The Dogons and the Stars of Sirius (EN)

Pacal Votan
2007



The Bandiagara Cliffs massif in southern Mali is the home of the Dogon. The cliffs of the massif reach a height of 500 meters above the deep sand surface of south. As a hard sandstone massif from red ferrous sandstone, they join the Hombori Tondo in the north-east, which itself is Mali's highest mountain with an absolute height of 1,115 meters. As a refuge and residence of about 300,000 people of the Dogon tribe, this massif plays an important role because traces of the Dogon's artistic skills can be found everywhere.

The Dogon are a tribe in African Mali, owning a surprising sophisticated astronomical knowledge. Till now no one tried to explain this phenomen with »earthly« tools. The Dogon know, for example, that they live in a gigantic, but a meseaurable universe that harbors numerous, spiral expanses. Furthermore, their religion is based on the concept that the star of Sirius is the center of the world - however not the bright star Sirius A in the constellation of Canis Major, but the companion Sirius B.



This a small white dwarf that astronomers first discovered in 1862. The Dogon recount that this Sirius B, called Po Tolo, circles its partner every 50 years - modern astronomy calculated the orbit as being 49.9 years. Sketches of the Dogon show an orbit of the Sirius system that is nearly comparable with actual data. furthermore, the Dogon say that Po Tolo is much more smaller, but heavier, than the bright Sirius. This is physically not correct because Sirius A is twice as heavy then Sirius B, but based on density, the Dogon are absolutely correct: The small Sirius B is about 100,000 times denser than its partner. It is only since 1915 that astronomers learned that such white dwarves are very compact »dead« stars: around the size of the earth and heavy as the sun. Even our sun will evolve into a white dwarf in about 5 billion years. The Dogon have another Sirius star, called Emme Tolo, and is about four times lighter and only slighter bigger that Po Tolo. This star, or maybe even a large planet, is still unknown to astronomers. If they will ever discover it, the mystery of the Dogon will be bigger. From where did this tribe have its comprehensive astronomical knowledge?

There is a hypothesis that once, a few thousand years ago, a matter exchange took place between the white dwarf and the main blue star. The Dogon or the ancient Egyptians could have observed a bright streak. There is no astronomical reason for such an overflow of matter, and even if, then it is questionable how it could be observed with the naked eye. The idea that maybe the old Egyptians knew more about this double star system and told it to the Dogon is also another possibility. Unfortunately, about 500,000 scrolls from the Library of Alexandria were destroyed during a fire in 48 BC - therefore there is no chance of knowing more about the Egyptians knowledge. UFO scepticists will still have the problem of how the Egyptians knew about the white dwarf of Sirius.

It is possible that the key to this question was in the Library of Alexandria. But till now no one has the final proofs for or against extraterrestial beings - maybe even because that we are not open enough for astonishing things that are around us.



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Source: copyright 2007