In 1950, the French ethnographers Marcel Griaule and Germain Dieterlain published an article on the mythology of the Dogons, a small African people living in the territory of the present Republic of Mali. about the four largest moons of Jupiter, about spiral galaxies and many other astronomical realities that have become known to modern science only relatively recently Dogon myths told about the arrival on Earth in a "spinning ark" of creatures somehow connected with the Sirius star system. of the elders, Griaule and Dieterlen honestly admitted that “they did not pose the question of how peoplenot having the necessary tools, they were able to learn about the movement and certain characteristics of celestial bodies invisible to the naked eye"
Fucked up in highly specialized publications, this information came to light only in 1975, after the publication of the book by Eric Gerrier, who interpreted the Dogon myths as evidence of the paleovisit of aliens, and after the release a year later of the very interesting, but in many ways controversial book by Robert Temple "Secrets of Sirius" Dogon myths turned into the most serious evidence to date of the fact of contact between earthlings and aliens
This fact could not be dismissed as from the scientific constructions of Deniken, sucked out of the finger, from which a mile away reeks of unprofessionalism. About Dogon mythology, a discussion unfolded on the pages of the scientific press, which continues to this day First of all, it touched on the source of information of the work of Griaule and Dieterlen But scientific the reputation of ethnographers is impeccable, and in addition, they did not try to interpret the information received, but only conscientiously recorded it. When studying African cultures, Marcel Griaule professed the principle of "describe and only describe", in every possible way avoiding attempts to interpret the archaic worldview of backward African tribes And the roll call of knowledge dogon with modern scientific knowledge is too consistent and systematic,so that it can be attributed to a misunderstanding of certain words and expressions of the Dogon elders
There was even a "salutary" version that the Dogon had some kind of telescope of the type of a round pool with uniformly rotating water, the mirror of which had a concave shape from rotation and thus served as an analogue of a reflector telescope mirror - a hypothesis, of course, fantastic. But even if and accept it - how much will it explain in the cosmic revelations of the Dogon.
Like modern astronomical science, the Dogon know that a satellite invisible to the naked eye revolves around the "main" Sirius (Sirius A) - the white dwarf Sirius B, a small star consisting of dense matter with an extremely large mass Suppose the Dogon saw through their "telescope "A faint asterisk next to Sirius A - how they came to the conclusion that it is" the heaviest star of all existing "9 The mass of Sirius B astronomers calculated in the 19th century from the effect that it has on motion in the space of Sirius A Then, when at the beginning of the 20th century, it was possible to determine the extremely small dimensions of Sirius B, it was concluded that it consists of superdense, and therefore superheavy matter. Are we going to assume that the Dogon were engaged in the same calculations in the depths of Africa.
The Dogon also know about the rotation of Sirius B around its axis, that the Milky Way is a spiral star system. This knowledge could not have been born from a simple contemplation of the sky through a telescope, no matter how powerful. and the assumption that the ancestors of the Dogons could have inherited their astronomical knowledge from the ancient Egyptian priests, since the Egyptian priests were clearly not able to master such knowledge
So aliens. It seems that everything converges, the primitive people have knowledge about space, many times superior to their own abilities for cognition, and in part - and the level of knowledge of modern science
However, and this is not obvious. Critics of this hypothesis noted that the Agronomic knowledge of the Dogon looks clearly insufficient. Let's say the aliens informed them about the existence of Sirius V. But they could not call him the smallest and heaviest star, since today we know about the existence of many much more small and heavy stars. Likewise, the aliens, having named the Dogon four satellites of Jupiter, for some reason "forgot" to tell about the other twelve known today. But in general, Dogon astronomy is very similar to … the level of terrestrial astronomy half a century ago!
Promotional video:
This is how the "missionary hypothesis" was put forward. After all, Dogon culture was not isolated from the influence of modern Western civilization. In particular, in the 1920s, missionaries from the White Fathers Catholic organization worked among the Dogons. Some of them probably could have drawn attention to the fact that the mythology of the aborigines attaches great importance to Sirius (this is just not a mysterious fact - Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, along with the Sun and the Moon has long served as an object of worship), and tried to present scientific views to the Dogon to this star. What for? Well, at least in order to establish good relations with them, or in order to "debunk" the pagan views of Africans from the standpoint of science.
By the way, it was in the 1920s that Sirius became the focus of popular science publications. By that time, the monstrous density of Sirius B was established and science, on the basis of this, came to the conclusion about the existence of a special class of stars - "white dwarfs". "The smallest and heaviest star" - this description of Sirius is true precisely for astronomical knowledge of the 1920s.
Well, is the Dogon secret revealed? If everything were so simple …
The "missionary", of course, could tell the Dogon something. But not all. The fact is that the Dogon know … three Sirius! They know that another invisible star revolves around Sirius A - Sirius C. According to the Dogon, it is larger than Sirius B, four times lighter than it, revolves along a higher trajectory and is surrounded by two of its own satellites.
Scientific debate about the existence of Sirius C began in the 1920s, and modern science has not yet reached a unanimous opinion on this issue. If it is established that Sirius C does not exist, the chances of the "missionary hypothesis" will sharply increase, since it will become obvious that the Dogon knowledge is tied precisely to the 20s of the XX century, and not to the story of aliens.
However, all the same, in the mythology of the Dogon, much remains unclear. German astronomer Dieter Hermann called the situation with Dogon knowledge about space "a hopeless case." Well, all the secret will one day become apparent …