The mysterious African people of the Dogon and their astronomy. Dogon tribe - where they live

Technical progress and the widespread introduction of high technology did not at all affect the way of life of numerous African tribes inhabiting the endless tropical jungle. One of the most mysterious tribal formations is the Dogon tribe, living in the territory of the state of Mali on the banks of the deep and dangerous Niger River.

At first glance, the Dogons live in caves and look like an ordinary prehistoric tribe, engaged, as thousands of years ago, in gathering and fishing. However, any of the researchers who studied the myths and beliefs of these semi-wild aborigines found facts indicating that the Dogons have very broad and accurate knowledge in the field of astronomy and the structure of the solar system.

The famous ethnographer Marcel Griol, who studied the habits of the peoples of West Africa in the 30s of the last century, argued that the Dogons are one of the fragments ancient people, who lived in Sudan and Mali long before our era. Once in their settlement, Griaule saw the ancient cave drawings, on which, despite their primitiveness, the complex outlines of the planets and their orbits were discerned. The main holiday of the tribe is Sigui, which takes place once every 50 years, when the distant planet Sirius completes a full revolution around an unknown star.

The Dogon claim that the progenitor of all living things was the god Amma, who had the shape of a ball. As a result of the Big Bang, the continuous expansion of the ball began, which continues today. Data on the constant expansion of the Universe are confirmed by the results of the latest research carried out using powerful radio telescopes. But the Dogons knew about this back in the 19th century...

According to the Dogons themselves, astronomical knowledge was conveyed to them by an alien god from the planet Sirius named Nommo, who descended from heaven during a powerful Cataclysm. As soon as Nommo fell to the ground, the storms, thunderstorms and explosions stopped, the door of the apparatus opened, from which the gods emerged. It is interesting that the mysterious alien gods Anunnaki are often mentioned in Sumerian mythology.

Who was Nommo, an alien from another world and one of the last inhabitants of ancient Atlantis, which just disappeared as a result of a similar cataclysm? Many people think about this question, but the mystery of the Dogons and their inexplicable knowledge still remains a mystery.

Photo. The Dogon tribe in Mali are aliens from Sirius.

Photo. Common dwellings of the Dogon people.

A series of video films will help create a more complete picture of the Dogon people in Mali. The first video in the Adventure Magic series is “Children of the Pale Fox.”

Second film: “Dogons – aliens from Sirius?”

Third video: " The unsolved mystery of the Dogons«

Amazing tribe ancient culture lives south of the Sahara in the Republic of Mali. The Dogon tribe still fascinates with its knowledge of the stars. They knew things about which they could not know, their knowledge of astronomy anticipated the discoveries of scientists.

Dogon mythology contains references to Sirius B, a star invisible to human eyes. Judging by the legends, the information was conveyed to them by Nommo - aliens from the depths of space. Many consider the knowledge of an African tribe to be irrefutable evidence that we were visited by aliens in the past.

There are between 400 and 800 thousand Dogons with a rather unusual culture. African researchers are delighted interesting architecture, art and intriguing ritual masks of the local residents. But what's more exciting is not what you can see, but what you can hear.

The knowledge of the Dogon tribe demonstrated a highly developed cosmology. Robert Temple, author of the 1976 history of The Sirius Mystery, wrote that even during the first contacts with anthropologists, members of the tribe were amazed by their great knowledge of the “celestial spheres.”

This did not really suit the civilizational stage of development of the tribe they were at, but the Dogon knew for sure that the Earth revolves around the Sun and a revolution in orbit takes a year. They were well aware of the daily rotation of the planet around its axis and said that this “gives the illusion that the sky is spinning.”

“The Dogon are free from the illusions that our European ancestors had, who believed that the sky and stars revolved around the Earth,” writes Robert Temple in his book. We know about this from the French anthropologist Marcel Griaule, who was among the Dogon in 1934-1956.

During the time he lived among the Dogon, Marcel gained the trust of the tribe's elders and one of the shamans, called Ogotemmelli, told the anthropologist about the myths and beliefs of his people. The story of the shaman became the basis for a number of publications by Marcel and another anthropologist, Germain Dieterlen.

The records of anthropologists most likely would not have gained fame beyond the narrow confines of the circle of specialists, fortunately the aforementioned Robert Temple illuminated the mysterious tribe. He drew attention to the unique astronomical knowledge and decided to check where the Dogon got such information from. Living separately and essentially alone, they knew much more than the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun and its axis.

According to Robert Temple, “the Dogon have preserved traditions that go beyond the understanding of the earthly world.” Dogon mythology tells in great detail about the constellation Sirius. In itself, this may not seem very strange, since Sirius is a bright star in the sky that has attracted the attention of people for centuries. But the Dogon knew about the existence of not only visible Sirius A, but also Sirius B - white dwarf, which is invisible from Earth without a powerful telescope.

The Africans themselves call it “Sigi-tolo”, and anthropologists used the word “Digitaria” to describe it. More important than the name is what it refers to. The Dogon talk about the theory of Sirius B, which is consistent with all known scientific facts. They knew that the star was not visible, but they knew about its existence.

Long before the discovery of astronomers, the priests of the Dogon tribe knew the duration of rotation was 50 years, and this is true. They know that Sirius A is not at the center of its orbit, and Sirius B is “built” from a specific material called sagala, and it does not exist on Earth. And all this is really true!

Where could an African tribe that developed “inside itself” and in alienation from neighboring civilizations get such detailed information about space? But this is a really exciting question regarding the knowledge of the Dogon tribe. If you believe the old legend from the depth of the appearance of the tribe, and we don’t believe any visible reasons, then here too the events relate to the popular theory about ancient astronauts.

ALIENS AND DOGONS.

The Dogon received all their knowledge about the surrounding world and space from Nommo, who arrived on Earth in an “ark”, which “landed in a whirlwind, reminiscent of the movement of a whirlpool.” The ark landed on the planet in the northeast of the modern living space Dogon, which points to Egypt. Then amphibious creatures emerged from the ship, which could live both in the sea and on land.

The interesting legend about the appearance of heavenly guests is not unique. We learn a similar story from the Sumerian tradition, where “those who came from heaven” appear; the same motif also appears in Egyptian mythology, which has points of contact with Dogon mythology.

The aliens gave the Dogon civilization and social organization, and told them several things about space and their world. The aliens came from the constellation Sirius, which is why they talked about it the most. Much in the memory of the priests over the past thousands of years has been erased by time, however important points they managed to save it.

In The Sirius Mystery, the author of the book finds evidence among Egyptian and Sumerian legends that confirms his idea. He draws attention to the important role of Sirius in Egypt: the rising of the star signified the beginning of the year. Temple claims that “in the past, the Earth was visited by intelligent beings from the planetary system of Sirius.”

The author interestingly connects Sumer with Egypt, Egypt with Mali, the Anunnaki with Nommo, priests with aliens, and in Dogon rituals and art he finds traces of rockets, amphibious assault and mermaids. Everything in history, of course, can be explained much more simply and without cosmic intervention. Although in this case there is no confidence that the story will be true, especially since we are not talking about pseudoscientific, but about alternative development.

The Dogon are looking for sources of knowledge in cultural contamination; allegedly, in one of the contacts with the “West,” someone told Africans about Sirius, and they immediately included the knowledge in their belief system. Among the theorists is, for example, Walter van Beek, who described his visit to the Dogon in the publication Current Anthropology.

Van Beek conducted a series of surveys, closely asking people about "sigi tol". All the answers assured that the Dogon people first heard about the star from Marcel Griaule himself. However, Walter van Beek's research encountered serious criticism - he did not gain respect and authority among Africans, so all the answers were the same.

Several other researchers have tried to find the "incorporation" of space information into early period. Noah Brosh notes that everything could have happened in the 19th century, when members of the expedition of Henri-Alexandre Delander could have established contact with the Dogon. Brosh suggests that Griaule, who later studied their legends, took as existing ancient roots what the inhabitants of modern Mali had heard from another Frenchman several decades earlier.

Yes, these things happen sometimes. However, the theory of the extraterrestrial origin of Dogon knowledge is not so easy to destroy. First of all, supporters of the version note the main thing: Griaule or Delander could not talk about superheavy matter, since astronomers established that Sirius B is a white dwarf only in the 20s of the 20th century.

Locals believe that next to stars A and B there is also a small and completely invisible Sirius C. Astronomers have not yet found a curious object, but many researchers believe that the Dogon mythology is correct, and the celestial body will be discovered.

If Sirius C is indeed discovered and confirmed, then this will be the final confirmation of the theory that ancient astronauts visited Earth. Today is not the time to draw a conclusion about the existence of alien civilizations. They say that the arrivals suffered an accident and stayed on our planet until help arrived. This is exactly the case with regard to the ancient Dogon and guests from Sirius.

The Dogon are a small African people, traditionally engaged in agriculture and living on the lands of the Republic of Mali, in the remote mountainous area of ​​Bandiagara. According to Dogon legends, their ancestors came to X-XI centuries from the upper reaches of the Niger River, from the country of Manden, which is in Sudan. They displaced the population that had previously lived in Bandiagara, adopting much of its culture and possibly adopting its language.

Ritual drawings of the Dogons.

The Dogons were isolated from the whole world for a long time and therefore retained an archaic way of life, almost the same as their ancestors led in the Stone Age. Despite the adoption of Islam by a significant part of the Dogon since the mid-19th century, and over time the adoption by a smaller part of the people of Christianity, the Dogon have retained ancient beliefs, including primitive knowledge of nature combined with mysterious astronomical information that has amazed modern scientists. The cosmogonic ideas of this people surprisingly resonate with the data of science of our time.

Among European scientists, the French ethnographer Marcel Griaule showed interest in the life of the Dogon in the 1930s. He lived among them for several years, learned their language and customs. He was even lucky enough to participate in the holiday celebrated by the Dogon once every 50 years. For this holiday, the Dogon make special masks that are carefully preserved by subsequent generations.

When Griaule returned to this tribe in 1946, the council of elders and priests decided to introduce him to the circle of initiates and reveal to the scientist the secret knowledge of the people - the legend of the creation of the world.

It must be said that these people did not have their own written language, and all important knowledge was passed on by word of mouth for generations. The narration was accompanied by graphic drawings.

The mystery of the Dogon was first discussed in their research by Marcel Griaule and Germaine Diterlen, French anthropologists who studied the Dogon from 1931 to 1952, in their article “The Sudanese Sirius System,” published in 1950 in the Journal de la Société des Africanistes. It was there that information first appeared about the triple nature of Sirius in the Dogon cosmogony and the invisible stars known to them. The article only stated facts; the researchers made no attempts to somehow explain the information received. Later, another book by scientists, “The Pale Fox,” was published.

An attempt to comprehend the Dogon myths was made by Eric Guerrier in the book “Essay on the Dogon Cosmogony: The Ark of Nommo” published in 1975 and by Robert Temple in the book “The Mystery of Sirius” published in 1976. The latter tried to prove that the Dogon learned their secrets from amphibious aliens from the Sirius system, and perhaps not directly, but through Ancient Egypt. Eric Guerrier, an architect and amateur astronomer, drew attention to the fact that the Dogon cosmogonic system and their astronomical views coincided with modern scientific data and hypotheses. A fact that escaped ethnologists who were not fully knowledgeable in matters of astronomy.

The scientist’s attention was also attracted by the Dogon’s excellent knowledge of the starry sky.
The North Star and the Southern Cross are called the “Eyes of the World” by the Dogon. Alpha of the Southern Cross - "Double Eye of the World." The star is indeed double, but astronomers were convinced of this only with the help of telescopes, while the Dogon, we recall, did not have any astronomical instruments at hand.

They divide celestial bodies into stars, planets and satellites. The Dogon are well aware of the structure of the solar system. They know that the Sun rotates around its axis, and the Earth revolves around the Sun. According to the Dogon, Venus has a satellite. Actually this is not true. But in 1976, astronomers Van Flandern and Harrington put forward a hypothesis according to which Mercury was a former satellite of Venus. According to the calculations of these scientists, anomalies in the orbit of Mercury and some features of its structure indicate that approximately 400 thousand years ago it switched to an independent orbit. This hypothesis is based on precise astronomical observations and complex calculations. However, it remains a mystery how the Dogon know about this.
The Dogon know about the four moons of Jupiter and the ring around Saturn. They place planets in elliptical orbits.
But main role Among the celestial bodies, the Dogon recognize Sirius. This is clear from the name of this planet, which they call the “navel of the world.” According to their myths, Sirius is a triple star system.

Sirius is a triple star system.

Modern astronomy, however, defines Sirius as a binary system. It is small in size, comparable to the Earth, but very hot star with a mass that is close to the mass of the Sun, the so-called “white dwarf”. The second star makes one revolution around Sirius A in 50.4 ± 0.09 Earth years. It is with this frequency that the Dogon hold their festival of masks. They, like astronomical science today, know that around Sirius-A, which the Dogon call the star Shigu, a small but very massive satellite rotates in an elongated orbit - the “star Po”, which modern scientists call Sirius-B. The brightness of Sirius-B is 10 thousand times less than the brightness of the main star, and it can only be seen with a strong telescope. This star cannot be seen with the naked eye, and where the Dogon got such information is a matter of speculation. More mysterious is the information of this people about another satellite of Jupiter - the star Emma Ya, and in the language of science - Sirius-C, which has not yet been discovered by modern science. According to the Dogon information, this satellite has a more elongated orbit than Sirius-B, but their orbital period is the same - 50 years. In addition, according to the Dogon, as Sirius-B approaches Sirius-A, the brightness of the latter’s glow increases, which has also been confirmed by modern astronomers. This happens once every 50 years.

The Dogon believe that this Sirius-B is the heaviest star, and so heavy that all people taken together could not lift even a small piece of it. So, according to modern astronomy, the white dwarf Sirius-B consists of matter of fantastic density; one cubic centimeter of it would weigh about a ton on Earth.

The Dogon identify Sirius-B with the “grain “po”” - the “empty shell” that was formed after the “spread of things throughout the Universe.” This - main object the universe, giving birth to the “spiral worlds” of the Universe - galaxies.

According to modern astronomers, white dwarfs appear as a result of powerful supernova explosions of stars that were previously red giants. One of the Dogon myths tells about just such an event - the outbreak and gradual extinction of a star in the Sirius system. It should be noted that nothing like this was noted in any other written sources of ancient civilizations.

Focusing on the 50-year cycle, the Dogon celebrate the Sigi holidays associated with the star Sirius A - Siri Tolo. But this date is celebrated not at half-century intervals, but every 60 years, and the holiday lasts for 7 years. This is a holiday of world renewal. During Shiga, a huge “kanaga”, a wooden bird mask, is made. The masks are not destroyed at the end of the holiday, but are stored in a special place. This enabled scientists, in particular Griaule, to count the number of masks and determine that the celebrations of Siga began around 1300 AD.

The image of our Galaxy among the Dogon tribes.

As can be seen from the diagram, it depicts four arms and two jet streams emanating from the nuclear disk, and also indicates the location of our Solar System. I wonder where the wild tribes got such knowledge?

The planetary system in which our Earth is located is approximately in the middle. All planetary systems are divided into three worlds: lower, middle and upper. Our Galaxy belongs to the middle worlds.

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At all times, there have been a few mysterious ethnic groups on Earth, whose heritage has attracted the attention of all mankind. These are the Sumerians, ancient Egyptians, Aztecs, Mayans and the Dogon, little known to most of us.

These peoples are united by many things - and, in particular, by the phenomenon of their sudden appearance and equally sudden and rapid disappearance from the Earth. Especially striking examples are the Mayan people and the African Dogon tribe that has survived to this day.

Regarding the latter, scientists are currently unanimous on only one thing: no one can say exactly where the Dogon came from. Some of the researchers suggest that the Dogon tribe appeared simply out of nowhere; other anthropologists consider them a branch Egyptian civilization, based on the similarity of some myths.

Many of us ask the eternal questions: “Who are we? From whom did they come? Where did you come from? Where are we going?" And what more humanity learns about himself and the world around him, the more difficult it becomes to answer this question. We can say that life was good primitive people, who in response confidently pointed their finger at the sky - they say, we came from the stars.

But if you think that there are no such “optimists” left, then you are deeply mistaken. There is a small Dogon tribe on Earth, or, as scientists say, a mini-ethnic group. The tribe numbers only about 200 thousand people, and it lives in the jungle, where even at the height of the day the dense foliage barely allows sunlight to pass through.

The Dogon inhabit a small area in the bend of the Niger River (Republic of Mali, Africa). They “own” the Bandiagara plateau at the foot of Mount Gomburi, and they live in caves and primitive huts. The isolation of the tribe from the rest of the world for many centuries allowed the peace-loving Dogon to preserve their identity.

It is also remarkable that after they were accidentally “discovered” in 1931 by two French anthropologists, Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, not only ethnographers, but also astronomers showed interest in the tribe. Griaule lived here for ten years, studied everyday life, wrote down legends, and even by decision of the council of elders was allowed to be initiated into the secret rank of priest.

What shocked the scientist so much? Mud huts, dancing on stilts, fields sown with millet, ritual mass burials in caves - the most primitive culture. Even when, after the end of World War II, he published a series of articles about the Dogon in African studies magazines, they did not become a sensation. You never know what legends exist among primitive peoples.

But one day, Griaule’s articles quite by accident fell into the hands of the English astronomer McGree - and the attitude towards the Dogon changed radically. Still, what can information about the second star of the Sirius system - Sirius B - tell an archaeologist or ethnographer? Well, if you rummage through special reference books, you can find out that it was opened... only in 1862. Before the outbreak of World War I, it was determined that it had an unusually high density and the star was classified as a “white dwarf”.

And if you delve deeper into scientific reading, you will know that spiral nebulae were sketched by Ross in the middle of the 19th century... Hubble proved in 1924 that they consist of stars. The rotation of our Galaxy was proven in 1927, and its spiral shape was proven in 1950... Very informative. After all, few people still know about this, but for some reason the Dogon are well aware, and this is not a hoax.

Historians and archaeologists unanimously claim that all the facts indicate that the tribe settled on the Bandiagara plateau, which is now also called Dogon Country, at the very beginning of the 13th century. There is a cave here, going far into the depths of the mountain, in which there are wall paintings created more than 700 years ago.

The entrance to the cave is guarded by a revered saint. He does nothing else, but only protects the entrance. The whole tribe takes care of this person, feeds him, but no one has the right to touch him or come close to the entrance, even while passing food. When he dies, another saint takes his place. So what secrets is he guarding?

In the cave are amazing drawings and nuggets of valuable information. For example, a drawing connecting one direct system Sirius and our Sun. In general, there would be nothing unusual if the image pointed only to the brightest star in the sky - Sirius A.

But it should be taken into account that the Dogon tribe lives in that region of Africa where the star Sirius disappears for a long time behind the horizon and is out of sight for several months. Bright ruby ​​red, it appears on the morning of July 23rd just above the horizon, almost due east, and rises about sixty seconds before the Sun.

So Sirius can only be seen for one moment, and then he disappears again. This is called the solar rising of Sirius. This is a rare moment when Sirius, the Sun and the Earth find themselves in a straight line in space. But this was also known to the ancient Egyptians, who specially made through holes in the thickness of the pyramids so that the bloody rising star would illuminate the altar.

But not only that, the Dogon told scientists that next to the blue giant Sirius A there are two more stars that cannot be seen in every telescope. Thus, they clearly indicated the location of the Po Tolo white dwarf - Sirius B - which, as mentioned above, was confirmed only in 1862. The Dogon have very specific information about this star.

They say it's very, very old and very small, made of what they call "the heaviest matter in the universe": 1.5 million tons per cubic inch. And they say that this small star makes a complete revolution around Sirius in “about 50 years” (the error, according to astronomers, is 0.1 year).

But how did an ancient primitive tribe obtain such accurate information about a star, the measurement of whose parameters became possible only in the 20th century?

Another proof of the phenomenal knowledge and memory of the Dogon tribe is small drawing on the wall of the cave, which scientists for a long time did not know what to attribute... until computers calculated the orbits of Sirius A and Sirius B.

As it turned out, this is an accurate model of the movement of one star around another in a certain period of time - from 1912 to 1990. Naturally, the Dogon themselves could not calculate this.

All Dogon rituals are tied to the 50-year cycle of Sirius B’s revolution around Sirius A. It is impossible to detect this satellite, determine its color, calculate its orbital period and density without astronomical instruments.

Even the satellites of Jupiter, which the Dogon know about, cannot be seen with the eye. There is only one way out - borrowing from another culture.

Perhaps the tribe could have obtained information about the structure of the Universe from the ancient Egyptian priests. But the ancient Egyptians could not have known anything about the explosion of Sirius B in the 2nd century AD - their civilization perished much earlier. And among the Dogon, this explosion is one of the central points of mythology. The idea of ​​the existence of super-dense matter, “white dwarfs” in the Universe, generally refers to the most modern ideas.

But that's not all. The presence of a third small star, Sirius C, in this star system - Emme Ya, which the Dogon kept repeating - scientists established only in 1970. The tribe also knew about all the other planets in our solar system, including Neptune, Pluto and Uranus, as well as information about 226 other star systems, including spiral star systems that were discovered by astronomers later.

They knew exactly what these planets looked like when approaching them from space, which also became known to scientists only recently. And naturally, they knew that the Earth rotates around its axis and around the Sun, and completes a full revolution in 365 days, and in their calendar they divided this cycle into 12 months. They knew about the Moon, that it was waterless and dead.

The Dogon also knew about red and white blood cells, and they had all the information about human physiology that we have only recently received.

So how did the Dogon know about all these stars and their features? When the elders of the tribe are asked who provided their ancestors with such amazing information, they answer that it was Nommo, who at one time arrived on the “ark” just from... the Sirius system.

And all this is captured in cave drawings. But it is known for sure that they were not made by the Dogon. They came here only three centuries ago, but the drawings are 700 years old. But it turns out that where the tribe lived before, there is a cave like this, from which you can see individual stars in the Sirius system. In addition, there is some “material evidence” in this cave.

However, despite the persistent entreaties of scientists, the aborigines have not yet discovered its location. Either there are some super-powerful astronomical instruments there, created by the Sirian civilization, or the “gods” left something there for storage in anticipation of their next visit. One can only guess about this.

According to a version of the genealogical myth, the Dogon once lived in a certain Country of Mande and are the descendants of the legendary Lebe, who, in turn, descended from the first ancestors of the Nommo. He gave birth to two sons. From the eldest of them came the Dogon tribe, and younger son became the founder of the Aru tribe.

When Lebe died, the Dogon lowered his corpse into the ground, but before leaving the Mande Country they decided to take the remains with them. But when they opened the grave, they discovered that Lebe had resurrected - there was a living snake there. The Dogons, taking with them some earth from the grave, went underground, led by a snake, and ended up in Mali.

Having become interested in the Dogon, scientists found out that, in addition to Sirius, they have knowledge in the field of molecular biology, nuclear physics and other sciences, but, naturally, they cannot take advantage of any of this. The Dogon seem to be a huge storehouse of knowledge, although it is not known; for what purposes is it intended?

And one day the sorcerer drew for scientists right on the sand a map of the starry sky, in which the star Sirius occupied a central place. What kind of memory do you need to have so that, taking someone else’s star as a starting point, you won’t mess anything up!

Yes, the volume of information stored by the Dogons can amaze not only the average person, but also scientists. For example, they know the planets Jupiter and Saturn, each of which is designated by a specific symbol. For Jupiter, this is a circle, next to which there are four smaller circles (the four largest satellites), and for Saturn, two concentric circles (they know about the existence of a ring around Saturn). The tribe’s legends are not limited to knowledge of the two largest planets in the solar system. They also contain the most modern information and concepts about the structure of the universe.

Here are some fragments of Dogon legends, recorded in their words: “The earth rotates around itself and, in addition, passes through a large world circle, like a top that, rotating, goes in a circle... The sun rotates around its axis, as if driven by a spiral spring." And this is said by primitive people who not only could not observe the movement of the Sun, but had never even seen a spiral spring.

Also, Dogon legends say: “At the beginning of all things stood Amma, who did not rely on anything... Amma’s egg-ball was closed... When Amma broke the egg of the world and came out of it, a rotating vortex arose... As a result of this “yala” appeared (loosely translated from the Dogon language, this means the transition from the abstract to the concrete) from a spiral that rotated inside the egg and meant the future expansion of the world.”

Quite confusing. But you must agree, based on our knowledge of the structure of the Universe, this is similar to the primary Big Bang and the expansion of the Universe lasting billions of years.

How do the “information carriers” themselves explain the emergence of such knowledge in them? In response to questions from scientists, the priests showed another series of drawings that depict a flying saucer. This image is very similar to the shape we are already familiar with - a plate descending from the sky and landing on three supports.

The next picture is of the creatures inside the ship. Next, it is depicted how they make a large hole in the ground, fill it with water, get out of the ship into the water and approach the water's edge. True, they don’t look like any “little green men”.

The elders of the tribe talk about creatures resembling dolphins, that when they landed, they made a large depression in the ground, filled it with water and began to swim. Coming ashore, they spoke to the Dogon and told them that they had flown from the heavenly land of Po Tolo (Sirius B) and passed on all their knowledge.

The messengers of heaven were unusually tall and “fish by nature”: they breathed in water and therefore constantly wore transparent helmets filled with liquid. The Dogon called the newcomers “nommo,” which in the native language means “drink water.” And the people of the tribe called the day of their appearance “the day of the fish,” and the gods themselves were considered amphibious creatures.

It turns out that similar descriptions can be found among the Uros Indians living near Lake Titicaca (Peru). Legends tell of the same dolphin-like creatures that came from the stars and very quickly established close relationships with the people who lived here before the Incas. It was this connection with the “people of the sky” that, according to legend, led to the founding of the Inca Empire.

In addition, in the Mediterranean alone, as many as twelve cultures tell a similar story. But the astronomically “advanced” mythology of the Dogon is the most striking evidence of the paleo-visit of aliens. The Dogon claimed that according to their calculations, Nommo should have returned in 2003.

Perhaps the natives lost count, or the “amphibians” never flew in or out, but at one time lived on the ground, and the “plates” served them like helicopters. You can imagine a lot of such “or” and even draw a parallel with our dolphins, but all this is still unproven.

But the fact that the Dogon tribe once stood at a higher level of development is not groundless, if only because the natives gave historians and anthropologists many interesting things. For example, tools that have not previously been found in any other isolated wild tribe on the planet, all kinds of figurines made of stone, bone and wood. It later turned out that many of these objects are at least 4000 years old!

In memory of the tall aliens, the Dogon walk on stilts

Some particularly incredulous scientists believe that missionaries who preached in Mali in the 1920s shared information with the Dogon, and the drawings, they say, although old, are just a coincidence. It's hard to argue with non-believers, but here are some facts. If the information received by the Dogon dated back to the beginning of the 20th century, then the natives would have told scientists about eight satellites of Jupiter (now 67 have already been discovered according to data from 2012), and not about four.

And the brothers in Christ could not have known at that time such details about the Sirius system or the spiral structure of the Galaxy. In addition, each astronomical fact among the Dogon is tied to certain rituals, which can be traced through relics until at least the 12th century!

German scientist Dieter Hermann calls the situation with Dogon knowledge about space a “hopeless case”: when it is impossible to clearly refute or confirm any version.

And Robert Temple, who devoted an entire book to the Dogon, concludes his research with the words: “I was able to prove that the information possessed by the natives of the Dogon tribe is very ancient origin- it is more than 5 thousand years old and was used by the ancient Egyptians in the pre-dynastic period, that is, until 3200 BC.”

The entire celestial sphere is divided into areas called constellations. Each of them includes tens and hundreds of stars. Our distant ancestors, for greater clarity, they depicted the constellations in the form of various figures. Star clusters they traced with imaginary lines and got original drawings. This is how the constellation of the Crane, Dove, Hare, Peacock, Golden Fish and many, many others appeared. For example, in starry sky There are 41 constellations in the Southern Hemisphere, and 47 in the Northern Hemisphere. Thus, today there are 88 constellations.

Constellation Canis Major in the form of a drawing of a dog and lines on the night sky

We will be interested in the constellation Canis Major, located on the celestial sphere of the Southern Hemisphere. It includes 148 stars. There are 80 of the brightest of them. But the brightest star of this constellation is called Sirius. It emits a bluish-white glow and is perfectly visible in the night sky. It should be noted right away that the bluish-white beauty leads in its brightness not only among its brothers in the constellation. It is brighter than all the stars in the night sky, and people have known about it for thousands of years.

Not only residents of the Southern Hemisphere can admire Sirius. Northerners are also lucky. Even residents of Norilsk, Vorkuta and Murmansk are not deprived of this pleasure. Good visibility of this celestial body explained by the fact that it is closer than other stars to our solar system, with the exception of the Alpha Centauri star system (4.36 light years), Barnard's star (5.97 light years), and the Wolf 359 star (7.82 light years) and the stars Lalande 21185 (8.29 light years).

The distance between our native Sun and Sirius is only 8.64 light years. For the vast expanses of the Milky Way, this is nothing. In its brightness, Sirius is second only to the Sun, Moon, beautiful Venus, mysterious Mars and gas giant Jupiter. But among the distant stars of the Universe he is the first. Other shining formations are clearly paler, but they are located further from the old Earth.

Sirius is the brightest star in Earth's night sky

Until the mid-19th century, the bluish-white star was considered a lonely beauty in the endless black cosmic abyss. But in 1844, the German mathematician and astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784-1846) hypothesized that next to Sirius there was some large dark, invisible by the human eye body. The professor's conclusions were not based on nothing. The star, moving, constantly deviated first to the left, then to the right from its linear motion.

Friedrich Bessel argued that the star and the mysterious dark body have a common center of rotation, and the period of one revolution around it is 50 years. Venerable astronomers perceived this statement with skepticism. The German professor could not prove it in any practical way. He died in 1846, and in 1862, the American astronomer and telescope designer Alvan Graham Clark (1832-1897), while checking the operation of a new 18-inch optical telescope, discovered a small star near Sirius.

They began to observe her and discovered that she was moving in a certain orbit, completely consistent with the calculations of Friedrich Bessel. Thus, the theoretical calculations of the German professor found practical confirmation, which once again confirmed the genius of the self-taught mathematician.

In subsequent years, astronomers unraveled the mystery of the mysterious object. It turned out to be a star that received the status of a white dwarf. There are no thermonuclear reactions in the depths of this space object. Moreover, the mass of such a cosmic formation is equal to the mass of the Sun, but the diameter is many times smaller. Accordingly, the white dwarf has an enormous density, which is millions of times greater than the density of any star, in the depths of which irreversible thermonuclear processes are constantly taking place.

In the end, Sirius revealed his secrets to people. The large bluish-white star was named Sirius-A. The white dwarf was named Sirius-B. The latter is the very first white dwarf with the highest mass discovered. The age of the stars is about 200-300 million years. By cosmic standards, this is youth. At the very beginning of its life path Sirius consisted of two bright suns. The mass of one was equal to 5 masses of our Sun, and the mass of the second was only 2 masses of our native star.

The more massive star burned out and became a white dwarf. Its volume decreased to the size of the Earth, and its mass became equal to the mass of the Sun. Another formation, that is, Sirius-A, today exceeds the Sun in mass twice, that is, it has remained unchanged in its size. People have been observing its radiance for thousands of years in the firmament. This is where the fun begins.

The noble Roman citizen and philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-65) called Sirius not a bluish-white, but a bright red star. One could argue that the venerable meter was mistaken, but the fact is that Claudius Ptolemy (87-165) also saw a radiance of a similar color. The latter was an astronomer and astrologer. He regularly admired the night sky, but for some reason he did not see any bluish-white lights.

Did this respected gentleman really suffer from some kind of hidden visual defect? But what then to do with the Chinese astronomer Sima Qian (145-90 BC). This resident of the eastern tip of Eurasia also mentions the red color of a distant star. He is echoed by representatives of many other peoples who lived around the same time. One cannot help but conclude that 2000 years ago Sirius-A emitted a red glow, and then, for unknown reasons, changed its color to bluish-white.

Official science categorically rejects this state of affairs. An age of 2000 years for the Universe is the same as a second in human life. For such an insignificant period of time, no dramatic changes It simply cannot happen to a star.

Scientific minds of our time make the assumption that the word “red” is just a metaphor. Poetically minded personalities of antiquity simply tried to emphasize the beauty of the star, so they endowed it with bright epithets that had nothing to do with reality. It is also necessary to take into account that during sunrise and sunset the star flickers, creating a pale red glow around itself.

There is, however, another opinion that has nothing to do with official science. It offers the public a slightly different interpretation of events and points to little-studied aspects of life that lie beyond rational thinking.

Dogon

In West Africa, in the southeast of the state of Mali, there live a people who call themselves Dogon. These people live in remote areas of the Bandiagara sandstone plateau. The steep cliffs of this natural formation reach a height of up to 500 meters, and the length of the plateau reaches 150 km. This area has a unique landscape. It includes people's houses, sanctuaries for religious rites, grain storage facilities, cleared areas for public gatherings and is a unique architectural complex considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Dogon appeared in the lands of West Africa approximately in the 10th century. Legends say that they came from somewhere from the upper reaches of the Niger, that is, from west coast the hottest continent on the planet. But where exactly they lived for many millennia, where the roots of this people “grow” - nothing is known. One gets the impression that the tribe arose out of nowhere and settled on the Bandiagara plateau, significantly displacing the local peoples.

The Dogon never had a high culture. Given their isolation, there have been no fundamental changes in the 21st century. This is a semi-wild tribe that feeds itself by growing large cattle and agriculture. There is practically no production; only blacksmithing and pottery are developed. People live in adobe houses, which can rather be called huts. However, adobe buildings have always been distinguished by their high strength, durability and low cost, and their environmental friendliness even today does not raise any doubts. The population reaches 200 thousand people.

The tribe is divided into communities, and these, in turn, are divided into families. Every community has a priest. This spiritual guide his flock. He is also the keeper of ancient knowledge left to him by his ancestors. Knowledge is expressed in myths and legends and carries very interesting information. It is thanks to her that the Dogon are widely known not only to ethnographers, but also to astronomers.

This people, hidden from the whole world in hard-to-reach places, has its main god Ammu, as well as the folk hero Nommo. Deities emerging from water occupy a significant place in mythology. These are half-humans, half-snakes, with enormous mystical power. There is also the evil creature Yurugu, who brings destruction and death. In general, nothing special. Every nation has something similar in its myths and legends. But this is only at first glance.

What is the difference, and who noticed it first? Here it is necessary to mention the name of the French ethnographer Marcel Griaule (1898-1956). This is a professor at the University of Paris who organized as many as 5 expeditions to Africa. That is, a person who deeply possesses certain knowledge concerning the archaic elements of the culture of the ancient peoples of the hot continent.

It must be said right away that Marcel Griaule’s expeditions were by no means short-term trips to backward African tribes. The scientist lived among these people for years, carefully studying their myths, traditions and customs. This is a serious researcher, and you can trust him unconditionally.

In the 30s of the last century, a Frenchman lived for several years among the Dogon. He carefully studied the life of these people and recorded their legends from ancient times. Returning to Europe, the scientist processed the material and published several serious articles on ethnography. They did not arouse any interest among the general public. These were highly specialized works, interesting only to people of science.

How it happened is unknown, but the works of Marcel Griaule caught the eye of the English astronomer and mathematician William Hunter McCrea (1904-1999). Having carefully read the ethnographer’s articles, the Briton was shocked to the core. What he read in the Frenchman’s works went beyond the usual understanding of the world around him and directly related to the distant star Sirius.

Dogon and Sirius

The most important place in Dogon mythology was occupied by the star Sirius. In the minds of these people, it was considered triple and consisted of main star and two minor stars. The main one or Sirius-A was called Sigi tolo by the Dogon. The secondary ones were called: Po tolo and Emmeya tolo. There was no doubt that Potolo was Sirius B or a white dwarf. But Emmeya is unknown to modern astronomy.

Legends mysterious people said that at first, most a big star was Potolo. It emitted a bright red color, clearly visible from Earth. This is exactly how Sirius was contemplated by Seneca, Claudius Ptolemy and Sima Qian in their time. In the 2nd century AD, a huge star exploded and turned into a white dwarf. Another star entered the “arena”, namely Sigi Tolo or Sirius-A. It is this cosmic formation, emitting a bluish-white glow, that astronomers have been seeing in the night sky for 1800 years.

This interpretation of distant events explained the discrepancy between the colors of the bright star in different periods time. But what was surprising was the fact that none of the ancient astronomers mentioned any explosion. It turned out that only the mysterious people were aware of the events, and the rest of the planet, as they say, was neither in ear nor in spirit.

As for the unknown modern science Emmeya tolo, the Dogon are completely clear here. This object also rotates around a common center of rotation, making one revolution every 50 years. But its trajectory is much longer than that of its counterparts. Therefore, this star moves at a higher speed. In terms of mass, it is 4 times lighter than Sirius-B, and its radius is 1.5 times greater. Accordingly, the density of this cosmic formation is less than that of a white dwarf.

The Dogon are not limited to information about three stars. Their myths and legends tell much more about space. The priests of the mysterious people know that the stars in the sky are part of a huge cosmic formation called Yalu Ulo - the Milky Way galaxy. In addition to this formation, there are other star systems located at a great distance from the Earth. The center of the world around which the Universe revolves is Sirius. It is through it that the invisible axis passes, and nearby stars represent the support of outer space.

This space is not a “lifeless desert” at all. There are many intelligent beings living in space. They are not similar to earthlings, but in their intelligence they are in no way inferior to them, and in many cases they are superior. As for the solar system, the priests of the mysterious people name five planets revolving around the Sun. These are Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. At the same time, they call Mercury a star rotating near Venus, and Jupiter only has four satellites. They don't mention Uranus and Neptune at all. That is, these two planets are unknown to them.

In his scientific reports, Marcel Griaule mentioned deep cave on the mountainside. The entrance to the cave was guarded by a priest specially chosen for this purpose. This was his lifelong responsibility. After the death of a person, another priest took the place and was constantly at the entrance until the end of his days. What was stored in this cave? Its walls were covered with drawings that were at least 700 years old. The rock inscriptions depicted the history of the emergence of intelligent life on planet Earth.

According to the drawings, the mysterious Dogon tribe flew to the blue planet from Sirius. But, having arrived on Earth, the distant ancestors of today’s natives turned out to be completely unadapted to local conditions. Then mysterious creatures flew from the bluish-pale star, whom the Dogon called nommo - water drinkers.

They had tall, and all the time they walked around in transparent spacesuits filled with water. These creatures were inseparable from the native tribe for 100 long years. Mysterious entities taught the Dogon agriculture, hunting, and explained how to make medications from plants, how to build houses for yourself. Convinced that their students already felt confident enough on Earth, the aliens flew away, but promised to return.

All these stories, legends, rock paintings resembled a beautiful fairy tale. But the information in this tale largely corresponded to the truth, which the ignorant people living in the remote regions of Africa simply could not know.

The scientific world, naturally, became interested in this whole unusual situation. The Dogons came under the close attention of objective and serious researchers. It must be said right away that the cave mentioned in the reports of Marcel Griaule was subsequently not found. But the priests with whom the researchers spoke even today showed amazing knowledge in such matters as the structure of outer space and, in particular, spoke in detail about Sirius-A, Sirius-B and the third unknown star.

At the same time, the knowledge of the mysterious people had certain flaws. So they called only 4 satellites of the gas giant Jupiter, namely: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Nowadays, any schoolchild knows that there are as many as 47 of them, and this is far from the final number. Mysterious people knew nothing about Uranus and Neptune, not to mention Pluto. The conclusion suggested itself: the Dogon have knowledge not even of yesterday, but of the day before yesterday.

Aliens, if they decided to talk about space African tribe, should have given a truly complete and true information. Otherwise they said about the third star Sirius, but forgot about Neptune and Pluto.

Consequently, there were no aliens from outer space, and even in spacesuits filled with water. And there was, most likely, some unknown missionary who was seriously interested in astronomy. It appeared on the Bandiagara plateau in the 19th century. As a true Catholic, striving to convert people to the true faith, he at the same time enriched them with the unique knowledge about the structure of the Universe that humanity possessed at that time.

This knowledge, however, went against the laws of God, but apparently the unknown missionary was a rather free-thinking person and successfully combined God’s word and scientific progress.

As for the third star of the bluish-white beauty, this could simply be the fantasy of the venerable husband. After all, his stories about space were not a dry scientific report, but a bright and colorful narrative. Otherwise, who would listen to him?

At the same time, as we know, Neptune was discovered in 1846, and the world learned about Sirius-B in 1862. So the missionary, talking about the distant bright star of the constellation Canis Major, could not help but know about the 8th planet of the solar system. However, he did not mention a word about her. He also didn’t say anything about Uranus, which received planetary status in 1783.

All this indicates that most likely there was no mysterious missionary, or there were several similar people who gave the Dogon fragmentary knowledge about the structure of the Universe in different periods of time. Be that as it may, it is the version about the missionary that is the most acceptable for official science. It more or less plausibly and realistically explains the mystery of the mysterious African people. All other hypotheses and assumptions look so fantastic that serious researchers call them complete nonsense.

The version about aliens can only be confirmed by the discovery of the 3rd star of Sirius. But so far nothing like this has been discovered in the cosmic abyss. So let’s be patient and wait until official science completely refutes or confirms the presence of an invisible cosmic body next to the bluish-white beauty.

As for the explosion of the Sirius-B star, this statement of the Dogon is also in great doubt. If such a cataclysm had occurred, then a large dust cloud could have been observed near Sirius A for many millennia. However, nothing like this has been noticed by modern telescopes.

Dogon and Sirius are one of the most intriguing mysteries of our time. Thanks to the light hand of the French ethnographer Marcel Griaule, humanity received another riddle, which modern science is not yet able to solve. All we can do is wait for time to dot the i's and lift the mysterious veil that has been surrounding almost 80 years of almost completely isolated outside world African people.