The Dogon tribe and Sirius B

According to a survey conducted in 2015 by yougov.com, 54% of America, 56% of Germany and 52% of England believe in extra-terrestrial intelligent life.

Some believe that aliens came to earth on the cusp of civilisation to help and aid us, with people claiming that the pyramids, Mayan temples and even Stonehenge were all created with the help of aliens.

There is some cave painting, speculated to be around 5,000 years old in Australia who some believe depicts people in spacesuits, and a painting from 8,000 B.C in the Sahara Desert which some have interpreted to be space aliens leading natives in a line.

There have also been depictions of modern machinery in art created in the Egyptian and Mayan period, like airplanes, spacecrafts and some even claim laptops and lightbulbs.

One of the most prominent cases to validate alien life once being among us is the Dogon tribe and Sirius B.

The Dogon are a tribal group located in west Africa, south of Timbuctoo and in the republic of Mail, which settled sometime between the 10th-13th centuries.

In the 1930's and 1940's, Marcel Griaule and Germain Dieterlen, two French anthropologists, revealed that the Dogon had a surprising amount of knowledge about modern astronomy. For example, planets revolving around the sun, planets rotating on an axis, Saturn’s having rings and Jupitar having 4 moons.

Most impressively, the Dogon believed that the star Sirius was actually part of a 2-star system, containing a star called Sirius B, which had a 50-year orbit and is invisibly to the naked eye.

This is so astonishing, as scientists were only able to discern information about Sirius B by using quantum mechanics, relativity and advanced telescopes.

This has caused people to believe that the Dogon were taught about Sirius B by a far more advanced race of beings, and Dogon mythology talks about them being visited by beings known as the 'Nommo', who according to author Robert Temple, are amphibious beings from the Sirius star system.

Some people have rejected this theory, like Robert Burnham, an astronomer who said that the Dogon could see Sirius B due to extraordinary eyesight. He theorises that with a ten-inch reflecting telescope and clear skies, Sirius B could have been seen.

However, if this were true, the Dogon would have been able to see Uranus, Neptune and other cosmic observations, which they did not.

Another theory, from Carl Sagan and astronomer and author, believes that the Dogons cosmic knowledge is suspiciously consistent with an informed person from the 1930's and 40's.

He claims that the 2 French anthropologists that visited the Dogon in the 1930's and 40's, entwined Sirius B into the Dogons existing mythology to create an interesting story.

There is however no evidence that Marcel Griaule and Germain Dieterlen ever interfered with the Dogon mythology and beliefs.

#Ancientcivilisation #Mythology #Religion #Astronomy #Aliens