Post by Nubian Zuri* on Apr 25, 2009 20:41:48 GMT -5
(Excerpted from UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries Donning Press, 1982 Chapter Six) Web version published with permission of the author
The search for an extraterrestrial calling card has taken researchers to many strange places. Some have hiked the Andes to examine mysterious ruins while others have sought alien traces in deserts and jungles. Others have scoured the rare book rooms in libraries and pored over dusty volumes of Mesopotamian or Sanskrit legend. Some have analyzed UFO reports, others have tried to puzzle out the source and meaning of baffling long-delayed radio echoes.
Several specialists now claim they have found the long-sought "final evidence" of visits made to earth by ancient astronauts. The myths of the Dogon tribesmen of Mall, West Africa, contain astronomical knowledge which the native people could have neither learned by themselves nor guessed. Obviously, the researchers say, some more advanced civilization told them.
These fascinating Dogon legends speak of Jupiter's four moons and Saturn's rings, which were not seen by human beings until the invention of the telescope. They speak of the star Sirius and of a pair of invisible companions. One of them circles 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") does exist but only the most sophisticated and sensitive instruments -- unavailable, of course, to the Dogons -- can detect it.
The planets circle the sun, the tribesmen believe (and astronomy confirms), in elliptical orbits. And planets with different kinds of people on them circle six other stars in the sky -- so the legends have it.
Who told the Dogons about Sirius and about the other space science secrets? Author Robert K. G· 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. Ancient astronauts entrepreneur Erich von Daniken endorses and adopts Temple's explanations in his latest book, Von Daniken's Proof.
But other observers disagree. 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. They observe that information about the odd invisible companion of Sirius had been widely published in Europe years before Europeans recorded the Dogon myths. As anthropologists have known for a long time, primitive tribes have a remarkable talent for absorbing interesting new stories into their traditional mythology.
In reply Temple produces evidence for the great antiquity of the Sirius cult. The number "fifty" has great signifance in ancient myths. He points out that the Dogon myths also describe a third star (astronomers would call it "Sirius C"), as yet undiscovered. These same myths, Temple claims, identify a planet circling that star as the home of Nommo, an alien creature who founded the Dogon civilization.
Temple's impressive research was encouraged by noted futurist Arthur C, Clarke (although Clarke now prefers the "modern influence" hypothesis). The book's advertising blurb quotes prolific science writer Isaac Asimov, who says, "I couldn't find any mistakes in this book. That in itself is extraordinary."
The star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. As the brightest star in the sky it was known and worshiped by ancient civilizations. 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.
Strangely, ancient records explicitly list Sirius as one of six "red stars." The other five are still seen as red but from the time of Arab astronomers to the present day Sirius has been blue-white.
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. 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 stars to the sun, the Alpha Centauri system.
Sirius figures prominently in the Dogon myths. The tribe has a periodic Sirius festival called the "Segui" ceremony; each celebration lasts several years (the last was in 1968-72.) The interval between ceremonies may be forty, fifty or sixty years.
Through the carbon dating of old ritual masks researchers have established the antiquity of the Segui ceremonies. Such criteria suggest that these periodic festivals have been going on for at least 600 years and possibly much longer.
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. Furthermore, most Dogon symbology already has multiple levels of meaning; the sketches used to illustrate the Sirius secrets are also used in puberty ceremonies.
Clearly the Dogons (in common with many other cultures) were fascinated by Sirius, probably because its position in the sky was crucial to successful agriculture (it's the only star they have a name for.) 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?
Temple's book mentions the absorption of a Christ-figure into the traditional Dogon Pantheon, obviously a recent addition. Sagan has recounted numerous examples from Arizona and New Guinea -- and other scholars have noted similar instances -- of the rapid assimilation of new stories, songs and lore into the eclectic mythology of Stone Age peoples. Such assimilation occurs most frequently when the subject is one of particular interest to a people -- as Sirius is to the Dogons.
The main problem with the alleged antiquity of the Dogon "Sirius secrets" legend is that they are reminiscent of European Sirius speculations of the late 1920s. 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 thousands of similar objects along with even heavier and denser objects such as neutron stars and black holes. Europeans too talked about the discovery of a third star in the Sirius system; later investigations, however, ruled out that possibility.
The Dogon beliefs about Jupiter and Saturn sound familiar too. To be specific they sound like the kinds of astronomical conclusions one might draw from studying the heavens through a small portable telescope. (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 Dogons hold that Jupiter has four moons when in fact it has at least 12, plus a ring, as any true extraterrestrial would have known. Saturn is not, as the Dogons insist, the farthest planet in the solar system. At least three are farther and at least one of them has rings too.
So what is the alternative to the extraterrestrial hypothesis for the Dogon myths7 The Dogons could have learned of European Sirius lore in the 1920's from traders, explorers or missionaries, many of whom are avid amateur astronomers. (Temple claims missionaries didn't show up until 1949.) The Dogons were not isolated. 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.
But the extraterrestrial hypothesis will not fade away so easily. Robert Temple, who spent eight years studying mythology, is convinced that he can trace the Sirius-B information back to the Sumerians. This of course would destroy the modern influence explanation totally.
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. But that doesn't stop Temple. He says the references are there but recorded in riddles which he alone has been able to decipher. "The ancient peoples were not concealing information from us out of spite," he writes. "their purpose in disguising their secrets was to see that the secrets could survive."
To penetrate this supposed disguise (which might not be a disguise at all, other classical scholars maintain), Temple resorts to ancient puns, to hidden meanings, to "garbled versions" which he must amend to fit the theory, to the exchange of consonants in innocent-looking words, to similar-sounding words from different civilizations thousands of miles or thousands of years apart and to other equally questionable tactics.
Using similar techniques other writers have "discovered" dozens of different, often contradictory "ancient secrets" about Atlantis, primitive Christianity, forgotten wisdom, ancient visitors and numerous other things. Classical mythology has been a Rorschach test into which people have projected nearly any notion that appealed to them. We need more reliable evidence -- especially theories that can be tested.
Temple has made very few verifiable assertions about mythology (and The Sirius Mystery is overwhelmingly about ancient myths, not about the Dogons or modern astronomy). One such rare claim is that "the oasis (Siwa) and Thebes are both equidistant from Behdet ... This proves that geodetic surveys of immense accuracy were thus practiced in ancient Egypt with a knowledge of the earth as a spherical body in space and projections upon it envisaged as part of
The search for an extraterrestrial calling card has taken researchers to many strange places. Some have hiked the Andes to examine mysterious ruins while others have sought alien traces in deserts and jungles. Others have scoured the rare book rooms in libraries and pored over dusty volumes of Mesopotamian or Sanskrit legend. Some have analyzed UFO reports, others have tried to puzzle out the source and meaning of baffling long-delayed radio echoes.
Several specialists now claim they have found the long-sought "final evidence" of visits made to earth by ancient astronauts. The myths of the Dogon tribesmen of Mall, West Africa, contain astronomical knowledge which the native people could have neither learned by themselves nor guessed. Obviously, the researchers say, some more advanced civilization told them.
These fascinating Dogon legends speak of Jupiter's four moons and Saturn's rings, which were not seen by human beings until the invention of the telescope. They speak of the star Sirius and of a pair of invisible companions. One of them circles 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") does exist but only the most sophisticated and sensitive instruments -- unavailable, of course, to the Dogons -- can detect it.
The planets circle the sun, the tribesmen believe (and astronomy confirms), in elliptical orbits. And planets with different kinds of people on them circle six other stars in the sky -- so the legends have it.
Who told the Dogons about Sirius and about the other space science secrets? Author Robert K. G· 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. Ancient astronauts entrepreneur Erich von Daniken endorses and adopts Temple's explanations in his latest book, Von Daniken's Proof.
But other observers disagree. 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. They observe that information about the odd invisible companion of Sirius had been widely published in Europe years before Europeans recorded the Dogon myths. As anthropologists have known for a long time, primitive tribes have a remarkable talent for absorbing interesting new stories into their traditional mythology.
In reply Temple produces evidence for the great antiquity of the Sirius cult. The number "fifty" has great signifance in ancient myths. He points out that the Dogon myths also describe a third star (astronomers would call it "Sirius C"), as yet undiscovered. These same myths, Temple claims, identify a planet circling that star as the home of Nommo, an alien creature who founded the Dogon civilization.
Temple's impressive research was encouraged by noted futurist Arthur C, Clarke (although Clarke now prefers the "modern influence" hypothesis). The book's advertising blurb quotes prolific science writer Isaac Asimov, who says, "I couldn't find any mistakes in this book. That in itself is extraordinary."
The star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. As the brightest star in the sky it was known and worshiped by ancient civilizations. 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.
Strangely, ancient records explicitly list Sirius as one of six "red stars." The other five are still seen as red but from the time of Arab astronomers to the present day Sirius has been blue-white.
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. 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 stars to the sun, the Alpha Centauri system.
Sirius figures prominently in the Dogon myths. The tribe has a periodic Sirius festival called the "Segui" ceremony; each celebration lasts several years (the last was in 1968-72.) The interval between ceremonies may be forty, fifty or sixty years.
Through the carbon dating of old ritual masks researchers have established the antiquity of the Segui ceremonies. Such criteria suggest that these periodic festivals have been going on for at least 600 years and possibly much longer.
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. Furthermore, most Dogon symbology already has multiple levels of meaning; the sketches used to illustrate the Sirius secrets are also used in puberty ceremonies.
Clearly the Dogons (in common with many other cultures) were fascinated by Sirius, probably because its position in the sky was crucial to successful agriculture (it's the only star they have a name for.) 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?
Temple's book mentions the absorption of a Christ-figure into the traditional Dogon Pantheon, obviously a recent addition. Sagan has recounted numerous examples from Arizona and New Guinea -- and other scholars have noted similar instances -- of the rapid assimilation of new stories, songs and lore into the eclectic mythology of Stone Age peoples. Such assimilation occurs most frequently when the subject is one of particular interest to a people -- as Sirius is to the Dogons.
The main problem with the alleged antiquity of the Dogon "Sirius secrets" legend is that they are reminiscent of European Sirius speculations of the late 1920s. 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 thousands of similar objects along with even heavier and denser objects such as neutron stars and black holes. Europeans too talked about the discovery of a third star in the Sirius system; later investigations, however, ruled out that possibility.
The Dogon beliefs about Jupiter and Saturn sound familiar too. To be specific they sound like the kinds of astronomical conclusions one might draw from studying the heavens through a small portable telescope. (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 Dogons hold that Jupiter has four moons when in fact it has at least 12, plus a ring, as any true extraterrestrial would have known. Saturn is not, as the Dogons insist, the farthest planet in the solar system. At least three are farther and at least one of them has rings too.
So what is the alternative to the extraterrestrial hypothesis for the Dogon myths7 The Dogons could have learned of European Sirius lore in the 1920's from traders, explorers or missionaries, many of whom are avid amateur astronomers. (Temple claims missionaries didn't show up until 1949.) The Dogons were not isolated. 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.
But the extraterrestrial hypothesis will not fade away so easily. Robert Temple, who spent eight years studying mythology, is convinced that he can trace the Sirius-B information back to the Sumerians. This of course would destroy the modern influence explanation totally.
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. But that doesn't stop Temple. He says the references are there but recorded in riddles which he alone has been able to decipher. "The ancient peoples were not concealing information from us out of spite," he writes. "their purpose in disguising their secrets was to see that the secrets could survive."
To penetrate this supposed disguise (which might not be a disguise at all, other classical scholars maintain), Temple resorts to ancient puns, to hidden meanings, to "garbled versions" which he must amend to fit the theory, to the exchange of consonants in innocent-looking words, to similar-sounding words from different civilizations thousands of miles or thousands of years apart and to other equally questionable tactics.
Using similar techniques other writers have "discovered" dozens of different, often contradictory "ancient secrets" about Atlantis, primitive Christianity, forgotten wisdom, ancient visitors and numerous other things. Classical mythology has been a Rorschach test into which people have projected nearly any notion that appealed to them. We need more reliable evidence -- especially theories that can be tested.
Temple has made very few verifiable assertions about mythology (and The Sirius Mystery is overwhelmingly about ancient myths, not about the Dogons or modern astronomy). One such rare claim is that "the oasis (Siwa) and Thebes are both equidistant from Behdet ... This proves that geodetic surveys of immense accuracy were thus practiced in ancient Egypt with a knowledge of the earth as a spherical body in space and projections upon it envisaged as part of