Mystery!

[Damo2600]

Marcel Griaule, a French anthropolgist, in 1947 whilst in West Africa was told by the Dogon tribe about two suns orbiting Sirius. The tribe explained to Marcel that the Earth revolved on axis whilst orbiting the sun in eliptical orbits as do the other planets within our solar system. They understood the moon to be waterless and barren and that jupiter had rings around it. The Dogon tribe knew the galaxy to be a spiral galaxy of stars. They had stated that Sirius B was a dense dwarf star which orbited the mother star once every 50 years. The second star, in orbit, they had described was one quarter the density of sirius B and known to the Dogon as Emme yen (the sun of women)

A letter from the Superior of the White Fathers in Mali confirmed in a letter that no missionaries had vistied the Dogon tribe before 1949.

Astronomers at the time had known about sirius B orbiting sirius since early in the 20th century however they had not known about the second sun.

In 1995 two astronomers found pertubations in the Sirius system that could be explained by the existence of a third sun. The third sun described would have to be 0.05 % of the sirius B star. It is so small that it cannot be seen. Scientists are in argument as to whether it is actually there.

How did the Dogon tribe, a group of hill-dwelling people, know about all this? The tribe explained the 'Nommo', who were 'mermaid-like' amphibian creatures, had described the universe to the ancient babylonian and egyptian societies, who were, the forefathers of the dogon. A picture produced by the Dogon leader resembled pictures drawn in egypt of 'mermaid-like' creatures. The amphibians according to the Dogon could only suvive out of water for brief periods of time.

The Nommo apparently came to earth amid flame and thunder, a mere 8 million light years distance, in order to explain the mysteries of the universe.

This author finds this story to be an interesting tale of the unexplained.

"I for one welcome our new amphibian overlords..." Kent Brockman

[bumab]

Very interesting, and the Simpsons quote is especially nice.

[Tormod]

This sounds all nice and dandy, but sadly is not a mystery at all, but a faked myth.

http://skepdic.com/dogon.html

[bumab]

Pretty funny though. "Telescopic vision... "

[Tormod]

Imagine going into Africa, hearing a dodgy story which you have to translate for some hotshot explorer from far away, and then thinking "oh what the heck, I'll use that story my brother pulled on me last week".

[bumab]

I do that all the time to telemarkers....

[Robust]

Most interesting, Domo. I do think it would be a mistake to believe that we today are the most advanced creatues to ever inhabit the planet.

[Damo2600]

Skeptics are rather quick to attack a persons motives when dealing with the unexplained. Marcel Griaule was an anthropologist and once he had found out about the two orbiting suns he sent a letter to Paris and requesting an astronomical atlas. When the Atlas arrived he found there were no suns orbiting the system. He realised that the Atlas was old and sought out a more recent atlas and found that a single sun had been orbiting Sirius. How could he possibly fabricate a story on information he himself was not aware of.

The fact that Belgium Walter van Beek had not been able to gain the information from the Dogon tribe is not unexplainable due to the fact that the information was secret even to the members of the tribe themselves. Marcel Griaule became a much adored person by the tribe and as such the tribe members who knew about the secrets of the universe divulged their knowledge.

So all that is left is European visitors who came between 1925 and 1931 as Marcel had lived among the Dogon tribe for 16 years. This cannot be known.

Skeptic societies are a special breed because by virtue of stating 'I am a skeptic' this means any information that cannot be explained is automatically disbelieved. I am neither a skeptic nor do I base my knowledge on beliefs alone. I'd much prefer to question information being given to me and that includes skeptics themselves.

Josephine

[Buffy]

This has many linguistic mysteries. While the languages of such small tribes can be rich in words refering to the natural environment (the Inuits have dozens of different words for snow), they can be extremely limited with respect to other things and tend not to have many words associated with abstract concepts. I learned Swahili in high school, and was amazed at how few original words there were in the language and how it had in practice had added so many words in English to accomodate concepts that most speakers did not have to deal with more than 50 or so years ago. The languages of the "hill tribes" are even more limited, and frequently with African languages anything above 10 is simply refered to as "many" how did they relate "8 million" or "light years"? What words did they use to distinguish "revolve" from "orbit"? Primitive tribes especially--but even up to a few hundred years ago in civilized culture--did not recognize the differences between heavenly bodies other than by theirmovemnts. What did they use to convey that these were "stars" rather than "planets" or "moons"? How did they distinguish between "circular" and "elliptical"? How did they convey the concept of "density" and did they understand fractions?

Still questioning,
Buffy

[Damo2600]

I do not know and neither do you.

The information divulged was not common knowledge and subsequently not based on common tongue in West Africa certainly. Perhaps they had their own terms to describe the information passed on from their ancestors. (Now I look back I wrote 8 million which is definately not true. When I stated the distance is 8 light years I did not mean to state this was their understanding. I was pointing out that the amphibian creatures had travelled from sirius which I know of as 8 light years. I assumed that would be obvious so I apologise for the confusion.) Any information could be discerned from their own language through explanation and drawings they had produced in the sand.

The fact of this matter remains that we do not know how this tribe gained this information. How did they know about Sirius C?

I'm feeling comfortable, unlike the skeptics, with this remaining an unexplained phenomenom. This all may have been a misunderstanding or information passed on by Eastern visitors. We just do not know...

Josephine