Case file · Folklore / legend
Dogon 'Sirius' claim
Anthropologists reported the Mali Dogon knew of Sirius's invisible companion star.
1946 CE · 14.50, -3.40 · status: claim
The account
Robert Temple later argued this implied ancient extraterrestrial contact.
The sceptical view
Most scholars attribute the knowledge to 20th-century contamination from visiting Europeans, and question the original ethnography.
Connections in the atlas
- Marcel Griaule
- The Tellem who flew to their caves
- Cliffs of Bandiagara (Dogon Country)
- ? Did the Dogon know about Sirius B?
- Conversations with Ogotemmêli
- Trans-Saharan gold and salt road
- Sacred dance and music (ritual)
- ▶ Teachers from the sky
- Teachers From the Sky or the Sea
- Animism & Shamanism
- 'Dogon Restudied': no Sirius B
- The Sigui of 1967