Mysterious Dogons and aliens from Sirius

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Paleokontakt is a theory according to which, in ancient times, our planet was visited by aliens from other worlds. Some researchers believe that aliens came into contact with terrestrial inhabitants, giving them valuable scientific information. This hypothesis could have remained only a plot for science fiction, if not for the very real evidence of the veracity of paleocontact.

The Dogon live in the southeast of the Republic of Mali in western Africa. This nationality numbers about 800 thousand people, of which the overwhelming majority are Muslims, a small part of Christians, and even less pagans. The Dogon have their own languages and a rich history. Other civilizations had little impact on Dogon culture. This is understandable, since they live in hard-to-reach areas, where conquerors and missionaries could not get for a long time. Little is known about the origin of the Dogon. Their ancestors settled in Mali in the X-XII centuries, displacing other tribes and partially adopting their traditions. Strictly speaking, the Dogon are not much different from many other tribes in this region.

But what, then, attracts the attention of ufologists and astronomers to them? And the fact that, being a rather backward African tribe, the Dogon have amazing knowledge about the constellation Canis Major. To realize the depth of knowledge of the Dogons, you need to plunge into their beliefs.

The heavenly creator in the Dogon religion is Amma, at first Amma was only a void that existed outside space and time. Apart from this emptiness, nothing existed until Amma opened his eyes. His thought "came out of the spiral", and our world began to grow rapidly - this idea, according to some researchers, is a mythological transposition of the Big Bang Theory. The creator god created Nommo - the first living being. Soon it split up, and part of it rebelled against Amma. Contrary to the will of its creator, Nommo (or rather, his "separated" part - Ogo) built a ship and after a long journey descended to Earth. Amma did not forgive disobedience and in the end decided to destroy his rebellious child: according to local beliefs, Nommo arrived on Earth during a "fire storm". Supposedly, it was thanks to him that the Dogon gained valuable knowledge about the Universe.

Dogon mythology is closely related to Sirius - the brightest star in the night sky, included in the constellation Canis Major. Sirius is 22 times brighter than the Sun and, according to legends, it is on it that the "homeland" of the god Amma is located.

An indispensable attribute of Dogon rituals is masks. Characters from myths and legends are guessed in them. For example, there are masks representing the god Ammu. Through the use of masks, the Dogon pass on their history to other generations. It must be said that there is nothing mysterious about the Dogon masks themselves, because many African peoples have similar cultural traditions.

In Dogon myths, Sirius is described as a double star - just like in the ideas of astronomers. Around Sirius A (Sigi tolo in Dogon) revolves an invisible white dwarf - Sirius B (in Dogon language - Po tolo). Nowadays, scientists are confident in the correctness of this interpretation. But if we can observe Sirius A with the naked eye, then Sirius B can only be viewed through a telescope. The white dwarf was discovered only in 1862, and it is not clear how the Dogon learned about it. But that's not all: the Dogon “know” that the rotation period of Sirius B is 50 Earth years (according to modern astronomical data - 51 years), and every half century they organize a Sigi holiday, thus marking the “rebirth of the world”. A common coincidence? But the Dogon also know that Sirius B is a white dwarf - they even designate this star as a white stone.

Surprisingly, according to the Dogon priests, another star revolves around Sirius A - Sirius C (this is still a conventional designation). Its existence has not yet been officially confirmed, but in 1995 astronomers Duvent and Benest reported that they observed Sirius C. Perhaps Sirius C really exists and is a small star.

Marcel Griaule is a renowned French anthropologist. Born in 1898, died in 1956. Together with Germaine, Dieterlen studied the Dogon culture and lived side by side with them for 16 years. For the first time, the amazing astronomical knowledge of the Dogon was described precisely in the article by Griaule and Dieterlen "The Sudanese system of Sirius" in 1951. But real interest in the culture of the Dogon woke up only after the publication of the works of other authors.

It is believed that in addition to knowledge about Sirius, the Dogon also had information about the structure of the solar system in ancient times - they, for example, were aware of the rings of Saturn. In addition, they divide celestial bodies into planets, stars, satellites, etc. The Dogon are sure that people also live on other planets, although they are different from you and me.

All this knowledge is known thanks to the book "The Pale Fox" by the French anthropologist Marcel Griaule. He and his colleague Germaine Dieterlen have studied Dogon culture for over twenty years. Other researchers also put forward the hypothesis of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. One of them was, for example, the writer Robert Temple, who published the book The Mystery of Sirius. In the second half of the 20th century, the attention of the public was also attracted by the work of the French astronomer Eric Garrier, in which he convincingly proved the veracity of the idea of paleocontact.

It is known that Marcel Griaule talked for a long time with several Dogon who have access to secret knowledge. One of the patriarchs, a Dogon named Ongnonlu, described to Griaule the basis of a system of traditional beliefs. Subsequently, Ongnonlu's words were supplemented by other noble Dogon.

Dogon ideas about the structure of celestial bodies are far from strictly scientific understanding. Their knowledge of Sirius is part of their traditional beliefs and is closely intertwined with myths. To indicate the movement of Sirius B around Sirius A, the Dogon made sketches. These could be figures laid out on the ground or inscribed on stone. Oral legends are also composed about Sirius. One of the Dogon ritual songs contains the following words: The road of the mask is the star Digitaria (Sirius B), this road goes like Digitaria.

In any case, the French ethnographer Marcel Griol, who knows the intricacies of Dogon dialects, insisted on this version of the translation. But there is also an alternative, literal translation of these lines, which completely changes their meaning: The road of the mask is a straight vertical, this road goes straight.

Artifacts of the Dogon have survived to this day, depicting the trajectory of movement of Sirius A, Sirius B and Sirius C. If the artifacts really depict celestial bodies, then it is almost impossible to explain their origin by anything other than paleocontact.

Some researchers have tried to explain the Dogon mystery without resorting to "alien" versions. But these attempts at times only strengthened the position of the paleocontact hypothesis.

Take, for example, the common version of ancient telescopes. It is known that the Dogon had contact with the ancient Egyptians. In theory, they could have inherited astronomical knowledge from them. Another question - was there anything to inherit? After all, even if we assume that the ancient Egyptians had primitive telescopes, they still would not allow us to see Sirius B: it became known only with the advent of modern equipment.

Another version says that the Dogon could have … their own telescope. True, in this case we are talking only about a natural phenomenon that can replace optics. There is an assumption that water, rotating at a constant speed in a closed space, under certain conditions could form a gigantic concave mirror and would make it possible to distinguish the heavenly bodies reflected in it. Allegedly, this is how you can see the stars that are hidden from the naked eye …

Sirius is located 8.6 light years from the solar system. This brightest star in the night sky is mentioned in the myths of many peoples of the world. So, the indigenous population of New Zealand believes that this star is the personification of the supreme deity Rehua - the wisest creature in the Universe.

An equally strange hypothesis says that the Dogon possessed unique vision, which allowed them to see Sirius B. Indeed, a trained eye is able to distinguish objects at a considerable distance. But in the case of Sirius B, even the keenest eyesight will be powerless.

In general, according to the words of Marcel Griaule, the Dogon knew not only about the very existence of Sirius B, but also about its orbit, mass and density. Not to mention the knowledge of the African tribe regarding other celestial bodies. It is impossible to explain all this by some ancient devices or physiological characteristics of the Dogon.

In our time, the concept of paleocontact has evolved from a bold idea to an almost scientific hypothesis. For the first time, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky spoke seriously about the possibility of aliens visiting the Earth in antiquity. But even later, researchers found evidence of paleocontacts in rock paintings, clay figurines and oral folk art of different peoples of the world.

Based on the available facts, we see that in some astronomical questions the Dogon level even surpassed the modern one. Where did they get this knowledge from is a mystery. It is not even known for certain in which of the villages the main material evidence of this knowledge is located. The main interest is, of course, the data on Sirius. One of the Dogon myths tells of a system consisting of three stars. According to the Dogon information, the third star (so far unknown to science, Sirius C) revolves around Sirius A along a longer trajectory. For a long time, official science did not recognize the idea of the existence of Sirius C, but then scientists observed X-rays from the Sirius system, and it became clear that a third star may exist.