under hypnosis. The Sirius mystery, though, remains of great interest to many researchers today. Figure 2. van Beek, Walter E. A. I have never completely understood Temple's complaint to "Astronomy" about my critiques: "I could not object to a review of a book which was fair, honest, or intelligent, no matter how critical or damning it might be of the opinions expressed in the book or the quality of work behind the book. For more then 20 years, The Sirius Mystery has influenced speculation about the possibility that our forefathers came from the stars. (Copyright Lee Krystek 1998) In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. Concluded Ridpath: "The parts of the Dogon knowledge that are admittedly both ancient and profound, particularly the story of Nommo and the concept of twinning, are the parts that bear least relation to the true facts about Sirius. He also gives public talks on astronomy and related fringe topics to international audiences. Sirius with the bright star Sirius (sigu tolo, "star of Sigui"), called Temple claims that bas-reliefs of the Sumerian demigod Oannes, which depict a "fish man," prove Nommo, whom the author identifies as the ancestor of the Dogon Nommo myths, was an amphibious extraterrestrial. Nor does he establish a connection between the Dogon creator Nommo and the star Sirius. Somehow, Temple and I have never gotten our disputes off on the right foot. civilization. Feature Articles Dogon shame Did ancient gods from the Sirius star system visit an African tribe 5,000 years ago? The diagram is only convincing as a representation of Sirius B orbiting Sirius A when most of the original symbols are eliminated. Perhaps so -- it does seem like a trivial point, arguing over how different two meaningless geographical distances really are. But here's the rub: there is no archaeological evidence that the specific references to the twin hidden companions of Sirius are anywhere near that old. The greatest source of error, however, seems to be in Temple's specified location of Behdet. The Dogon and Sirius. They have a traditional belief in a heliocentric system and MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian decent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. And from what star system does the visitor come? They conclude that Temple was very keen to please his mentor, who believed in extraterrestrial beings from Sirius. What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. "We have in the Dogon information a predictive mechanism which it is our duty to test, regardless of our preconceptions." The immunity of pseudoscientists to criticism is well known to skeptics, yet I was curious. The Pleiades are sometimes mentioned, but this is not possible. A substantial bulk of The Sirius Mystery consists of comparative linguistic and mythological scholarship, pointing out resemblances among Dogon, Yoruba, Egyptian and Sumerian beliefs and symbols. Especially those who believe that our past is not at all how mainstream historians believe it to be, or indeed, tell us it was. terrestrial rather than extraterrestrial. the Dogon. Since Oberg cannot do so, we need not concern ourselves with criticisms of The Sirius Mystery." So much for the Nommos. In 1967, Temple began work on the thesis that became The Sirius Mystery. You dont have to watch too many Fantasy Channel (formerly known as the History Channel) specials on ancient astronauts before youll be told about the primitive African Dogon of Mali and their advanced astronomical knowledge bestowed, of course, by extraterrestrials. 68-70. WebThe claims about the Dogons' astronomical knowledge have also been challenged. But that isn't the only parallel. All rights reserved. The two anthropologists had lived among the Dogon tribe in Africa since 1931, and in 1946 Griaule was initiated into the religious secrets of the tribe. (Copyright Lee Krystek 1998) In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. Pseudoarchaeology book by Robert K. G. Temple, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Sirius_Mystery&oldid=1135262588, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 23 January 2023, at 16:12. Carl Sagan's contribution to this discussion was in his book Broca's Brain (1979). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sirius_Mystery. -- in other words, no disproof would follow the failure of his prediction.). Robert Temple, who spent eight years studying mythology, is convinced that he can trace the Sirius-B information back to the Sumerians. But from whom? rotation is astronomically possible but whether it is correct or not we cannot yet know. Noah Brosch explained in his book Sirius Matters that cultural transfer could have taken place between 19th century French astronomers and Dogon tribe members during the observations of the solar eclipse on 16 April 1893. Laird Scranton makes it clear that he ruled out this possibility in this interview. Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. This proves that geodetic surveys of immense accuracy were thus practiced in ancient Egypt with a knowledge of the earth as a spherical body in space and projections upon it envisaged as part of the Sirius lore.". Sagan has recounted numerous examples from Arizona and New Guinea -- and other scholars have noted similar instances -- of the rapid assimilation of new stories, songs and lore into the eclectic mythology of Stone Age peoples. G. Stein (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1996), pp. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. astronomical information. Obviously, no Earth-based species was flying to other stars back then! How did the Dogon obtain this knowledge? So where does this leave the mysteries of Sirius? Many served in the French army in World War I and some of them could have returned years later with colorful embellishments for their native legends. thousands of similar objects along with even heavier and denser objects such as neutron stars and black holes. In 1952, Young was one of nine people present during the first contact with the Council, an event initiated by Andrija Puharich, the man who brought Israeli spoonbender Uri Geller to America. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. WebAlso there is the fact that they described the Nommo as fish people and you find all kinds of half man/half fish - serpent imagery all over the Mediterranean. Several possibilities exist. The position of the WebThe population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000.. . One example: "If a Sirius-C is ever discovered and found to be a red dwarf, I will conclude that the Dogon information has been fully validated." WebThe Dogon, the Nommos and Sirius B Artist's conception of the Dogon's legendary Nommos. <> There is, You guessed it -- Sirius! Sirius was already the subject of a mystery concerning the traditional lore of the Dogon tribe of Mali, near Timbuktu in western Africa. More recent research suggests that the contaminator was Griaule himself. The tribe has a periodic Sirius festival called the "Segui" ceremony; each celebration lasts several years (the last was in 1968-72.) WebThe Dogon reportedly related to Griaule and Dieterlen a belief that the Nommos were inhabitants of a world circling the star Sirius (see the main article on the Dogon for a discussion of their astronomical knowledge). amphibious aliens or telescopic vision due to melanin. Also if it was seeded by westerners how is the Dogon and surrounding tribes have a fully developed culture and religion structure centered around Sirius going back for hundreds of years? scientific equipment, so how could they get this knowledge? One additional disturbing note: That distance has been computed based on a true geodetic oblate spheroid, but even assuming a flat surface would only have introduced an error of a few tenths of one percent at most (Temple obviously didn't know that, or he wouldn't have asserted that measurements even less accurate than that were proof that ancients took Earth's sphericity into account.). complete diagram that the Dogon showed to the French anthropologists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, who were the original Skeptic Jason Colavito counts The Sirius Mystery among the body of works in a tradition of ancient astronaut ideas he believes were ultimately inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.[13][14]. If Sirius B had been a red giant only a few thousand years ago, there would still be a bright and noticable planetary nebula around it today. Below: The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy (discovered in 2003) is the nearest known galaxy to the centre of the Milky Way. Ask about whatever you want with our Free Rune Readings! The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark (New The Dogon are supposed to have known that Sirius B orbits Sirius and that a complete orbit takes One group says the Dogon got their information from aliens from the Sirian system called Nommos. space. [15] An apparent "third star" observed in the 1920s is now confirmed as a background object,[16] something previously suggested by Holberg in 2007: Benest and Duvent found that stable orbits with a period of up to six years exist around Sirius A. And as to good manners, Temple for his part has never answered any of my own personal letters asking for clarification and explanation of controversial points. Seriously: The Dogon and Sirius? WebNew evidence deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. With this, the Dogon mystery comes crashing down. The assyrians called Sirius Kal-bu-sa mas (the Dog of the Sun) and in Chaldea, it was known as Kak-shisha (The Dog Star That Leads) Known History of the Dogon According to Dogon mythology, Nommo was the first living being created by Amma, the sky god and creator of the universe. Ridpath concludes that any information that resembles the facts about Sirius was probably ascertained by way of cultural contamination. Zeta Reticuli 2 (with about the same temperature and mass as the Sun) is another candidate. WebThe population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000.. . Astronomers classify Sirius as a "class A" star, hotter and younger than our sun, Its brightness is due largely to its proximity; it is barely eight light- years away from the earth. Although he was an anthropologist, Griaule was keenly interested in astronomy and had studied it in Paris. Also it would take a very good set of lenses to see Sirius B, which has an apparent magnitude of 8.44 and a separation from Sirius A of 10 arcseconds (0.3% of a 1 angle) under the best conditions. Here, then, is another datum to be investigated when it is possible." Griaule and Dieterlen describe a world renovation ceremony, associated In a recent book, The Once and Future Star (Hawthorn Books, 1977), George Michanowsky identifies "Oannes" as a Hellenized version of the Sumerian name Ea; he Myths and legends that are passed through generations are thousands of years old. In this weeks eSkeptic, Liam McDaid examines these claims. WebThe star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. % stars to the sun, the Alpha Centauri system. their knowledge without contact with an advanced technological The alleged visitors from outer space good amount of discussion of Sirius in the scientific press in the '20s so e issued monthly by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. One of the pieces of evidence Temple cites is a sand picture made by the Paranormal, ed. Here is an example of how hard it can be to critically examine the claims in the book. What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. In a response published in Fate magazine, he denied intending that: "I refer, entirely in passing, to the Greek word for siren and its similarity to the word for Sirius, drawing absolutely This is true, but Sirius has about 25 times the luminosity of the Sun. Temple's theory is heavily based on his interpretation of the work of ethnographers Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen. He made no secret of the fact that his intention was to redeem "There is some evidence," he points out, "that the Dogon like to frame pictures with an ellipse, and that Temple may be mistaken about the claim that in Dogon mythology the planets and Sirius-B move in elliptical orbits." The oldest traces of life on Earth go back to about that time. have turned to astronomical matters, including Sirius, the brightest star in The assyrians called Sirius Kal-bu-sa mas (the Dog of the Sun) and in Chaldea, it was known as Kak-shisha (The Dog Star That Leads) Known History of the Dogon According to Dogon mythology, Nommo was the first living being created by Amma, the sky god and creator of the universe. Obviously, no Earth-based species was flying to other stars back then this creates a major problem Griaules! 'S scholarship might draw from studying the heavens through a small portable telescope work of ethnographers Griaule! Because the lines connecting the stars look the same years studying mythology, is convinced that he ruled that. The inspiration for this claim was a star map produced by Betty Hill while under hypnosis look. The Nommos and Sirius B Artist 's conception of the work of ethnographers Marcel Griaule and Dieterlen stand alone their. 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