“The myths of the Dogon tribe members from Mali, in West Africa, contain astronomical knowledge that the native people could not have learned on their own, nor guessed. Obviously, say the researchers, some more advanced civilization told them. These fascinating Dogon legends speak of the four moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, which were not seen by humans until the invention of the telescope. They speak of the star Sirius and a pair of invisible companions. One of them orbits Sirius every fifty years, the legends declare, and is made of a metal that is the heaviest thing in the universe. Astronomers have discovered that such an object (called ‘Sirius-B’) exists, but only the most sophisticated and sensitive instruments—unavailable, of course, to the Dogons—can detect it.”
–The Sirius Mystery, by James Oberg.
But naturally, there are those who maintain a skeptical view. Carl Sagan was one of them; he raised a question about what the Dogon did not know. He wondered why extraterrestrial beings would share only information about four moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn with them, but mention nothing about any other planets beyond Saturn. He suggested that the reason for this is that this information, along with that of Sirius B, would have been what a European visitor communicated to the Dogon between the years 1925 and 1935. Thus, Sagan and others argue, the Dogon may have incorporated this new knowledge into their existing beliefs about Sirius.
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“The myths of the Dogon tribe members from Mali, in West Africa, contain astronomical knowledge that the native people could not have learned on their own, nor guessed. Obviously, say the researchers, some more advanced civilization told them. These fascinating Dogon legends speak of the four moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, which were not seen by humans until the invention of the telescope. They speak of the star Sirius and a pair of invisible companions. One of them orbits Sirius every fifty years, the legends declare, and is made of a metal that is the heaviest thing in the universe. Astronomers have discovered that such an object (called ‘Sirius-B’) exists, but only the most sophisticated and sensitive instruments—unavailable, of course, to the Dogons—can detect it.”
–The Sirius Mystery, by James Oberg.
But naturally, there are those who maintain a skeptical view. Carl Sagan was one of them; he raised a question about what the Dogon did not know. He wondered why extraterrestrial beings would share only information about four moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn with them, but mention nothing about any other planets beyond Saturn. He suggested that the reason for this is that this information, along with that of Sirius B, would have been what a European visitor communicated to the Dogon between the years 1925 and 1935. Thus, Sagan and others argue, the Dogon may have incorporated this new knowledge into their existing beliefs about Sirius.