143 lines
9.1 KiB
Plaintext
143 lines
9.1 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: AFRICAN TRIBE CALLED THE DOGON FILE: UFO3277
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This may be a bit repetitious, but since there was such an interest
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in the "Dogon" I decided to post it anyway. It's from "Unsolved
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Mysteries Past and Present" by Colin Wilson
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ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
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... Members of an African tribe called the Dogon, who live in the Republic
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of Mali, some 300 miles south of Timbuktu, insist that they possess
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knowledge that was transmitted to them by "spacemen" from the star Sirius,
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which is 8.7 light-years away. Dogon mythology insists that the "Dog Star"
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Sirius (so called because it is in the constellation Canis) has a dark
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companion that is invisible to the naked eye and that is dense and very
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heavy. This is correct; Sirius does indeed have a dark companion known as
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Sirius B.
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The existence of Sirius B had been suspected by astronomers since the
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mid-nineteenth century, and it was first observed in 1862-although it was
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not described in detail until the 1920s. Is it possible that some white
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traveler took the knowledge of Sirius B to Africa sometime since the 1850s?
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It is possible but unlikely.
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Two French anthropologists, Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen,
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first revealed the "secret of the "Dogon" in an obscure paper in 1950;
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it was entitled ""A Sudanese Sirius System" and was published in the
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"Journal de la Societe des Africainistes".
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The two anthropologists had lived among the Dogon since 1931, and
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in 1946 Griaule was initiated into the religious secrets of the tribe.
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He was told that fishlike creatures called the Nommo had come to Earth
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from Sirius to civilize its people. Sirius B, which the Dogon call
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"po tolo" (naming it after the seed that forms the staple part of their
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diet, and whose botanical name is "Digitaria), is made of matter heavier
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than any on earth and moves in an elliptical orbit, taking fifty years
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to do so. It was not until 1928 that Sir Arthur Eddington postulated the
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theory of "white dwarfs" - stars whose atoms have collapsed inward, so that
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a piece the size of a pea could weigh half a ton. (Sirius B is the size of
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earth yet weighs as much as the sun.) Griaule and Dieterlen went to live
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among the Dogon three years later. Is it likely that some traveler carried
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a new and complex scientific theory to a remote African tribe in the three
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years between 1928 and 1931?
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An oriental scholar named Robert Temple went to Paris to study the
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Dogon with Germaine Dieterlen. He soon concluded that the knowledge shown
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by the Dogon could not be explained away as coincidence or "diffusion"
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(knowledge passed on through contact with other peoples). The Dogon appeared
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to have an extraordinarily detailed knowledge of our solar system. They
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said that the moon was "dry and dead," and they drew Saturn with a ring
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around it (which, of course, is only visible through a telescope). They
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knew that the planets revolved around the sun. They knew about the
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moons of Jupiter (first seen through a telescope by Galileo). They had
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recorded the movements of Venus in their temples. They knew that the
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earth rotates and that the number of stars is infinite. And when they drew
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the elliptical orbit of Sirius, they showed the star off-center, not in the
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middle of the orbit - as someone without knowledge of astronomy would
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naturally conclude.
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The Dogon insist that their knowledge was brought to them by the
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amphibious Nommo from a "star" (presumably they mean a planet) which,
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like Sirius B, rotates around Sirius and whose weight is only a quarter
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of Sirius B's. They worshiped the Nommo as gods. They drew diagrams to
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portray the spinning of the craft in which these creatures landed and were
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precise about the landing location - the place to the northwest of
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present Dogon country, where the Dogon originated. They mention that
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the "ark" in which the Nommo arrived caused a whirling dust storm and
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that it "skidded." They speak of "a flame that went out as they touched
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the earth," which implies that they landed in a small space capsule.
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Dogon mythology also mentions a glowing object in the sky like a star,
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presumably the mother ship.
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Our telescopes have not yet revealed the "planet" of the Nommo, but
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that is hardly surprising. Sirius B was only discovered because its weight
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caused perturbations in the orbit of Sirius. The Dog Star is 35.5 times as
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bright (and hot) as our sun, so any planet capable of supporting life would
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have to be in the far reaches of its solar system and would almost certainly
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be invisible to telescopes. Temple surmises that the planet of the Nommo
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would be hot and steamy and that this probably explains why intelligent
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life evolved in its seas, which would be cooler. These fish-people would
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spend much of their time on land but close to the water;they would need
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a layer of water on their skins to be comfortable, and if their skins
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dried, it would be as agonizing as severe sunburn. Temple sees them
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as a kind of dolphin.
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But what were such creatures doing in the middle of the desert, near
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Timbuktu? In fact, the idea is obviously absurd. Temple points out that
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to the northwest of Mali lies Egypt, and for many reasons, he is
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inclined to believe that the landing took place there.
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Temple also points out that a Babylonian historian named Berossus-a
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contemporary and apparently an acquaintance of Aristotle(fourth century
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B.C.) - claims in his history, of which only fragments survive, that
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Babylonian civilization was founded by alien amphibians, the chief of
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whom is called Oannes-the Philistines knew him as Dagon(and the science-
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fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft borrowed him for his own mythology). The
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Greek grammerian Apollodorus (about 140 B.C.) had apparently read more of
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Berossus, for he criticizes another Greek writer, Abydenus, for
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failing to mention that Oannes was only one of the "fish people"; he calls
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these aliens "Annedoti" ("repulsive ones") and says they are "semi-demons"
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from the sea.
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But why should the Dogon pay any particular attention to Sirius, even
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though it was one of the brightest stars in th sky? After all, it was merely
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one among thousands of stars. There at last, the skeptics can produce a
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convincing answer. Presumably, the Dogon learned from the Egyptians, and for
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the ancient Egyptians, Sothis (as they called Sirius) was the most important
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star in the heavens-at least, after 3200 B.C., when it began to rise just
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before the dawn, at the beginning of the Egyptian New Year, and signalled
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that the Nile was about to rise.
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So the Dog Star became the god of rising waters. The goddess Sothis was
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identified with Isis; and Temple points out that in Egyptian tomb paintings,
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Isis is usually to he found in a boat with two fellow goddesses, Anukis
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and Satis. Temple argues convincingly that this indicates that the Egyptians
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knew Sirius to be a three-star system-the unknown "Sirius C" being the home
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of the Nommo. An ancient Arabic name for one of the stars in the Sirius
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constellation (not Sirius itself) is Al Wazn, meaning "weight," and one
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text says that it is almost too heavy to rise over th horizon.
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Temple suggests that the ancients may have looked toward the Canis
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constellation for Sirius B and mistaken it for Al Wazn. He also suggests
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that Homer's Sirens-mermaid like creatures who are all-knowing and who try
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to lure men away from their everyday responsibilities-are actually
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"Sirians," amphibious goddesses. He also points out that Jason's boat, the
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Argo, is associated with the goddess Isis and that it has fifty rowers-fifty
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being the number of years it takes Sirius B to circle Sirius A. There are
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are many other fish-bodied aliens in Greek mythology, including the
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Telchines of Rhodes, who were supposed to have come from the sea and
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to have introduced men to various arts, including metalwork. Significantly,
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they had dogs' heads.
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But if the Egyptians knew about Sirius B and the Nommo, then why do we
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not have Egyptian texts that tell us about aliens from the Dog Star system?
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Here the answer is obvious: Marcel Griaule had to be "initiated" by
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Dogon priests before he was permitted to learn about the visitors from
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Sirius. If the Egyptians knew about Sirius B, the knowledge was revealed
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only to initiates. But it would have left its mark in Egyptian mythology
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-for example, in the boat of Isis.
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Temple's book "The Sirius Mystery" (1976) is full of such mythological
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"evidence," and much of it has been attacked for stretching interpretation
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too far. Yet what remains when all the arguments have been considered is
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the curious fact that a remote African tribe has some precise knowledge of
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an entire star system not visible to the human eye alone and that they
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attribute this knowledge to aliens from that star system.
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