Africa, 1931 at Bandiagara plateau in the south of Mali. The ethnographic expedition of Marcel Griaule unexpectedly, in the midst of the impenetrable jungle, encounters a small number of Dogon people. These Africans interested researchers so much that they studied them for over a decade.
There was something to study and something to be surprised at: for thousands of years, the Dogon passed on to subsequent generations the astronomical knowledge that science had just received at that time. Moreover, they claimed that their progenitors came to Earth from distant Sirius.
Conversations with Elder Ogotemmeli resulted in a fundamental work on the beliefs of the African people and sparked controversy about the recorded paleocontact. The Dogon, who made friends with Griol, told him that their ancestors used to live on the planet orbiting Sirius, and then on the “ark” arrived on Earth to populate it.
In his works, the French scientist does not try to interpret myths, but simply conveys what the elder told him. Moreover, he does not ask the question of how the tribe, which did not have the necessary tools, had information about celestial objects invisible to the naked eye.
However, Eric Gerrier was very much interested in this, and he interpreted the Dogon myths as a fact of aliens visiting our planet. This idea was supported by Robert Temple and in the book “The Mystery of Sirius” he already proved the existence of a paleocontact.
Today, the Dogon people still live on the Bandiagara Plateau, a beautiful, albeit inaccessible place. Their villages, nestling on the slopes, are called the Dogon Country. According to the official version, they came here in the tenth to twelfth centuries from the upper reaches of the Niger, but the Africans themselves continue to claim that they come from the constellation Canis Major.
However, as we understand it, you can say anything you want and it is also necessary to confirm it. The Dogons really told Griaule about the spiral structure of the Milky Way, about the presence of satellites in Jupiter, however, only four, about the three stars of Sirius … How could a tribe lost in the middle of Africa know all this?
But Griaule did not ask this question, professing the principle of “describe and only describe.” At first, they tried to reproach him that he, perhaps, somehow misunderstood the Dogon elder, because he talked with him through an interpreter. However, the information received by the French was systemic, so it was impossible to write off these myths on misunderstanding.
Many scientists refused to believe in paleocontact, so a crazy version about a telescope made of scrap materials arose. Allegedly, the Dogon could have a certain round pool, the water in which was evenly rotated with the help of some device. This rotation gave the water the shape of a concave mirror, which could serve as a reflector: this is how the ancient Africans were able to see Sirius B and the moons of Jupiter.
More corrosive and rational scientists have proposed a different version. Also contact, but not with aliens, but with missionaries. To begin with, we noticed that the knowledge of the Dogon, of course, is amazing, but incomplete. Well, for example, why did the mysterious aliens call the second race of Sirius “the smallest” and “the hardest”? They could not help but know that there are stars, both smaller and denser. Why does Jupiter have only four moons, after all, 79 are already known today?
In general, the researchers concluded that the Dogon knowledge is very similar to the knowledge that was at the disposal of science at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was at this time that the African tribes were visited by European missionaries. Perhaps one of them, interested in the achievements of modern astronomy, noticed the attention paid to Sirius in the Dogon mythology, and, in order to establish contact, told everything he knew about this star.
The fact is that in the 20s of the last century it was found that Sirius B has a huge density, that is, very “heavy”, at the same time it was identified as a “white dwarf”.
“The aliens could not call Sirius B the smallest and heaviest star, for they would have known about the existence of smaller, and much denser and heavier stars. Dogon astronomy is closer to the level of, albeit fairly developed, but terrestrial astronomy, which they could learn, for example, from the “White Fathers” Catholic missionaries, “.Alexei Skudnev, editor-in-chief of the Moscow State University Astronomical Bulletin
So the Dogon knowledge turned out to be fake? It’s definetely too early to talk about it, because Africans claim that Sirius is not a double, but a triple star!
Today no one confirms the presence of Sirius C, although there is talk about it …
