Furthermore, there had been a 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). fifty years. 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. Temple claimed that the Dogon knew about two smaller stars that are closely related to Sirius Sirius B and Sirius C. The mystery was how they had obtained this knowledge, as these companion stars cannot be seen by the unaided eye. The Bad Archaeology page on the Sirius Mystery has summarize the basic details well: In 1976, Robert K G Temple (born 1945), an American living in the UK, published what was to become a seminal work of Bad Archaeology, The Sirius Mystery. either in daily life or in ritual [to the Dogon]. A revised edition was published in 1998 with the new subtitle New scientific On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. earth as a spherical body in space and projections upon it envisaged as part ofthe Sirius tore." Webplanet earth. 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. A recent newsletter from my local astronomy association still found the Dogon and their mysterious knowledge of Sirius B worth mentioning. 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. From the findings of Van Beek and the authors of Ancient Mysteries, it is clear that Griaule himself was responsible for the creation of a modern myth; one which, in retrospect, has created such an industry and near-religious belief that the scope and intensity of it can hardly be fathomed. There are innocent available explanations: typographical error or miscopied notes, for example. The Dogon also knew Sirius B was about the size of Earth and spun on its axis. Why would Europeans feel compelled that they needed to discuss astronomy with such a primitive tribe and why would this transfer of knowledge that only lasted 5 weeks have such an impact on the Dogan people that they would include it in their cultural practices? Our mysteries may be different but our questions are the same and we are no wiser. The Dogon have a Temple claims his expert cartographer found these distances "nearly equal." The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. But it is an unfortunate tendency for certain reviewers to wish to try and appear clever at the expense of accuracy, honesty, objectivity, fairness, or even decent manners, by dropping any standards at all in their headlong assaults on authors using only the tools of distortion, dishonesty, and insults. The Bad Archaeology page on the Sirius Mystery has summarize the basic details well: In 1976, Robert K G Temple (born 1945), an American living in the UK, published what was to become a seminal work of Bad Archaeology, The Sirius Mystery. "Perhaps (Oberg) is unaware," Temple went on, "that the differential curvature of the earth variously distorts distances shown on maps. Dwarfs and Little Green Men". Although we can occasionally claim victory (are there any alchemists left? It's almost certainly a hoax. "Robert Temple on three different occasions, by mail and phone, attempted to get support from me and I steadfastly refused," Asimov wrote. Strangely, ancient records explicitly list Sirius as one of six "red stars." The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian decent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. 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. van Beek, Walter E. A. One of the pieces of evidence Temple cites is a sand picture made by the due to quantities of melanin (Welsing, F. C. 1987. The difference in brightness between Sirius A and B is a factor of 10,000! They point out that the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians used spherical lenses6 (even though they are a bad choice to use in telescopes try seeing an image through a glass bead). (Temple claims missionaries didn't show up until 1949.) double star (Ortiz de Montellano).*. James, Peter and Nick Thorpe. September 1976 saw Van Beek actually spoke to some of Griaules original informants; he noted that though they do speak about sigu tolo [interpreted by Griaule as their name for Sirius itself], they disagree completely with each other as to which star is meant; for some, it is an invisible star that should rise to announce the sigu [festival], for another it is Venus that, through a different position, appears as sigu tolo. The mystery of the ancient "red" Sirius also remains baffling. Journalist and skeptic James Oberg collected claims concerning Dogon mythology in his 1982 book UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries. The basic thesis is this: the Dogon (who live in the African nation of Mali, near the border with Burkina Faso) allegedly have long possessed arcane astronomical knowledge that should have been impossible for them to discover without modern telescopes. This sounds significant and convincing until one measures the distance on a map and discovers an "immensely accurate equality" of a twenty percent difference! The Skeptics Society is a non-profit, Sagan, Carl 1980. complete diagram that the Dogon showed to the French anthropologists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, who were the original The proof is supplied by (the Odyssey), where Helios is said to possess 7 herds of 50 cows each and 7 herds of 50 sheep, a transparent allegory of the days and nights of the year.") The Sirius mystery, though, remains of great interest to many researchers today. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. "We have in the Dogon information a predictive mechanism which it is our duty to test, regardless of our preconceptions." 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. (OK, I'll bite--but if such a star is not discovered, Temple has risked no converse conclusions. Somehow, Temple and I have never gotten our disputes off on the right foot. Precise maps at the NASA space photo interpretation lab in Houston list "Behdet" as an ancient name for modern Damanhur, located today at 31.03 degN, 30.28 degE, i.e., more than a hundred kilometers away from where Temple locates his "Behdet" at 31.50 degN, 31.23 degE. The Symbolism of the Tarot: The Minor Arcana, The Symbolism of the Tarot: The Major Arcana, My Reading with Kristine from Psychic Source Review, Get the best Psychic Reading Ever Best Psychics Ive Reviewed, The Cathars: the struggle for and of a new Church, The Strange Stone Discs of Baian-Kara-Ula, William Blake: What paintings of visions come. They seem to have In explaining his role Asimov reveals another dimension of Temple's scholarship. 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. Paranormal, ed. Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. WebNew evidence deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. stream 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. Sirius B was first observed in 1862, and had been predicted in 1844 on dynamic grounds. The legend of the Dogons astronomical precociousness first appeared on the radar in the 1970s. Used under aCreative Commons license. One of the problems the UFO crowd has is providing an answer to the question of where the aliens who visit us come from. Temple's book is indeed extremely long and many other researchers have echoed Asimov's assertion that it is "unreadable." Read Skeptic on Apple or Android devices, or on PC or Mac via PocketMags.com. The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. 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. Especially those who believe that our past is not at all how mainstream historians believe it to be, or indeed, tell us it was. they were not told by beings from the star Sirius.". According to Griaule and 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]. Bullard, Thomas. Ask about whatever you want with our Free Rune Readings! The Dogons were not isolated. WebRe: Dogon Sirius claim debunked - Graham Hancock Official Website Mysteries Taken from [ library.thinkquest.org] According to the Dogon priests, Sirius is orbited by a tiny secret star that they refer to as 'po', which traces an elliptical path around Sirius taking 50 years to The only mystery is how anyone could take seriously either the notion of 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. ;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 E. "Ancient Astronauts," in, McDaid, Liam. If I were alone in picking on Temple's thesis, he might be able to argue a case for ad hominem persecution. contact with some ugly, amphibious* Were aliens, lost technology or something else entirely involved? Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. 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. But it seems that Griaule, a scientist, wanted to attribute to earlier civilisations more knowledge than they actually possessed. (I must confess I've felt that way about some other people, tool). Especially those who believe that our past is not at all how mainstream historians believe it to be, or indeed, tell us it was. 139-167. 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: Press J to jump to the feed. by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano. One of Temple's main I disagree. "At first glance," Sagan admitted, "the Sirius legend of the Dogon seems But my own measurements, which He was told that fishlike creatures called the Nommo had come to Earth from Sirius to civilizes its people. Flim-Flam! Griaule did not attempt to explain how the Dogon could know "wished to affirm the complexity of African religions and questioned They conclude that Temple was very keen to please his mentor, who believed in extraterrestrial beings from Sirius. Whew! What about Sirius? But from whom? Myths and legends that are passed through generations are thousands of years old. Liam is the author of Urban Astronomy and is a Senior Scientist for Skeptic. "Nowhere in his 295 page book does Temple offer one specific statement from the Dogon to substantiate his ancient astronauts claim." As the brightest star in the sky it was known and worshiped by ancient civilizations. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. from black Egyptians who had telescopes. He soon multiplied to become six pairs of twins. 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. 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. Ridpath asserts. 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. The immunity of pseudoscientists to criticism is well known to skeptics, yet I was curious. Temple, however, has stated in the reprint of The Sirius Mystery (1999) that he in no way supports what he refers to as "sinister cults" that have been inspired by his book. WebNew evidence deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. As anthropologists have known for a long time, primitive tribes have a remarkable talent for absorbing interesting new stories into their traditional mythology. Meanwhile the Dogon myths continue to baffle investigators. And from what star system does the visitor come? If so, I wonder why that passage was ever "worth pointing out" in the book in the first place. The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian decent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. The inspiration for this claim was a star map produced by Betty Hill while under hypnosis. Except that this isnt the original Dogon drawing. Some pseudosciences such as homeopathy and free energy never die. Temple lists a number of astronomical beliefs held by the Dogon that thousands of similar objects along with even heavier and denser objects such as neutron stars and black holes. There are no stable orbits around the less massive Sirius B which exceed three years. He soon multiplied to become six pairs of twins. 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. But Fishs map used an arbitrary viewpoint in space. 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 "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." This means that it will have a lifetime on the stellar Main Sequence, which is where stars spend 90% of their lives, of about 1.2 billion years. by Philip Coppens. [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. According to Robert Temple (The Sirius Mystery), the Dogon had WebThe star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. More recent research suggests that the contaminator was Griaule himself. ), Another example: "The Dogon also mention a period of rotation of Sirius- Bone yearthis Several possibilities exist. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. Sagan suggests, however, that that civilization was MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. As James and Thorpe point out, he took star maps along with him on his field trips as a way of prompting his informants to divulge their knowledge of the stars. 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. 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). pieces of evidence is the tribe's alleged knowledge of Sirius B, a companion to the star Therefore, if Sirius C exists, it must orbit Sirius A. Giants appear in cultures around the world: Biblical tales of giants more than ten feet tall; Roman and Greek stories of titans and heroes; European stories of giants of mountain and hill. Could a remote African people have gained esoteric knowledge about the sky without having telescopes? It was very unlikely that the Dogon had learned of this stars existence from Westerners prior to the visit by Griaule and Dieterlen. WebRe: Dogon Sirius claim debunked - Graham Hancock Official Website Mysteries Taken from [ library.thinkquest.org] According to the Dogon priests, Sirius is orbited by a tiny secret star that they refer to as 'po', which traces an elliptical path around Sirius taking 50 years to Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. And does the Dogon mythology ever really say that Nommo, the founder Modern astronomers have discovered the remains of the supernova Vela-X in a constellation which would have been visible in the low southern sky from Sumer. Ancient astronauts entrepreneur Erich von Daniken endorses and adopts Temple's explanations in his latest book, Von Daniken's Proof. Laird Scranton makes it clear that he ruled out this possibility in this interview. For example, he claims that the Dogon have a drawing like the one in Figure 1. According to Sagan, western Africa has had many visitors from Read the January issue of Michael Shermers Scientific American column for free on michaelshermer.com: Kool-Aid Psychology: How optimism trumped realism in the positive-psychology movement. Nothing fuels religious extremism more than the belief that one has found the absolute moral truth. Given that the French stayed in their territory for five weeks and had several local guides, it would not be surprising if they shared some astronomical knowledge during that time. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. In this interview different but our questions are the same and we are no wiser might able... Map produced by Betty Hill while under hypnosis Dogon ] pointing out in. 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