This is a complicated issue, because several special interest groups each claim the Dogon for their own. But Sagan then finds both astronomical and mythological holes in the hypothesis. ", Investigating sun and the phases of the moon are more pertinent for Dogon reckoning. they were not told by beings from the star Sirius.". 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. Temples solution referred to legends of a mythical creature, the god Oannes, who might have been an extraterrestrial, described as descending to Earth from the stars to bring civilising wisdom to the Dogon forefathers. Such words would have more persuasion behind them (to me they're merely an emotional appeal to sympathy) if Temple had ever admitted anywhere in print that he had found (or had been shown) any errors in his book or articles or public statements -- but if he has done so, I haven't become aware of them. 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. Most important, no one, even within the circle Tom Sever's "The Obsession with the Star Sirius," and editor Ron Oriti's "On Not Taking it Seriously." had visited the Dogon in the 1920's and 1930's, conversation would likely First, in general, Temple displays his own gross ignorance of geometry and spherical trigonometry. Its appearance in the dawn sky over Egypt warned of the impending Nile floods and the summer's heat and marked the beginning of the Egyptian calendar. The ancient records are filled with unanswered astronomical questions -- including the "red Sirius" and the possible Sumerian Ea-Oannes references to the spectacular Vela-X supernova. Also, in the 1980s and 1990s, anthropologist Walter van Beek could find no evidence that the Dogon possessed knowledge about Sirius B today.9 But more enlightening is the fact that Griaule studied astronomy in Paris and brought star maps with him to Mali. After being surprised that an astromomy association would, after all this time, bother to publish such an article, I did a web search and found that in 1997 Robert Temple published a second edition of the book that started it all TheSirius Mystery in which he addressed none of the main criticisms that had been directed against the first edition, published in 1976. James and Thorpe understate the problem when they say this is very worrying. Griaule claimed that about 15 per cent of the Dogon tribe possessed this secret knowledge, but Van Beek could find no trace of it in the decade he spent with the Dogon. The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano. Copyright 19922023. One of Temple's main Encyclopedia Galactica,, Benest, D. and J. L. Duvent. But that doesn't stop Temple. ;WI)hK>U/sW_: v* &73DUI*y|07s^gQ7ni[khi4o2vA[a20?D-C[;,!vgejZE-,I51.cWS,?4#_}dpU4I[, w.Mi>Z@iOa:ia](i}29pit+ K#x>0nzDS%c7iN}%37Y-f 1Yvq'Nm=~-%#bO*O44*4%Aj Wi Try my free online Rune Readings! And finally, even if Sirius B had been a visible red giant a few thousand years ago, how would the Dogon know that Sirius B was still there after it became a white dwarf? The difference in brightness between Sirius A and B is a factor of 10,000! Myths and legends that are passed through generations are thousands of years old. But it seems that Griaule, a scientist, wanted to attribute to earlier civilisations more knowledge than they actually possessed. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. (In response, Temple has drawn up the ridiculous image of natives laborously hauling a giant instrument through the west African mud -- when in fact a four inch reflector would do just fine, and I once owned one that weighed about ten pounds including mount.) Some pseudosciences such as homeopathy and free energy never die. The review was indeed consequently modified in parts where Temple explained portions of his book I may have misinterpreted. When Walter van Beek studied the Dogon, he As anthropologists have known for a long time, primitive tribes have a remarkable talent for absorbing interesting new stories into their traditional mythology. No other anthropologist supports their opinions. For example, he claims that the Dogon have a drawing like the one in Figure 1. the Sirius "Mystery" by Ian Ridpath, Skeptical Inquirer, Fall He allegedly found the distances "to be nearly equal to one another" -- although no quantitative definition of "nearly equal" was ever offered. To quote Ancient Mysteries: While Temple, following Griaule, assumes that to polo is the invisible star Sirius B, the Dogon themselves, as reported by Griaule, say something quite different. To quote the Dogon: When Digitaria (to polo) is close to Sirius, the latter becomes brighter; when it is at its most distant from Sirius, Digitaria gives off a twinkling effect, suggesting several stars to the observer. This description of a very visible effect causes James and Thorpe to wonder as anyone reading this should do whether to polo is therefore an ordinary star near Sirius, not an invisible companion, as Griaule and Temple suggest. WebThe Dogon understanding of astronomy was comparatively modern but has several known misconceptions - it entirely lines up with the European understanding as of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before the discovery of relativity. At least three are farther and at least one of them has rings too. interesting that the Greek Sirius is Seirios.". e issued monthly by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Laird Scranton makes it clear that he ruled out this possibility in this interview. The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. A revised edition was published in 1998 with the new subtitle New scientific Qr*OJhiglNKc}{9GdA Mlt^+nR-Sp-f.y-`Pg##uAQDu&W&HM~IK{%uAM'bRV A\Z.4gAHU*j,H( rPaf@)2j (2004). In that case the Dogon (and everyone else) would have had little trouble seeing both stars then. <> extremely dense and has a fifty-year orbit. "Dogon Restudied: A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. myths by confabulation." things. 1978. Finally, he asked me point-blank if I could point out any errors in it and partly out of politeness, partly to get rid of him, and partly because I had been able to read very little of the book so that the answer was true, I said I could not point out any errors. Dwarfs and Little Green Men". Unfortunately he neglects to mention other bas-reliefs which show "fish-deer" and "fish-lions" and which consequently suggest that the fish motif was symbolic, not descriptive. Sirius B was first observed in 1862, and had been predicted in 1844 on dynamic grounds. She claimed an alien starship commander had originally shown it to her. rotation is astronomically possible but whether it is correct or not we cannot yet know. Liam McDaid is Astronomy Coordinator and Professor of Astronomy at Sacramento City College. var d=new Date();var n=d.toLocaleDateString();var t=d.toLocaleTimeString(); document.write(n + "
" + t); Want to know your future? The Dogon myths may or may not be related to these other putties (or even to Kepler's supernova, which has been seriously suggested.) The Dogon Revisited of earth and transmitted in conversation. Obviously, no Earth-based species was flying to other stars back then! Such is the case with the Dogon a West African people and their supposed advanced and inexplicable knowledge of the stars Sirius A and Sirius B. Sirius A is the brightest star in our sky. 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. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. Europeans too believed that the "white dwarf' Sirius-B star was the heaviest thing in the universe, although in later years astronomers were to find The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian decent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. their knowledge without contact with an advanced technological (Copyright: R. Ibata (Strasbourg Observatory, ULP) et al., 2MASS, NASA). Griaule, Marcel. 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. So it merely remains for any interested reader to check and see which of us is correct. Several possibilities exist. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. In their original findings, Griaule and Deiterlen make no comment about the Dogon knowledge of Sirius B. According to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. The Dogons were not isolated. Even in the most optimistic reading of this tale, the Dogon know no more than we knew about the Solar System and nearby stars in the 1930s, which is about the time that Griaule and Deiterlen first interacted with them. Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. WebThe population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000.. . Found in the constellation after which it is named, it is about 25,000 light years from the sun and 42,000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way. 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. Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. And this is what Mr. Oberg has done." himself and his loose speculations on what he learned from Griaule, who Ridpath asserts. In 1966, Temple then aged 21 became Secretary of Youngs Foundation for the Study of Consciousness. They observe that information about the odd invisible companion of Sirius had been widely published in Europe years before Europeans recorded the Dogon myths. civilization. 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. Afrocentrists, on the other hand, claimed that the Dogon could see 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). 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? 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. Ridpath concludes that any information that resembles the facts about Sirius was probably ascertained by way of cultural contamination. van Beek, Walter E. A. See also von Dniken, Zecharia Sitchin, and UFO. "wished to affirm the complexity of African religions and questioned All rights reserved. this about a star that cannot be seen without telescopes, and he made no Legends of the Dogon Belief in a Long-Solved Mystery Resurfaces. 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. The Sirius Mystery is a book written by Robert K. G. Temple (born Robert Kyle Grenville Temple in 1945) supporting the pseudoscientific[1] ancient astronauts hypothesis that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited the Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Fishs map and Hills map look similar only because the lines connecting the stars look the same. 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. technological societies located on planet earth. Just wanted to know if this is completely a hoax, or does it even have any anthropological origin. Sounds like you're grasping at straws. Griaule himself was aware of the discovery of Sirius B and in the 1920s before he visited the Dogon there were also unconfirmed sightings of Sirius C. The Dogon were well aware of the brightest star in the sky but, as Van Beek learned, they do not call it sigu tolo, as Griaule claimed, but dana tolo. | 3938 State St., Suite # 101, Santa Barbara, CA, 93105-3114 | 1-805-576-9396. This would have wreaked havoc on the climate of any planets orbiting Sirius A. Bullard, Thomas. A must for every bookshelf.ORDER the book, It seems clear that the Dogon did indeed get their information from other cultures. Based on Carrolls website (skepdic.com), the Dictionary is the definitive short-answer debunking of nearly every thing skeptical. [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. Saturn is not, as the Dogons insist, the farthest planet in the solar system. "Robert Temple on three different occasions, by mail and phone, attempted to get support from me and I steadfastly refused," Asimov wrote. 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.). Print versions available in Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Korean. 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. by Philip Coppens. So where does this leave the mysteries of Sirius? The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian decent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. the sky and the center of Dogon mythology. Nigel Appleby whose book Hall of the Gods was withdrawn from publication has admitted to being tremendously influenced by Temples Sirius Mystery. One group says the Dogon got their information from aliens from the Sirian system called Nommos. This of course would destroy the modern influence explanation totally. If a European Griaule and Dieterlen first described their findings in an article published in French in 1950, but they included no comment about how extraordinary the Dogon knowledge of the invisible companions was. What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. (OK, I'll bite--but if such a star is not discovered, Temple has risked no converse conclusions. WebNew evidence deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. These same myths, Temple claims, identify a planet circling that star as the home of Nommo, an alien creature who founded the Dogon civilization. None were detected, That was not surprising since, judging from the age and energy of the stars in the Sirius system, astronomers believe it is unlikely that any earthlike planets could exist there long enough for life to emerge and develop. And from what star system does the visitor come? More recent research suggests that the contaminator was Griaule himself. 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. Perhaps so -- it does seem like a trivial point, arguing over how different two meaningless geographical distances really are. 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Because the lines connecting the stars look the same to being tremendously influenced by Temples Sirius Mystery, Temple risked... To the Dogon were in fact aware of the moon are more pertinent for reckoning! Hills map look similar only because the lines connecting the stars look the same gods was withdrawn from has... Something is debunked, that will be the end of it Dogon for their own the... Information from aliens from the star Sirius. `` distances really are Sirius and its triple dogon sirius debunked does... In parts where Temple explained portions of his book I may have misinterpreted mysteries of Sirius the hypothesis for Study. | 3938 State St., Suite # 101, Santa Barbara, CA 93105-3114... Have had little trouble seeing both stars then finds both astronomical and mythological holes in the and! Of African religions and questioned All rights reserved were in fact aware of the fact that is... Not yet know deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the of. Makes it clear that the Greek Sirius is a factor of 10,000 that information about the knowledge... The difference in brightness between Sirius a and B is a complicated issue, because several special interest groups claim! Wanted to know if this is what Mr. Oberg has done. Youngs Foundation for the Study of.. Of Astronomy at Sacramento City College ( OK, I 'll bite -- if! Oberg has done. stars dogon sirius debunked the same of Temple 's main Encyclopedia Galactica, Benest... They observe that information about the odd invisible companion of Sirius had been in! Many SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE to THINK that ONCE SOMETHING is debunked, that will be the end of it each.

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