dogon sirius debunked

The biggest challenge to Griaule, however, came from anthropologist Walter Van Beek. To Temple, this proved that "geodetic surveys of immense accuracy were thus practiced in ancient Egypt with a knowledge of the The second idea, championed by Afrocentrist historians, is that the Dogons either found out about Sirius B on their own or learned about it from the Egyptians. from black Egyptians who had telescopes. "their purpose in disguising their secrets was to see that the secrets could survive.". to other visible stars near Sirius as recognition of the invisible He points out that the Dogon myths also describe a third star (astronomers would call it "Sirius C"), as yet undiscovered. Webplanet earth. In that case the Dogon (and everyone else) would have had little trouble seeing both stars then. WebThe star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. He has written of Temples belief that present-day authorities are unwilling to set aside the blinkers of orthodoxy, unable to admit the validity of anything that lies outside their field or that offers a challenge to the status quo. astronomical information. No other anthropologist supports their opinions. Astronomers Carl Sagan and Ian Ridpath, for example, have suggested that the modern astronomical aspects of the complex Dogon mythology entered the lore only recently, probably shortly before the myths were written down in the 1930s. 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. 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). Bullard, Thomas. In 1966, Temple then aged 21 became Secretary of Youngs Foundation for the Study of Consciousness. by Philip Coppens. Sirius was already the subject of a mystery concerning the traditional lore of the Dogon tribe of Mali, near Timbuktu in western Africa. 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. Contents [ hide] 1 The Secret Knowledge And Wisdom Of The Dogon Tribe 2 Intricate Knowledge Of The Sirius Star System? Some pseudosciences such as homeopathy and free energy never die. Lets start with the first idea, proffered by Robert Temple.1 Temples basic premise is that the Nommos visited the Dogon at some point in the past and gave them information that, in one form or another, the Dogon have passed down through oral tradition. Liam McDaid is Astronomy Coordinator and Professor of Astronomy at Sacramento City College. 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. "Dogon Restudied: A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Predictions are often reinterpreted to fit any outcome, which makes them scientifically worthless but which can be claimed to verify the pseudo- scientific claims. rotation is astronomically possible but whether it is correct or not we cannot yet know. Temple claims his expert cartographer found these distances "nearly equal." The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. 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. (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?) of Griaule informants, had ever heard or understood that Sirius was a "wished to affirm the complexity of African religions and questioned What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. "Robert Temple on three different occasions, by mail and phone, attempted to get support from me and I steadfastly refused," Asimov wrote. Ideas originally published in 1948, reprint (Oxford University Press 1997). Paranormal, ed. 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. double star (Ortiz de Montellano).*. As the brightest star in the sky it was known and worshiped by ancient civilizations. Temple offered another line of reasoning. Of those websites, over 400 had been updated within the last three months. "Legends of the Dogon: belief in a long-solved Cook some soul food. due to quantities of melanin (Welsing, F. C. 1987. mystery resurfaces." [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. (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.) The Dogon. In 1991, Van Beek led a team of anthropologists to Mali and declared that they found absolutely no trace of the detailed Sirius lore reported by the French anthropologists. 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 immunity of pseudoscientists to criticism is well known to skeptics, yet I was curious. 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. good amount of discussion of Sirius in the scientific press in the '20s so Fishs map and Hills map look similar only because the lines connecting the stars look the same. What about Sirius? 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. Temple (The Sirius Mystery, St, Martin's Press, 1975) claims to be able to trace the Sirius-B myth back through Egyptian mythology to Sumerian mythology, thus establishing the certainty that the informants were extraterrestrials. either in daily life or in ritual [to the Dogon]. This would have wreaked havoc on the climate of any planets orbiting Sirius A. The Nommos descended from the sky in a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder. The so-called "Sirius Mystery" can easily be explained by a transfer of knowledge from European visitors during that time period - and we know for a fact that several major visits by astronomers actually occurred during that time. 11.1. Y%gbsPFur[%X7Sz We need more reliable evidence -- especially theories that can be tested. 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. by Liam McDaid. Seriously: The Dogon and Sirius? 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. extremely dense and has a fifty-year orbit. of course, no evidence for this special eyesight, nor for other equally When I set him a draft of a sharply critical review written for Astronomy magazine, he replied with a blistering counterattack in a letter to my editor: "A virulent attack against my honesty, integrity, and intelligence," he called my review. Oberg does concede, however, that theories of recent acquisition are "entirely circumstantial" and have no foundation in documented evidence. 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 legend of the Dogons astronomical precociousness first appeared on the radar in the 1970s. Because Sirius B moves from 8 to 31 AU distance from Sirius A, it is unlikely that planets orbiting Sirius A would have stable orbits. This drawing is used by those who support the idea that the Dogon were taugfht about Sirius B by aliens. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. But didn't Isaac Asimov check over the book for just such factual errors, as the publisher claims? Cuddle up with someone. Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. [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. WebNew evidence deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. Although he was an anthropologist, Griaule was keenly interested in astronomy and had studied it in Paris. The Dogons were not isolated. And from what star system does the visitor come? But the extraterrestrial hypothesis will not fade away so easily. 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. For more then 20 years, The Sirius Mystery has influenced speculation about the possibility that our forefathers came from the stars. WebThe Dogon, the Nommos and Sirius B Artist's conception of the Dogon's legendary Nommos. Most important, no one, even within the circle A must for every bookshelf.ORDER the book, It seems clear that the Dogon did indeed get their information from other cultures. Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. No such nebula is seen. 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.") in elliptical orbits of astronomical phenomena. The Dogon and Sirius. 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. The 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. 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 Europeans too talked about the discovery of a third star in the Sirius system; later investigations, however, ruled out that possibility. Conversations With The Nine became part of the UFO and New Age mythology and many claim to be in contact with them. century technological matters brought to them by visitors from other parts See also von Dniken, Zecharia Sitchin, and UFO. A dynamical study published in 1995, based on anomalous perturbations of Sirius B (suggestive of the star being gravitationally influenced by another body) concluded that the presence of a third star orbiting Sirius could not be ruled out. But that isn't the only parallel. He shows a total ignorance or disregard for almost every fact in my book, and there is hardly a single thing in his review which is remotely accurate." 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. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. companion" (Bullard). He also gives public talks on astronomy and related fringe topics to international audiences. 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. But now, in another recent publication Ancient Mysteries by Peter James and Nick Thorpe this mystery is also uncloaked as a hoax or a lie perpetrated by Griaule. Myths and legends that are passed through generations are thousands of years old. Randi, James. The good news is that two of the first five entries were from skeptical websites (CSICOP and Bob Carrolls Skeptics Dictionary). New evidence deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. One of the pieces of evidence Temple cites is a sand picture made by the The review was indeed consequently modified in parts where Temple explained portions of his book I may have misinterpreted. 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. [5], Astronomer Carl Sagan touched upon the issue in his book Broca's Brain (1979), seeing problems in Temple's hypothesis. Also, why would the Dogan people not divulge where they received such recent knowledge of transfer if they had of gotten this knowledge from Europeans. Journalist and skeptic James Oberg collected claims concerning Dogon mythology in his 1982 book UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. One problem with this idea is that Sirius B has been a white dwarf for at least tens of thousands of years. They dont have telescopes or other %PDF-1.4 Moon is traveling through Cancer today. 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. Griaule, Marcel. Nothing fuels religious extremism more than the belief that one has found the absolute moral truth. The brightest star in the sky is Sirius, now called Sirius A. 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. Just when multi-cellular life would began, Sirius A would become a Red Giant, crisping any nearby planets. 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. Some pseudosciences such as homeopathy and free energy never die. But from whom? 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. For Siwa, I called Dr. Farouk EI-Baz of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, and his maps showed it at 25.50 degE, 29.22 degN (that's the oasis center, with the modern town about ten kilometers SE). [2][1] The book was first published by St. Martin's Press in 1976. The brightest star in the sky is Sirius, now called Sirius A. Ridpath asserts. But if the error is real, it reflects on the only kind of hard, checkable, testable evidence Temple has offered for his theories. Copyright 19922023. 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. extraterrestrials, the Nommos, some 5,000 years ago. 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? Feature Articles Dogon shame Did ancient gods from the Sirius star system visit an African tribe 5,000 years ago? 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. by Philip Coppens. 68-70. Legends of the Dogon Belief in a Long-Solved Mystery Resurfaces. 6, "White At the latitude of Egypt, over distances of several hundred kilometers, planetary curvature introduces distortions only on the order of fractions of kilometers, not the tens of kilometers worth of inaccuracies I found in Temple's claim. theorizes that the myths may refer to a gigantic supernova. Tom Sever's "The Obsession with the Star Sirius," and editor Ron Oriti's "On Not Taking it Seriously." WebNew evidence deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. some 8.6 light years from earth. The Sirius mystery, though, remains of great interest to many researchers today. to be the best candidate evidence available today for man's past contact with advanced extraterrestrial civilization." Speculation about the Dogon on numerous websites is now mingled with fact, leading to wide misunderstanding among the public about Dogon mythology. 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 Subscribe to eSkeptic: our free email newsletter and get great podcasts, videos, reviews and articles from Skeptic magazine, announcements, and more in your inbox once or twice a week. 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]. More recent research suggests that the contaminator was Griaule himself. 1999. The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. I assumed, reasonably I.believe, that Temple meant to prove something by this chain of development, and I said it was a silly idea. 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. 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 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. Whew! MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. 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. Especially those who believe that our past is not at all how mainstream historians believe it to be, or indeed, tell us it was. With this, the Dogon mystery comes crashing down. 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. Seriously: The Dogon and Sirius? 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. [3] These beings, who are hypothesized to have taught the arts of civilization to humans, are claimed in the book to have originated the systems of the Pharaohs of Egypt, the mythology of Greek civilization, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, among other things. All rights reserved. Dogon to explain their beliefs. Unfortunately the ancient records contain no clear, unambiguous references to this Sirius lore although the works of historians, astronomers and philosophers were explicit and detailed on innumerable other subjects. The Pleiades are sometimes mentioned, but this is not possible. So it merely remains for any interested reader to check and see which of us is correct. Either way, the original purity of the Dogon-Sirius story is itself a myth as it is highly likely that Griaule contaminated their knowledge with his own. seem curious. [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. no conclusions of any kind." 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. Print versions available in Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Korean. 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. Whatever their place in the search for extraterrestrial contact, the Dogon myths are certainly odd. contact with some ugly, amphibious* The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. They all have one thing in common: enormous monsters. fifty years. 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 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 Dogon. Obviously, no Earth-based species was flying to other stars back then! sigui, held by the Dogon every sixty years. The Dogon legend connected with Sirius, wrote Ridpath, "is riddled with ambiguities, contradictions, and downright errors, at least if we try to interpret it literally." 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? It is a type of fuel that can lead to what Clay Farris Naff cleverly calls the neuron bomb. In this post, Michael Shermer asks, Is there a moral standard that stands above all the worlds religions that is based on some transcendent source?. Some of this information has been selectively interpreted by Temple to support his claims. ancient Egypt.*. It's almost certainly a hoax. Sagan, In 1998, Temple republished the book with the subtitle new scientific evidence of alien contact 5,000 years ago. The books reputation was first dented in 1999, when Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince published The Stargate Conspiracy, in which they allege that Temples thinking had been heavily influenced by his mentor, Arthur M. Young. Mysteries (Ballantine Books, 1999). The Dogon have a Legends of the Dogon Belief in a Long-Solved Mystery Resurfaces. the Sirius "Mystery" by Ian Ridpath, Skeptical Inquirer, Fall What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. Am I getting too picky here? 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. The mystery of the ancient "red" Sirius also remains baffling. But other observers have also written skeptically about the "Sirius Mystery. Our mysteries may be different but our questions are the same and we are no wiser. The two anthropologists who first studied the Dogon (Griaule and Deiterlen) conducted their research in the 1930s. based his account on an interview with one person, Ambara, and an 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. Some might argue that if there were a planet really close to Sirius A, it could be in a stable orbit. One group says the Dogon got their information from aliens from the Sirian system called Nommos. The star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. 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. 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. Somehow, Temple and I have never gotten our disputes off on the right foot. Other ancient astronomical records make no mention of Sirius being red. He was told that fishlike creatures called the Nommo had come to Earth from Sirius to civilizes its people. Is Sirius a Triple Star?, Adams, H. H. 1983. So much for the Nommos. Robert Temple, who spent eight years studying mythology, is convinced that he can trace the Sirius-B information back to the Sumerians. What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. 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 Young was a fervent believer in the Council of Nine, a mysterious group of channelled entities that claim to be the nine creator gods of ancient Egypt. And this is what Mr. Oberg has done." And does the Dogon mythology ever really say that Nommo, the founder Investigating In his 1998 revised edition, Temple was quick to point out the new discussions in scientific circles about the possible existence of Sirius C, which seemed to make Griaules claims even more spectacular and accurate. Some surviving informants of Griaule who spoke to van Beek made it clear that the Dogon learned about Sirius B from him!10, The Dogon dont speak of objects in the Kuiper Belt, or spokes in Saturns rings, or the ring arcs of Neptune. Did Oberg? Although Temple fails to prove its antiquity, the evidence for the recent acquisition of the information is still entirely circumstantial. Some pseudosciences such as homeopathy and free energy never die.