The Sirus Mystery

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THE SIRIUS MYSTERY:

Answering the Critics

b y



The Sirius Mystery Pamphlet

Part I

The

My

Struggle

Reply to

to Publish

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan published an attack on The Sirius Mystery in the A u gust

1979 issue of Omni Magazi ne, entitled 'White Dwarfs and Green Men'

(pp. 44-9 and 116--8). The subtitle was 'Did ancient astronauts visit the

Dogon?' Anyone who has read my book will know that I have neve r

suggested that ancient astronauts vi si ted the Dogon, nor did the Do go n

exist in ancient ti rnes for any ancient astronauts to v isit, of co u r s e.

The fact that Sagan was launching a public attack on me on such a

false basis seemed to me pathetic in the extreme. If you can't criticize




equal tim e' to somebody who can show that agan i loppy, riddled

with errors, and el cr his ev idence La accord with his

preconcei ved desire to sv eep m theories under the carpet? I we u Id

like a right of reply, plea e.

On 29 January 1980, the reply came not from Kathy rein but fro m

another editor call ed Harry Lebel son:

Thank you for your letter of Jan uary 3rd. Indeed, Omni feels L ha t

there an interest in the subject of UFOs. [1 had of course notmentioned UFOs, nor were they anything to do with my book.) If you

would like to submit a 1500 word manuscript on peculation dealing

with a r buual LO Carl agan piece in Omni we would consider it

for our 'UFO Update' column. However the piece must be objecti v e

and backed up with documentation in order for us to publish the

manuscript. W e do not w ish to get involved in a personal attack

against Carl Sagan.

could see that th i ngs were not looking promisi ng. Lebelson s h 0u Id

have real i zed if he had read Sagan's article that UFOs were not

involved in the discussion. To have my reply placed in a 'UFO Update'

column was in itself denigrating. arl Saga.n's article had not been

placed in a 'UFO Update' column: why should my reply? Carl Sagan's

article had not been backed up with documentation, but had bee n

published anyway. The double standards of Omni w ere d ep ress in g.

However, J could not give up, a a reply to Sagan was important to set

the record straight, if r could manage it in any way. 1 \ rate back to

Lebelson 6 February:

Thank you for your recent letter. .... T here has been some confusion

over two separate issues. The matter of Carl Sagan's article and my

wish to reply to it (not attack' him) has 110 connection whatever

w ith UFOs. If you are exclusively concerned with UFO, perhaps you

could steer me towards [he right person for this arl agan m at te r ,

Omn i published an article b him criticizing my book The Sirius

My tery and Sagan's article is full of errors. It i not an attack to lr y

and set the record straight. I would like to write ornething w hie hwas more than just a critical piece about his errors, but \ hich would

cover them in the course of discussing the important issues of

ex traterrestri al i ntell i genee. You need never worry that r would

write anything which was not 'objective and backed up wit h

documentation'. My book The Sirius Mystery was the result of n in e

years' research and there is hardly a statement in it which is nOL

backed up by a footnote. I estimate it would take anybody about six

month just to locate all the books in my bibliography, much less

read them. The trouble w ith agan is that be is carele sand s lips hod

now that he is so famou . The dangers of success!

2

r The Sirius Mystery Pamphlet

Pan I

There was no reply to thi letter, so I wrote to Lebelson again on 27

March:

I have never heard from you in reply to my Jetter of February 6th.

... I am still waiting to learn whether I may be allowed to reply to

Carl Sagan and have no! heard any th in g fu rther from you or any

other Omn i editor.

On I April Lebelson replied to me:

... if you would like to reply to agan in the form of an open letter we

would consider pub!i hing it providing its lone is not hostile.

w rote an Open Letter to Sagan immediately commencing:

Dear Dr Sagan,

The editors of Omni have kindly suggested write you this Open

L etter after r had contacted them about your a rticle which a p pea red

in an earlier issue of Omni and which formed a chapter of your

recent book Broca' s Brain.

I am highly flattered that you have wi hed to enter the debate

about the a tronomical knowledge of the Dogon tribe, first broughtto public attenti n b my book The Sirius Mystery in 1976. But the r e

are various point [ should like to correct which are of considerable

im portance ....

sent the Open Letter to Omni III April

received no acknowledgement. On 30th

Lebelson:

but heard notbing. and

June r wrote again to

1 believe it is about three months now since I sent you my Open

Letter to Carl Sagan, and [ have never heard from you at all. [ would

~ike to know . whether you are going to print my reply to agan, and

If so, when. [wrote a reply to him to which he could not pos s i bl y

take offence, a you will have noticed. You will agree, I am sure, that

I have the right to reply to Sagan's criticism s of myself in your

pages by replying a you suggested. Could you please confirm that

you intend to publish my Open Letter written to you r

specifications? I would hate to think that you have still taken no

decision.

Still no reply came from Omni. W hen my friend Arthur C. larke

happened to drop by to ee me in September, I took the occasion to ge t

his support. The next day, on 7 September, I wrote again to Omni , bu t

this time to Ben Bova, who was not only Lebelsons boss but

3




apparently the person who really made the editorial decisions at t h e

magazine:

I am writing to you personally at the suggestion of our mutual

friend Arthur C. Iarke, who specifically told me to mention hi

name to you as supporting my grievance, \ hich [ shall e plain in a

moment. Arthur was here at my house yesterday and he told me 0 f

how you had sent hi m some man uscri pts many years ago when you

were a struggling young writer of what a considerate person he

thought you were, and it seems clear to me that if you had k now nwhat I am about to tell you, thing would not have been allov ed to go

the way they have. In August 1979, Omni publi hed an article b

Carl agan criticizing me and my book The Sirius Mystery. Thi

caused a considerable reaction, and letters from several reader

appeared in issues for October, November, and Decem ber - t h r e e

successive months. I wrote to Omni asking for the right of reply La

agan but no one would even answer me. I a ked my friend Bibi

Wein to intercede for me with Kath Keelan, which I believe she

did ....

gave a further account of what had happened to date and added:

' ... my Open L tter i entirely harmless and lacking in an form of

hostility whatsoe er. But I have never managed to gel Lebelson lO

write to me again, and he does not reply to my letters. It appears t h a [

my Open Letter is not going to be published by Omni and aflerm 0 r e

than a year I have every justification for being extremely d issat isf ied

by being refused what I look upon as rn right of reply to criticisms of

my book and my reputation made in your pages. This i what I

discussed with Arthur, and be was disturbed to hear that Omni had

apparently not been willing [0 let me have the right of reply. That is

why be urged me to contact you di rectly because he said if I did t hat,

he was sure you would sort this situation OUl. ... I look fan ard to

hearing from you in the near future.

Lebelson replied [0 my letter to Ben Bova immediately. on J 6

September:

I'm sorry for tbe inconvenience caused by the delay in e v a l uat ingyour reply to Carl Sagan. We are goi ng to pu bl ish the mate rial and

would appreciate having you condense your reply and re ubmit i L to

us for publication. Once again, our regrets for the delay.

drafted a reply on 28 September:

Thank you for your letter of September 16. I am delighted that Omn i

have at last decided to publish my reply to arl Sagan.

It would be more helpful if you would specify what you mean. You

ask me to condense my reply but you do not bother to say how man y

4


words ir hould be! ." I cannot possibly do anything until you tell me

\ hal h Is that needs doing. Therefore I shall have to await you r

reply before ha vi ng suffi ci entl y specific guidance La know jus t

\ hat it i that is nece sary. ... And if you want to use any

illustrations. I have many available ... '

I added some grumpier comments than that, then decided not to send

the letter. as it wou ld be cou mer- prod ucti ve. A few days Iater, H a r r y

Lebelson phoned me. He said the decision at Omni IV a that they did not

want to 'offend Carl agan' and that therefore they were not pre paredto publish my Open Letter or allow me to reply to hi critici ms in any

way. However, they were prepared to commission me to write an

article about the Sirius Mystery as long as I did not attempt to i ncl ude

in it any reply of any kind to Carl agan. J must 'not go over any old

ground. The piece could be 1,500 word long. I would be paid.

( decided during the can ersation that, hov ever insulting, and

indeed immoral, I can idered this attitude and these remarks, I would

at least attempt lO retrieve something from the situation and accept

the invitation to write a 1,500 word arricle about Sirius. [agreed to

wri te the piece.

oon afterward on 7 October, Lebelson sent me a remarkably

friendly note commencing 'Dear Bob,'! It read:

'I thought you might like some interesting reading matter from

Omni. I'm enclosing the last two issues for your enjoyment. It was a

plea ure tal ki ng wi th au the other day and I look. forward to

receiving y ur material a soon as you can get it to me.

Events prevented me from doing this quickly, and il was not until 5

January that J posted to Harry Lebelson my article with the Omni-

friendly title of 'The Nommos Are Coming'. I said in my letter:

. . .1 was plea ed to have your phone call when you commissioned me

to do the piece. Here it is and you will note -to Omni' great delight,

I'm sure. I don't reply to agan at all but merely refer tbe reader to

my reply to Sagan in a scholarly journal. I am very keen not to have

this edited OUL. Perhaps I should stress that, After all, as I didn'treply to Sagan the least Omni can do i allow me to announce that I

have replied to him elsewhere and leave it at that. It is essential for

my credibility for people to know that I have answers to Sagan's

points. I am sure you will agree and there will be no problem.

I think you will agree the piece 1 have sent is provocative of new

thinking and does not go over any old ground. ... I hope you are

happy with it.

5




I never had another friendly note from Harry Lebelson again. The

article was never pri n ted, I was never paid a penny, even thou gh I

had been officially commissioned to wri te the article (not to men ti0 n

commissioned by rrnplicauon for the Open Letter earlier). Probably I

should have had the sense 10 realize that I had been wasting my ti m e

from the very beginning. After all, one has to note that I was t re a ted

with less consideration chan an ord i nary reader: several readers had

written in and had their remarks about my book published in the

Correspondence section, but I, the person attacked, was note v e n

allowed that courtesy. Everyone seemed to be allowed to have [heir sayabout me in Omni but m yself.

In 1990 Harry Lebelson, by then descri bed as 'a free- lance wri ter

formerly UK) Editor for Omni Magazine', published a long article in

t he A n ci e n t Astrona u ts S oci ety p er i o d ica I A nci e IU Skie s (V 01. 1 7, N o.5 ,

Novem ber- Dece m b er, 1990). It was enti tIed 'The Search for Ancient

Aquanauts', and it was about the Nomrnos, I was pleased to see t hat

'Robert Temple, author of The Sirius Mystery, supports the rheory.' I

would hate not to support a theory I had originated. A t least he had

good things to say about me and quoted extensively from my work i n

support of hi s view, He had the excellent good sense of humour 10 say:

'The astronomer Carl Sagan seems to be in agreement .... ', and also:

'Sagan and Temple cautiously present their information in a n

atmosphere of reserved scepticism .' So, Sagan and J by 1990 had end ed

up lumped together; is this not the best comic irony of all?

[ did not give up trying to publish my reply to Sagan. As soon as I

realised in October, 1980, that Omni would never allow me any right of

reply at all, I w rote to Dr Marcello Truzzi, who edited a scholarly

Journal w ith a fairly ti ny ci rc u Iarion called The Zetetic Sell 0 lar ,

published by the Department of Sociology of Eastern M i c hig a n

University at Ypsilanti, M ichigan. I wrote to him on 30 October:

... 1 enclose an open Letter to Carl Sagan which T wrote at the r e que s t

of Omni Magazine to reply to an article by Sagan against my book

The Sirius Mys t e ry . However, they wi II not publi sh it because Ihe y

do not. want to al ienate Sagan. After I got A rthu r Clarke, the 0 nl y

man they think more bi ghly of than Sagan, to in t erv ene and ask

the Editor to let me have my say, they phoned and commissioned meto write a piece about Sirius but still say they don't want me to

answer Sagan. So they are basically only appeasing me because

Arthur Clarke was disturbed about their treati ng me badly. But t he y

still w ill not agree to 'antagonize' Sagan by publishing a complete

refutation of his critici srns of my book. I wondered, the r e fore,

whether you would consider publishing my reply (0 Sagan in Zet eticScholar? I want to publish it somewhere ." 1 would be most indebted

to you if you would consider this.

6


Marcello, w ith whom I had had some contact before although we have

never met, repl ied on 14 November:

Good to hear from you. I would be delighted to publish your reply to

Sagan in issue after next (that is, in issue 8 due out around· .J u n e

1981). ." Though I am fra n kl y not too opti mi stic that Sagan will

reply, J will send him a copy of your letter as soon as you re-do 1 h e

begi nning and get that to me. If he replies, I w i II try to pu b li s h it i n

the same issue, and jf time will allow , J will. also include your

rejoinder (should you wish) In the same issue. ." Thanks fo rthinking of ZS for your reply ....

Issue Number 8 of the Zetetic Scholar duly came OUI in July, 1981, and

on p. 29 appeared my 'On the Sirius Mystery: An Open Letter to Carl

Sagan'. It is reprinted in full below.

Car! Sagan never answered Marcello Truzzi, despi te fo II 0IV- u ps

urging him to reply to my Open Letter. O f course, what could Sagan

say? Admit that his attack on me was superficial and shallow

nonsense? Apologize? Not quite in his character, 1 think. In any case,

judge for yourselves:

ON THE SIRIUS MYSTERY:AN OPEN LETTER TO CARL SAGAN

Robert K. G. Temple

Dear Dr Sagan:

I am highly flattered that you have wi shed to enter the debate abo u (

the as tronorni cal knowledge of the Dogon tri be of Africa, first

brought to public attention by my book The Sirius Mystery in 1976 .

You r co ntr i'bu t ion to til is subject fj rS1 appe ared in the rnagazi ne 0m 11i

for August 1979, and was followed by assorted [etters from readers i n

the issues of Omni for the follow ing October, November, and

December, and then this year (1981) by an article in Omni b y m yse lf.

[The arti cle W hich, though commissioned, went un publ ished after a 1.1.But at this point I expected it to appear.] Your article also formed a

chapter in your book Broca's Brain.

I try [0 reply to critics of The Sirius Mystery when there is an

obvious forum in which to do so. It is not always easy to arran ge t his.

A friend of yours, James Oberg. wrote a len gthy cri rique of The S iri us

Mystery in Fate Magazine for November 1978, which I answered full y,

com pletely refuti ng al l poi nts of cri t ici sm , in the issue of Fate for

October 1980. Many months of iII ness prevented me earl ier fro rn

maki ng severa I replies such as I would have wished, or as early as I

would have wished. A lengthy critique by A. C. Grayling in Issue Six of

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The Sirius Mystery Pamphlet The Sirius Mystery Pamphlet

the British magazine Ad Astra was fu lly answered by me in Issue Eight

of the same magazine. But I have experienced some difficulty i n

persuading certain magazines to grant me the right of reply. After a

year of my insisting, Omn! fi naIly agreed to let m e wri te an a r t j c Ie

about The Sirius Mystery as long as it did not consist of a reply to you r

points raised earlier in their pages. They repeatedly told me they did

no t wi sh to publih res ponses to yo u r po i rus beca u se [hey did nOI w ish

to . offend ' you . The Editor of Nature has also refused to allow me

proper righ t of reply to a ernie.

You can therefore appreciate some of (he difficulties h a v eencountered in attempting to d iscuss these matters and respond to

cri ucisms. Just for the record, you mi ght be interested to know that I

have yet to encounter a single cnucisrn of The Sirius Mystery 10

which there was not a satisfactory rep ly . You can imagine, therefore.

h ow g rat efu l I am to th e Zesetic Scholar for allow ing me to respond 10

YOIlT own poin ts in thei r pages, a discuss] on I feel sure you will 110 t

find in any way the slightest degree offensive, bill will rather

w elcome in the true sp irit of scien tific enquiry.

There are various poin ts you made in your arricle/chapter which

should like to correct, and which are of considerable importance. Let

me first say that although you obviously thought I w as B rit is h IV he n

we mel in London ,. Iam in fact an American . This is the lea s t

importan t of the fifteen points llv ish to make . BUI as you did de sc r j be

me in you r article as B ri fish, I thought it best (Q take this a p p an I.l n j iy

to correct you.

The Dogan tribe of M ali in A frica possess highly advanced

astronom ical information , much of it concern ing the system of ! e

star Sirius, and this is what has come (0 b e r ef er re d (0 as 'the Sir ius

Mystery .. You have raised the suggesti on that this information cam e

to the Dogan from modern W estern sources .. D r Germaine Dieter!en,

the Secretary General of the Societe des A fricai n istes at the M usee de

I'Homme in Paris, is the an thropolog ist who together w ith the late Dr

Marcel Grraule first published an account of the Sirius traditions of

the Dogon. A s she bas spent most of her life liv ing w ith the Dogan and

knows them and their traditions more in ti. mate!y than anyone else

alive, her opi r non on a possible W estern orig in for the Si r ius

trad i tions of the Dogan is of the h ighest im p orrance. She an s we r s

such suggestions w ith a single word : 'A bsurd!' The BBC-TV Horizon

Program which was shown three [jmes nationally as a Nova P TO g fa m

in America, 'The Case for the Ancien t Astronauts,' featured a

fascinating i nterv iew with Dr Dieterlen in which she made t hi s

remark very strongly and held up in fron t of the cameras a Dagon

artifact represen ting the three stars which the Dagon claim are at the

Sirius system, and which she said was 400 years o ld. I have th is on

video-tape at home, but w as often puzzled why friends in America who

saw the TV program never seemed to have 'reg istered' D r D i ete r l en's

forceful remarks. Eventually I came to realize that this section of the

progra m was ap paren II y edi ted-out fo r A m eric an relev ision! So t ha t

wouldexpl ain why you also appear to be unaware of the 0 pin ion

expressed on this subject by the world's leadi ng authori ty.

M y third point relates to W estern m issionaries. Long ago r wrote to

the head of the W hile Fathers ia M ali. F ather Dubreul at M opti, who

rep l ied sayi ng that none of their m iss ionari es had had any can ia c t

w ith the Dogan before 1949. But as you know , the information of the

Dogan Sirius traditions had by that time already been gathered by t h e

an thropologists, a therefore these m issionaries are ruled out as a

source. P lease allow me to send you sometime a photocopy of th is letterfrom Father Dubreut. ] did send a copy of it to a not h er person who m

we both know , who shall be nameless, who wear ri ght a head a 11 y wa y

and published a quite false .3ndconlrary story in an account in w hie h

he discussed the mallet. This om ission [Q which I refer wo u Id

probably have led you unwitting ly iato error on th i s sub ject.

M y fourth poi I1 t relates to a suggestion made by you , IV h i h

originated w ith an earlier w riter whom you consu lted , that Dagon

were conscripted by the French to figh t in the trenches in W orld W a r

I. T hese D ogan sold iers, it i s c la im e d, would have had access to mode r n

W estern scientific tradi tions about iri u s. F i f51 of al I. I do nOI bel i eve

iis true that any Dagon tri besrnen fought in any trenches in Eu r o p e

in the Fi r SI W o rl d War. But let us assume that they did : j t is ph y sica II y

impossib le that ibis could explain the 'Sirius M ystery' for the simple

fact that the D agon tradition of the superde ns i ty of the star 5 ifi us B

could not have been obtai ned that early in the W est. Ed d in gto n

revea red the superdensi ty of S iri us B about !926, long after the Firs I

W orld W ar had ended, and as you yourself m ention, tn 1928 h e

published' this in his popular book The Nature of the Physical World,

of which I have a first edi lion in my Iirary wh ic h Slates that th e

work is a publication of h is G ifford Lectures of 1927. Y ou rn eu ri on t h at

this book was widely popular and translated in to French . But alas, by

1931 the an th ropolog i s ts w ere al r eady w ith the I he Dagon and wo II Id

have known if some group of W estern amateur astronomers had

rushed out to the desolate hi n ie rland of M al i to implan t t hi s

knowledge in the presumably pliant m inds of the D agon priests i n

that narrow period of two or three years before thei r own a r rill a I .

How all of this was then supposed to have filtered down through Ih eenri re Dogan and surround] ng cultu res of over Iwo m i I! ion people and

been embodied ill the hundreds or thousands of Objects, symbols,

WOllen blan kers, carved statues, etc. ,etc. , which exist in those c til t u re s

relating to the 'Sirius M ystery' in only two or three years baffles me.

And how these hund reds or thousands of objects are meant !O have

been expertly fabricated fakes purporting to be centuries old, foo ling

all dating experts, baffles me even more, h is considerations like these

and many more (such as the rti b al sacredness of the tradi lion Tn a kin g

it un likely [hal it could have come from W esternin(ruders who would

not have been highly regarded or in the confidence of the meticulous

8 9




an d t ra d i t io n al priests) which lead Dr Dieterlen to reject the

suggestion of W estern origins as absurd. Hence my fifth point: I e

J928~1931 gap is too narrow and {O O late. (I also asked Father Dub re ul

whether any of the admittedly too late W hite Fathers w e r e

knowl edgeab!e about aSI ronomy and he said no.) A nd as regards Dr

Dieterlen, my sixth point is that you now here even men rion her,

despite her being the co-author with Dr Gri a ule of the 0 r j gin a I

ani h T opol og i cal report, And yet she is sri II very much al ive and

acwally rejected your thesi s on lel·e vision years before your boo k

advocati ng it was pu bl I shed.My seven tb and eighth poi nt s are highl y importan l. You say

'Temple says' the Dogan mal ntai n the SUIT Si rius B orbits a ro u n d

5 irius A in an ellipse, and you also say that 'there is some e vi d en c e

that the Dogan like to frame pictures with an ellipse, and that Temple

may be m istaken about the claim that in Dogan mythology the planets

and Sirius B move i nell iptical orbits.' First of all, it is not Temple ·w h 0

says this, but the Dogon themse Ives, and secondly, Iam not m is I ke n

about it because there is more ex pl icit evidence than you noticed. I f

you look at p. 45 of my book, where I publish an English translation

(v cued for accuracy by Dr Dieterlen) of the original anthropological

report by Griaule and Diererlen, it is not Temple who says anything a I

all! This part of my book is not writ/en by me, but by the

anthropologists. It is they who say explicitly that the system of! Ii e

three stars at S irius 'is represented by a pattern ... cons isn ng of a n

oval [ell ipsoid] in which one of the centers is Si rius.' (l tali cs mine).

On p. 40 of my book there is another diagram of the orbit to which yo L Ido nO I refer. There the anthropologists make quite explicit I h e

elliptical nature of the orbit by reproducing the stationary position of

Si r i u s A and the I IVO ex trerne posi tions of Siri us B with the ell ips e

showi ng the mo v emen ( between the two extremes and which th e y

specifically say 'gives an idea of this trajectory'. On p. 6 also you may

see Figure 8, taken from the book Le Renard Pale by Griaule an d

o ieterlen. Here we see a s peci f i ca l l} , a s rr on o rn i ca I diagram : it s h a IV s

the star Sirius C going around Sirius A in an e.lliptical orbit and a

planet going around the star Si ri us C also in a. hi ghly e l0 n g a t ed

elliptical orbit of its own, of a much smaller scale. You have neglected

aIL of this ev i dence, I regret to say.You briefl.y mention that in the Dagon mythology 'tw ins play a

central role,' which is certainly true. But when you suggest that thi s

might explain why the Dagon gave Sirius a companion star (a n

argument advocated at great len gt h by some others), . you have d r aw n

a too hasty concl usi on. For if looked at w ith suffiei ent at te n Iv e n ess ..

the 'twin' argument actually is seen to be evidence against, no t for,

the Dogan Si rius tradi lions bei ng as they are. The reason for t h i. s

(which some others appear 10 have obscured on purpose because il did

not sun the i r arguments) is that the Dagon i nsi st that t here are no I

two but three stars in tile Sirius system. If they had fabricated a

1 0


tradi lion of two stars 10 accord with the sacredness of tw i ns. the y

would never have i n s l st ed on a th ird star's existence. Thus my ten t h

po i nt: three stars do not make tw i ns.!

My next point is an astronomical one, something which evidently

Slipped your mind when discussing (before rigluly rejecting) the idea

that the tiny Sirius 8, which evolved from an earlier massive star,

m igh t 113ve been vi SIble to the naked eye in the historical pas t.

Although you reject this theory, you remark that if it were true, 'The

relat i ve Illations of the two stars about each other could be dis ce r ned

with the eye.' This might lead others who do not agree w ith you j nrejecting the theory into error. For you neglected to realize that ev e n

at that earlier stage in its evolution millions of years ago when il was

a large star, S irius B. which is invisible now to the naked eye (one of

the reasons for 'the Si ri us Mystery being a mystery), would sti I! h a v e

been i ndi s ti n gu i shable from its cornpani on star as a separate a b j e c t

beca use of the mi flute parallax. This effecti vel)' destroys a II

argu m en t s for the v isibil iy of S iri us B in the past wi thout need for

further discussion.

But my further points would be to agree w ith you that it is

asr rophys ical ly impossible for Sirius B to have been such a large 'red

gia nr' star anyw ay wi t hi.n the pas! one or two m iIlion years at Ieast,

and also to comment on your in rere sti n g q uotati on from Horace a b au l

"The red dog star.' There are a number of ancient quotations w h i c h

e i the r refer to S l r i LIS as red, or are said to do so .. ' The redness of Sir ius

in antiquity' problem has been a major controversy in a srr o n orn y

sinee the eigh teen th century, in which leadi ng fi gures such as

Herschel, chiapare! li, and E d d i ngton have taken part. I have n ear I y

fin ished the most com plere historical rev iew of this controversy eve r

undertake n, i ncl udi n g Ira n sl a ti n g the enti re texts of the man y

German articles on the subject. It is my interui on to publ ish I e

results and a full bibl iography when Ii me perm i ts. [I ne v er found the

opportuni ty to do !is . ~ 1997 note. I I dare to hope (hat the two-

hundred-year controversy will (hen: be settled in the negative: No,

Si ri us was not actually red in antiqui ty. II wa s red du ri n g the e ar I y

Dog Days each year in the M ed i te rra nean area because it was at the

hori zon and was reddened JUSl as the ri s mg and setti ng Sun is

reddened. But some ancient G reek sources describing Sirius as po ikt iosare said to descri be it as bei ng red. Such reports are s im p i e

mtstranslations and show only that astronomers are not always good

classical scholars. The Greek 1V0rd poikilos never at any time had the

mea nig 'red' as some astronorne rs wrongly supposed. It mea n t

monIed', and referred to the hi gh degree of sc i nti II arion for w h i c h

Sirius is well noted. These few remarks, then, should go some way

towards clari fyin g the information which you fOll nd i Horace. A fu I I

account of the matter w i!l be published in my complete survey of t h a!

parricu Iar subject in the future. .

1 1




J should li e to remark in passing that, although you are correct i n

saying that the he.l iacal rising of Sirius was used in ancient Egypt to

si gnal the in unda tion by the N ile, this was true ani y for a re I ai ivel y

brief period and was not the prim ary sign ificance of the heliacal

ri ing. The reason why th is w as a transi to ry aspect of the matter is

that the date of the hel i acal rising continually shifted. due to 1h e

precessi on of the eq u inoxes,

My fifteenth and final poirn is where I rush to the defence of the

Dogan when you mention their trad ition of the Creator and the plaited

basket, \ h ich you find tempting to regard as an in ferior or p rim i Li v e

myth. Actually. this ba ket may be a urvival of the basket invariably

carried by the Babylon ian Oannes/Dagon, as clearly seen in Plates 6.

7, 8, and 9* in my book. And this may also be the ource of the sacred

basket of Demeter from tbe ancien t G reek mysteries. In the

In troduction to Le Renard Pale, Dr Germaine D ieterlen speaks of the

basket: 'For the Dogan a well a for the o ther societies of W est A frica,

the smallest common object reveals by its shape and its decorations.

the volun tary expression of a complicated cosmogony. . .. Thus ... a

basket used for carry i ng represen ts when it is upside down, the ark

on IV hich h urna n bei n gs descended from hea v en to the earth, the

square bottom represents space and the four card inal po in ts.' You r

account of thi sacred basket is m isleading. In fact, the tazi basket or

which you speak represents the second ark of Ogo and the third ark

of Ogo is represented by another basket called n u g or o , while the firstis represented by the nukaro basket. The two latter ones are a sociated

to rites related to the four major moons of Jupiter (which are also

in isib le to the naked eye). A ll three baskets are meant to portray

what w e W esterners would call space ships. It is to be regretted I at

you chose the example of the basket as an intended illustration of

thei r backward ness. Space shi p s are really rather fa rwa rd. An d

know ledge of the invisible moons of Jupiter is hard ly pnrm tive.

But there is more to the matter than that. [ would hope that IV he n

one da you have the tim e, you m ight study the Dogon cosmogony

more thoroughly . In my personal op inion , it is one of the richest,

most profound system of thought in the entire world. A s u p er f ici a I

glance at it cou ld offer any number of d isconnected subjects of

rid icule and derisi on, jUSl as in the same way one could take the eros s

of Christianity, the candlestick of Judaism , the tetractys of the

Pythagoreans, the rites of Shinto , the belly of the Buddha, or the

M ohammedan's bow ing tow ards M ecca and journeying there in order

to walk in ci rel es around a rneteori te as exam pi es - in the d isj a in ted

sense, ou t of context - of barbari c pri m i ti v ism amongst all 1bas e

peoples, and prove them morons. And yet in those more familiar cases

we know full well that the apparen tly ridicu lcu details form part of

larger and deeply meaningfu l ph ilo ophies and relig ions. The ame i

true of the Dagon. r a sure you , from the year I have studied the m

through reports, and the conversations r have had with the

12


anlhropologi ts who have lived \ ith them over decades, the Dogan

are, in the se nse of the in rri n sic val ue of thei r thought, one of the

lead ing cultures of the world . They may be indifferent to modern

W estern technology, bu t their moral fibre equal or surpasse our

0\ n , their philosophy and relig i n are a a whole not a whir inferio r

to an other in ex i stence on this planet; they are happy, con ten ted.

fulfilled people w ith rich and meaningfu l lives. And, frankly , if I

were a Dogan r would be very proud of il and look at the materialistic

W est w ith some degree of pity. But they are too magnanimous to p i t y

u . Their thought are, after all, often amongst the stars.

t.

I 3




Part II

Replies to Other Critics

Besides the reply 10 Carl Sagan re printed in Part I, the following

replies to critics were either published or suppressed, as the case

varied. Since these answer so many questions which have been raised

about The Sirius M ystery, I thought it would be helpful to reviewers to

have ready availability to them. Perhaps they should be considered

T he Sirius M ystery FA Q (Fr equenrty-A sked-Q uesuons), to use t h econventional phrase which has now become common on the internet,

REPLY TO A... C. GRAYLING (1979)

I strongly suspect that A , C. Grayli ng is a pseudonym . as I have n eve r

heard of him in any other contex t. This exchange took place in a v e r y

obscure and now entirely forgotten magazine called Ad Astra,published In London, Since Ian R idpath was a contributor to the

rnagazi ne, and had criticized my book elsewhere, he might possi b l y be

'A, C G rayli ng '. O r it might have been someone who knew me and

wanted to remai n anonymous, The ani cle by Grayl i ng en ti tl e d

'So lving the Sirius M ystery' appeared in Issue 6 (1978) and twas

inv ited to reply, which I d id in Issue 8 (1979), pp. 9-10, under the title

• No Easy Sol ution to the S iri us Mystery ', My a rti d e follow s:

NO EASY SOLUTION TO THE SIRIUS MYSTERY

As author of the book The Sirius Mystery, I have been invited by Ihe

editor to reply to the article 'Solv ing the Sirius M ystery', by A . CG r ay l j ng, which appeared in Issue Six.

M r G rayling proposes to have solved the Sirius M ystery by what he

hopes is an ingenious theory , and it is unfortunate for those who li e

simple so lu tions that M r Grayling's w ill not work . H e has c er t a in l y

done a better job of try ing to solve the mystery than many other

people who have made sim ilar attempts and failed, such as Carl Sagan,

G rayl i ng has made herculean efforts to come IIp wi th an astrophysi cal

fa n tasy wbi ch wil! hold up to sci e n t ifie scr uti ny and Ie reby so l v e

the problems of the Sirius M ystery .

1 4


. .

Basically, w hat M r G rayl ing proposes for an expl anaiion as to how

a n ei en I peoples kn ew of the ex is re nee of the sra r S i ri us B , w hi eh i.s

i nv isible to the naked eye, is that Sirius B was in ancien! tim es not

invisible. This in itself is not new , and has been suggested by many

people before. Indeed ,. I w ondered about thi s at the very begi nni ng 0f

my research . But theori es that Si ri us B collapsed in to its white d w ar f

state in hi sto rical ti m es go agai nst all the know n pri n ei p les of

astrophysics, w hich say thai this could not possibly have happened as

recently as that, but must have been at least one OJ two rnl Ilion yea r s

ago, possibly much [anger, And it is to M r Grayling 's credit that h e

does not advocate this. He has made a far more sophisticated attempt to

come up with a scenario which could ena ble Sirius B to be larger and

v lsi ble to the na ked eye. He el aborates a com p Ii ca ted process w her e b y

the large-sta r Siri us A would have hydrogen drawn from irs a u I r

layers by S iri us B , which would then cross over and form a' ski n '

around the smaller star. This 'sk in' w ould heat up and begin to bur n .

Eventually the temperature of the 'skin ' would rise so much (hal iI

would 'burst outw ards ina great bu rni ng flare. This phenomenon is

known as a no va." '

W hat these stars won 't get up to in their hi gh jinks! If two stars are

left alone together for long enoughi n space they begin to fiddle w i lh

each other. It's shocking, Here we have Sirius A getting fam iliar w i I

its Ii ttle companion star. W ell, this is most inge nious. The as t r o nom e r s

a n d a st ro p hy si ci st s wi th whom I have discussed these matters mentionmass transfer in the o ther direction , as a means of explain ing [he

evo! ution of thi s bi nary system . Bur. no matter, W ho wou ld dream 0 f

deny in g Sirius B th is small com fort in the lonel iess of the vas t

reaches of space?

But w ill it work? I mean, w ill it solve the Sirius Mystery? Can we see

Sirius B blow ing off steam when it has had enough of Sirius A's

a ttentions and wants 10 be left alone for a whi le? Is th is the s imp l e

answ er we have all been looking for? The answer is No,

The trouble is that S i ri us A and Siri u s B are so close together t h aI

they cannot be di su n guished. If they were both of the same size the y

would sull appear to the naked eye to be one body in space, Because of

the minute parallax between the two bodies and the im po ssi b i l iry 0 f

resolving them without a good telescope and a lot ofexpenise. M r

G r ayli n g ' s proposal wi II no! hold up even if his astr op hysi cs arecorrect (which I have not bothered to check, si nce there is no poi nt),

The poi n t I have just made of the parall ax u nfo rtu natel y did not

occur to M r G rayli ng, and I m us! therefore rem i nd hi m of .i t wi t h

sl ight impatience. I must confess that it is rather annoy i ng to h a v e

people can ti n ualty com i ng up wi til si mpl i sric schemes to sweep r h e

Sirius M ystery under the carpet, fo r it implies that people th ink I am

so stupid I never thought of such things myself in the nine years [

worked on preparin g th is problem for pu b l icaiion,

t

I 5




In noting that the separation betw een the tWO bodies is just no 1

suffic ient for them to be resolved by the naked eye even if they we r e

the same size, it is important to remember that they ar e closer

together than our Sun and th e planet Saturn, but are about n i n eIight-years away from us! It should be common knowledge to any 0 n e,

I ike M r G rayl ing, who takes an interest in astronomy, that w e h a v e

great di fficu I ty in detecti ng the ex istence of planets in other sol arsystems even with our most sophisti cared eq u i pmen t (ali s u c h

detections remai neon trov ers i a I). And yet he bel i eves that by s imp Iy

flari ng up, a body smaller than the Earth and closer [han Saturn is to

our own Sun to a star 10,000 tim es brigbter than our Sun would

immediately become an easy object for ancient man to observe. H e

then goes on to observe thai this unstable state of affai rs had to last a l

least a hundred years (longer than any nova I have ever heard of) for

th e precise orbital period of this body around S ir i u s to be de t e r m i 11 e d

(b y whom"). Somehow, also, the elliptical nature of its orbit w as

real i zed by the ancients. How? An understand i n g of de g e n er a I

superdense matter w as then arrived at by some wonderful intuitive

leap of the a nci e nt mind, W e are presumably to i magi ne an ci en t

astronomers sitli ng crosstegged and brooding ana sr i II u n in v e n re d

modern physics, penetrating to the mysteries of atom ic matter and the

na tu r e of electrons, and con cl u di n g that superdense rna trer wa s 1. he

on Iy and obv ious ex p i ana ti on of this flare in the sky, and also 1 ha t

such superdense matter did not exist anywhere on Earth (which 1 S

specifically maintained by the Dogan).

Grayl i ng has the nerve to say 'This is a far sim pier. and far m 0r e

sci e n tifi call y respectabl e sol uticn to the "Si ri us M ystery" Iha n

Temple 's offeri n g. '! If w e are w illing to adm it that the i mpossi blei s

possible , if we are w illing to abolish the law s of optics and take

J i berti es with the pr i nci pi es of astrophy 5i cs, then if M r G ray Ii ng

thinks this is simpler, it is simple-.m.inded. Not only is il not

sci erui fica!!y more respectabl e , iI is in fact scientifically impossi ble .

I disagree in principle w ith people who have preconceptions i n

their own m inds against the possibility of a visitation of our planet by

in tell i gen t extrarerrestri al s at some time in the past history of L h e

planet. W hy is this so startling a not ion? Because we were not toldi! at

school? A re we so j ncapabl e of s peculati ng about these matters t ha t

we deny them solely because such a visita tion seems to us

extraordinary? M r Grayl ing displays a serious and unscientific bias

against extraterrestrial visitations by dism issing the possibility IV i L h

the mocking phrase 'little green men This cliche has now taken 0 n

the value of a sl ur-word, rarhe r I ike 'comm ies' . 'p igs', 'f 'asci s ts ' ,

'queers', P eople fall back on these cl iches to dism iss what they can no (

and do not want to understand or face. People who do not w ish to h a v e

to bother to consider each other's opposi ng poli tical views can s mea r

each other with the epithets 'comm ies' and 'fascists', w hich makes a

dialogue of the deaf. In discussing extraterrestrial visitation

possi bi Iii es. a ll you have to do is drag in the phrase' "little g r e en

men' and immediately you can conclude that your opponent is

hu mi l iated and ridicul ed , gIVing you some sort of easy v ictory. Bu t

this is a cheap betrayal of the hu m an powers of reason and logic and

is rorall y unscien tific,

Mr Grayling discusses 'wby so much crede nee is accorded vis i La t i on

th eorie s' .. Iagree w ith him that 'people are ever hungry for a neal

and inclusive theory wh i chex plai ns rbei r origins and their world ' -

one has only to look at the nonsense people will accept as part of t h e

bel ief-systerns of certai n of the world 's rei i gions! No doubt t his

motive, which is as old as humanity and not something M r Grayling

has discovered. is a strong one for many people wanting /0 be lie ve

that our civi I izati ons on th is planet a re ex t rate rre stria! in on gl n. B LII

this does not excuse M r G ray! in g's wanting /0 disbelieve it, Fo r

Grayling thereby commits the reverse of the same fault which h e

criticizes in others. There is no lise his critic izing credulity based on

wishful thinking when he himself is guilty of in-credulity based on

wishful th i n ki n g.. H e is merely raki ng up the tired and sag gi n g

conservative stance versus the J iberal 'bel ievers '. BU I why do we ne e d

to divide into hawks and doves on such an issue? W hile his

observation that von Daniken has helped to create a new mythology is

valid , G rayling merely puts. hi m self in the poi r ul e s s role of a Pharisee.

There is no reasonable basis for M r Grayling to he certain t he I

there is an "inhe rent implausibility ' to the Earth having been visitedat some time in its history by i ntelligentex traterrestrials. !tis merely

Mr G rayl ing ' S personal bias which is expressed in the s taternertt. H e

gives no reasons why a VI suauon is i nh eren [Iy i lTI pi ausi hi e Th e

implausibility is an opinion only. I will state my opinion: a v is it at io n

is probable. If he wishes to enter into a debate on the subject. then we

m ight wri te ani des represen ti 11 g the two poi nrs of \I iew - Ico ul d

present ev idence in fav au r of the pr obabi Iiy and he rni ght pre sen I

evidence for the nnpteusibitiry. Bu t I do not intend to enter into that

di scussion on th is o cc as io n.

M r Grayl ig stales that the Dagon mai ntai n that the home planet 0f

the beings from S i ri us A ' is attached to S i r i u s B.' This is not true, A

reading of my book which was truly atteruive would reveal clearly

that the Dogan rna i n t ai n that this planet orb! rs a round a third st a r

which they claim isin (he system , called by me S irius C (and w h i c h

several astr onorne rs clai m to have observed. but which 1 s

unconfi r rned). It is not as if this were burl ed in small pri nt; on pa g e

26 of my book (page 46 in the paperback) I reproduce a Dogon

diagra m of this pi anet goi ng around Siri us C . How can M r G ray lin g

make s uch an obv ious error? Is he more i ntent on his theory than 0 n

th e fa cts? If you are offering a 'better' theory you shoul d at leas! pay

attention to the one you are 'bettering '. M r G rayling nowhere

mentions the information from the Dogan about the possible existence

of a S irius C . Nor does he provide any explanation of how the Dogon

I 6 17




knew of other invisible bodies in space - the four major moons of

J u pi ter and the ri n gs of aturn. Did these 'flare ' too? How do the y

know of the superdense matter which composes the while dwarf S fa r

and express it so dearly? How did they know that cosm ic orbits are

elliptical? How did they know that all cosm ic bodie rotate on th e i r

axes, and that the Earth rotates on its axis as well as revolving around

the Sun') How did they have a concept of a solar system , describing not

one but two solar systems separated by in terstell ar space? How did

they know that OUf Galaxy is swirling in space and contains countless

worlds? They correctly understand the distinction betw een planers

and stars and between the olar y [em and the G alaxy, and that 0 the rsolar systems attach to other stars. They also speak of in te II i ge n t

beings in yet other solar systems of whom they say they know only by

repute. And yet any number of people in the street today in a modern

city, who have had supposedly good education, do Dot know the

difference betw een a star and a planet much less all the other t h in g .

Even in thi • pace age ' such ignorance is w idespread, and it nee r

ceases to astound me when I frequently encounter it.

W here are M r Grayli ng s sol u tions to these problems? He adm i ts t hat

his theory is intended to' ex p i ai n a way "The S iri us Mystery". ' T h is

means that be wants at all costs to be rid of it. H e is nO I interested in

explaining, but in explaining away, which i very different. And he

even gives his motive: '(M y theory) does not demand a radical

change in our views.' And also: • If Temple's theory is right, then 0 f

course our view of history, of the universe, and of ourselves, would

have to be changed radically.'

W ould that be so terrible?

IN DEFENSE OF THE SIRIUS MYSTERY

REPLY TO JAMES OBERG (1980)

M ost theories about 'ancient astronauts' have failed to impress

scholars, who hold that uch peculations are based on poor re ea rc h,

flim y evidence and bogus information. One book, however, has

attracted re pectful attention even in England's presti gious sci en t i fi c

journal Nature: Robert K. G . T em pl e' s The Sirius Myste,.y (St Marti n ' S

Press, 1976).

The book deals w ith the mythology of W est A frica 's Dogon tribe,

which posses es information about the composition of the irius s La r

system (and our own solar sy tern a well) that conforms to modern

astronom ical knowledge. The Dogon know , for example, about a

srnal ler star (astronomers call ir S iri us B) whic h ci rei e s Siri us - eve n

thouah this star is invisible from Earth. But that is not all they know.

Te~ple w rites, They know that the star's orbital period is 50 years,

which it really is. They know that S irius A is not at the centre of its

orbit, which it i not. They know that Sirius A is at one of the foci of

S i ri us B 's ell i plical orbit, which it is. They know that Si rius B is the

smallest kind of star, which it is. They know that Sirius B is composed

of a special kind of material which is called sagala, from a r o o t

meaning "strong", and that this materia l is heavier than all the iron

on earth, etc. all of which i perfectly true.'

The Dogon make a further claim : that the Sirius systemth i rd star, around wh ich orbits a planet popu Iated by

bei n gs. Thi bel ief, u nl ike the others, has not as yet been

by astronomers. The Dogon also say that N ommo, a being

Siriu system , founded civilization on Earth.

In an arti c le pu bl ished in Fate (' A ncierit Astronauts in W est

Africa?', November L978 issue) James E . Oberg takes issue w it h

Temple's conclusi ons He suggests that the S iri us bel i efs are not

nearly so old as Temple contends, that in fact they may have bee n

passed on to the Dogon by European m i ionaries. He disputes the

contention that an earthlike planet could exi ( in the Sirius y tern

and q uesrions Temple 's assertion that he has traced the Si ri us my t h

into antiquity. 'W e need more reliabLe evidence -especially theories

that can be tested,' he says.

Temple's reply follows: .

In my book The Sirius Mystery I suggested that astronom ic a l

information \ hich the Dogon tribe of M ali, W e t A fric a, po ssesse s

about the Sirius star system may have come from extraterrestria l

sources. The key word here is may. Nowhere do I say, as James Oberg

claim s [do. that I have been able to 'establish the certa inty that r h e

informants were extraterrestrial.' I make crystal-c lear at all ti rn e s

that what I have suggested i an hypothe is only:

Oberg says that I remark on the absorption of a hrist-figure into

Dogon culture -'obviously a recent addition ' in his view . T nowhere

contains aintelligent

confirmed

from the

Tn the November 1978 issue of the American magazine Fate, James

Oberg published a long second attack on my book entitled 'Ancient

A tronauts in W est A frica?' I w as invited by the editors to repJ and

did so in the October 1980 issue, pp. 83-88, in an article entitled "I n

Defence of The Sirius Myste, .y '. In the introductory remark written

by the Editor preceding my reply, he stales: 'The Dogon make a

further claim : that [he irius system contains a third star aroundwhich orbits a planet populared by intelligent beings. This bel ie f ,

unlike the others, has not as yet been confirmed by astronomers.' As

we have seen in Chapter One of my revised edition of The Si r iu s

Mystery, the third star, S irius C , has now indeed been confirmed, th us

providing a splendid confirmation of the Sirius Mystery hypothesis

b y the ultimate scientific method: confirmation of a prediction.

1 8 19




ugge t that a Christ-figure was absorbed into the culture. There are

some such elements present but I believe them to be indigenous: there

is no anthropological evidence this i a recent addition to the Do zons'"elief-system. 'Christ figures' - Osiris for one prominent example -

existed in mythology long before Christ was born.

According to Oberg I maintain that 'the inhabitants

aq uatic because in Greek the word for "S i ri us" sounds

for "siren", a "mermaid' . Not true, as anyone who had

carefully would know. On page 65 I refer, entirely in

Greek word for siren and its similarity [0 the word for

absolutely no conclusions of any kind.

Oberg remarks that Dogan beliefs about the four moon of Jupiter

are wrong because Jupiter has over a dozen moon. He negl CIS 10

mention that Jupiter has only four major moons; the rest are t i ny

insignificant bodies by compari on. Although technically 'moon',

they are hardly in the same category. I dealt with this matter on page

28 of my book.

Oberg writes, 'Europeans... lal ked about the discovery of a th i rd s tar

in the Si ri us system, al though later in vesti ga ti ons rul ed O UL L hat

possi b il i ty, Again, not qui te true. A ib i rd star in the Si ri us sy s te m,

named IfIus C by the astronomers who saw it, was 0b s e r v e d

repeated I y by different as tronorner in the I 920s, Attempts to see t his

star in recent years have been unsuccessfu I and an a p par en L

perturbation in the motion of the primary star, iriu A, thought tohave been detected earlier and linked to a third star in the s stem, has

been disproven. This however has no bearing whatever on the

que tion of whether or not an outer star exists; uch a star would

cause a pertu rba ti on over a much Ie ngth ier period than the 0 n e

scientists thought they had observed.

So the possible existence of a th i rd star in the Siri us system has no l

been 'ruled out' by any means, To the contrary, it remains a distinct

possibility.

Tn fact, the description by the Dogon tribe of a third star in lh e

Sirius system maintain that it i four times li ahter in weight than

Siriu B, which in modern astronomical terms ~vould mean that it is

what astronomers call a red dwarf star. In recent years we h a v e

discovered that red dwarf star can be flare stars; in other words they

flare up by one or two magnitudes and then subside asain. What

makes this so interesting i that the Dogon information'" not only

predates astronomy's discovery (made in the 1970s) that red d IV ar ( s

can be flare stars but also prov ides a possi b le ex pI anati on of how a

star in the Sirius system could be seen and later not seen. Can it be

that there is indeed a Sirius C and that it is a red dwarf which in t h e

1920s flared and became briefly visible from Earth before s u bsid i n se

of irius are

like the word

read my book

passing, to the

i rius , drawing

ag a i n?

It may be possible to know thi

observatory of (he 1980s will

within our lifetimes.

carry equipment full

The orb it ing

capable of

20


making a search for iriu . An apodized optical telescope might be

capable of doing the ame from Earth even ooner. Orevenrually a

spinning infrared interferometer, sugge led recently by Dr R. N,

Bra ewell, might bring results.

Such a search of the Sirius system should be carried out. The Sirius

system is the only star system for whi eh we ha e re table pre d ic t ion s

made by a possibly extraterrestrial source from the past. The basis 0 fscience IS supposed to be the use and testi ng of p r ed i c t iv e

rnechani sms, We have in the Dogon info rrnat i on apr ed ic ti v e

mechanism which it is our duty 10 test, regardless of our 0 w n

preconceptions. If a Si ri us C is ever found again th is would go a Ion gway toward confirming the accuracy of the Dogon claims. More

specifically, if a InU C is ever discovered and found to be a red

dwarf, I will conclude that the Dagon inf rrnation has been fully

alidated.

The Dogon also mention a period of rotation of Sirius B: 'It revolve

upon itself over the period of one year and tbis revolution [sic-

rotation] is honoured during the celebration of the bado rite.' Thi

rotation is astronomi cally possi ble but IV hether it is correct or not we

cannot yet know. Here, then, is anether datum to be in v est iga te d

when it is possible.

A notber is the Dagon descri ption of a sua nge prox i mi ty effect i n

the irius ystern. The Dogon maintain that when Sirius B is close to

irius, Sirius become brighter and \ hen it. is furthest away, Sirius B

give off a twinkling effecL uggestlng, they ay, everal stars [Q the

observer. Page 40 of my book contains a Dog n diagram of the

elliptical orbit of Sirius B around Sirius, with the closest and furthest

positions of Sirius B indicated on the diagram in relation to Sirius A.

For the representation of its fart hes I po i rion, the Dogon have S how n

Sirius B as 'a small cluster of dots [which] represent the star when it is

furthest from Si ri us.'

When it becomes possible to observe the Sirius system from a

satellite, will we discover something of this kind? Will it be possible La

detect, from an observatory based on the moon, the proximity effect

and the twinkling -if they truly exist -in less than the fifty years i t

takes for irius B to move around Sirius A? Although it may be years

or even decade before we know the answers these questions should

be clearly stated now because, as I have said, predictions are thee sence of science and here we have some.

When Oberg says rhat astronomers [do not] bel ieve that any

earthlike planets could exist [in the Sirius system] long enouah for

life to emerge and develop,' does he mean a II as tro no rner s - ~r jus L

those with whom he has discussed the subject? He certainly c a nn o t

include (he many astronomers I have talked with; they tell me that a

life-bead ng planet could have evol ved i 11 tbe Si ri u sy tem.

The consensu of a tronornical opinion - [ hope Oberg note the

phra eology and learns something from it - seems to be that a Ii f e-

21




bearing planet, if it existed, would have to be in orbit around an outer

star in the Sirius system, for ifi l. were in orbit around an inner s tar,

conditions would not be favourable. In fact, this is precisely what the

Dogon mai main is the case. Once again we find Dogan i, n fo r m at ion

conform ing (0 scientific know ledge.

The Dogon clearly state that th is Ii fe-beari ng planet known as II y if n

t o t o or e n e g i r i n or e m m e = g i r i n (the latter IWO names being puns 0 n

each other) orbits around the star emme ya which they say is L h e

thi r d star in [be S iri us system and whi ch ] have referred to as Si r ius

C. The Dogon state that this star, S irius Cwe may call it, 'navels along

a greater trajectory' than Siri us B, It is obv iously, then, an outer s ta r ,

They also say that its orbital period is the same as that of Sirius Rnamely fifty years,alLhough another account says thirty-two years.

The ex i stence of these IwO d iff ere n t fi g u res. both trea ted a s

a uthenric by the priests, suggests t hat the orbi tal period may 11a II e

become garbled. According to Kepler's Jaws an outer star could no!

have an orbi tal period less than that of an inner star, so an 0 l!t e r

Sirius C cannot possibly have an orbital period of thirty-two yea r s

around Sirius A. On page 26 of my book I show a Dogan diagram of the

orbi t of the planet nyifn 1010 around Siri us C. This pia neta ry orbi tis

represen ted as bei n g dearly el J iptical and it protrudes outwards fro m

what appears to be a widely distant orbit of Sirius C around the inn e r

Sirius system. The impl ication of this diagram is that S iri us C not a n I y

has a 'greater trajectory' but is a very far outer star,The Dogoninformation about Sirius C's orbital period. then. must be

not only garbled (or perha ps concea led in li ne w ith a sec r e [ i v e

tradition) but only partially true; these figures of fifty years and

th i rty-two years may represent peri odiciti es in the orbi t de pe n den t

on C's proximities to Sirius B or something of a similar nature.

Recently the questi on of a possi ble third star in the Siri us s y s t e m

has received renewed attention in the astrono m ical commu n i ty. Drs

Richard Donnison and Iwan P. W illiams of the University of London,

their interest stimulated by The Sirius Mystery, decided 10 take a

closer look at the matter. They hall e publ i shed an a rticl e ca II ed

'Possi ble Orbits for a Thi rd Star j n Ie Siri us System ' in the t e c h ili c a I

journal Astrophysics and Space Science (56., 1978, pp. 479-82) in which

they pain! out that the visual observations of a Si ri us C d id not a g r e e

w ith the perturbation thought to be detected in the 1930s i n

c an n ec tl on wit h an inner thi rd star but d i sproved in the 1970s.

Re.ga rdi n g a possi bl e Si ri us C, they say, 'No visual detect: on has bee n

made of such a companion since 1.929. This does n01, however, rule o u t

the presence of a thi r d com ponent orbi ti ng the bi nary pai r at I a r g e

di s tances, The IIisual detection made in the late 1920s rni ght then be

ex p lai ned in terms of projecti on effects making Band C appear cl o s e

for a short time. It is, Iherefore , of iuterest to dele rm i.ne under w h at

conditions a third body could be present in the Sirius system w i ho ut

disru pti ng the system.'

22


In order to simplify the problem W illiams and Donnison conceive an

orbi t on the same plane as Si ri us A and Si nus B, although they not e

that resea rchers in celestial dynam ics have known si nee 1972 that a n

orbit of a third body need not be on such a plane at all But w i Ihi 1' 1 the

lim itations of the plane. using computers at the Universtty of London.

W illiam s and Dennison established thai the Sirius system would be

stable if a Si rius C were present at a sufficient di stance,

I! was discovered that, starti n g with the shortest possi bl e s ta b l e

orbit of 275 years, orbits even up to 425 years would still have only a

t iny eccenrrrcrry of 0.3 and would be nearly circular. The longer (h e

period of the stable orbi t. the greater eccentric uy it could have and

the more elliptical it could become. But even so, the stable orbits are so

nearly ci fCU Iar as to make qui ie a contrast to the hi ghly ell ip t ic a l

orbit of Si rius B. I n IIiew or this, it is a remarkable fact - one that goe s

even Iu rrhe r to su b stanti ate the Dogan information - that the Dogo n

draw a nearly circular orbit for Sirius C (see page 26 of my book).

Since the Dagon lay such stress on the ell iplical nature of Sirius B ' s

orbit, one would assume they would do the same with Sirius C,

especial Iy 5i nee the planet goi ng around S iri us C also is gi yen a

high IY el I ipucal orbi t. BUl they do not! The nearly ci rcu Iar 0 r b i L

which the Dogon assign to Sirius C is in full agreement with the

recentty eluci dated req uiernents of eel esri a I mechan ics.

] n their 1978 paper Dennison and Wi lliarns report on hypo t h e li c.a I

studies which demonstrate quite clearly that Sirius C, if it is (0 have astable orbit close enough 10 irius A to support life co n v en t ion a l l y .,

must have a nea rl y ci rcular orbit. Thus we see thai sti II a 11 a l her

aspect of the Dogan information has. been confirmed and found to be

accurate. Another aspect which remains to be verified is I e Ir

contention that S iri us Band S iri us C Ira vel in {he same direction.

Critics of The Sirius Mystery, Oberg included, claim (hat the Dogon

could have received their extraordinarily detailed information about

the irius system from while men, specifically missionaries. To check

this possi bi Iity, I IV rote to the Father uperior of the White Fat her s

M ission in Mali and asked when the firs! missionaries were sent to ! e

Dogon areas. He replied thai the earliest missionaries arrived in 1949.

By that time anthropologists had already obtained the Dogon S i ri us

info rrnati on. 1 sent a photostat of this letter to a IV e 11- k no IV n

journal lst. He chose to ignore the letter: ina subsequent account h e

faded to mention what the Father S uperio r said and asserted !at

missionaries arrived earlier to implant the Sirius material into the

minds of the Dogan.

Could other white men have given this information 10 the Dogon?

We must remember that 1926 is the earl lest date at whi ch iri us B IV a s

known in the W est to be a white dwa rf star. Therefore we m us t

env isage a wh ite physicist who rushed OUI to A fri c a ina hurry to te I I

the Dagon before the French anthropologists arrived in t931! Every

a n th ropologi s t with whom J have di s cussed the possi bi lity that IV hit e

23



The Siriu Mystery Pamphlet

men were responsible for the Dogan ideas ha di mi ed the idea as

impo ible. Dr Germaine Dieterlen, the world s authority on the Dogon

and Secretary-General of the ociete des Africainiste, said in a BB

television interview that this notion i aburd'. he then held up In

front of the cameras an ancient Dagon statue portraying irius A,

Sirius B and Sir ius C together. The tatue, she said, i at least 400 years

old.

Suggestions that white men gave this knowledge to the Dogan

involve other improbable assumptions. And they also ignore the

larger body of evidence my book cites. I attempt to show, for example,

that the information possessed by the Dogon was known in r em ot e

antiquit . To date no one ha ucceeded in showing that I have erred

in any of this material. Superficial critics merely a either that they

cannot read that section of my b ok (which may ay om thing about

their reading abilities) or that it is 'unconvincing But omethi 11 g

that is unconvincing can surely be shown to be unconvincing.

Oberg criticizes a geodetic pattern I discovered. This pattern for m

an aproximately equi lateral triangle. He say that one side is rea II y

376 miles and another side is 432 miles (which of course would make it

nonequilateral). But the pattern published in my book was drawn bya

professional cartographer who earns his living by drawing reliable

maps for an international corporation. He measured the same

distance \ ith his customar accuracy and found them to be n ear I

equal to one another and b no mean the lengths Oberg claims.o we ace this problem: the cartographer' m asuremeru do not

agree with [hose claimed b Oberg. Which, then, correct? Oberg

does not tell us what techniques he used to do the mea urement and

instead makes an unsubstantiated statement. Perhaps he is unaware

that the d iffe renti al cu rv atu re of the earth va riou Iy distorts

distances shown on maps. The cartographer took all such factors into

account. Did Oberg? I suspect not. I actually watched [he c a r tog r ap her

check my map, since J refuse to publish any map that has nOI bee 11

experrl y vetted in that way.

Oberg criticizes me everely for my work in ancient

fail to substantiate any of his arguments. He produce

show where I am wrong except f r the one about the

somethins I never said.

In my view it is pointle s to attack someone in print unle you can

su bs tantiate what you are sayi ng. 111CeOberg cannot do so, \ e nee d

not concern ourselves with his criticisms of The Sirius Mystery.

languages but

11 0 e ample to

iren, which is

DISTORTED EVIDENCE FROM E. C. KRUPP (1977)

In 1977. the Director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles was Dr

E. C. Krupp. The Observator published a small magazine called 1h e

Grif fi th Observer. In the epternber 1976 issue f this masazine a v e r y

24

The Sirius Mysiery Pamphlet

long and favourable re iew of my book appeared by Thomas Lee

e er, of the M Donnel Planetarium In ILouis, Missouri (pp. 8-15)

containing twelve illu tration and saying that I had written 'an

e urernely wel l-wri uen and docu men ted book.' The article g av e

detai led attention [0 many of my most important points, examining

them and commenting on them favourably, and thus continued t h e

friendly astronomical coverage of my book which had commenced I n

The Observatory and Nature. Sever had obviously done this by

responding to the journal's invitation to review my book. This .seems

LO have infuriated E. C. Krupp, who pu bl i shed a! 11'0- page postscn pt 0 f

hi 0\ n to Sever' article entitled 'On Not Taking It Seriously', acidly

observing that whereas 'We are very grateful, therefore, to Mr Tom

Sever for his report ... Temple's c nclusions are so unorthodox ... t h a t

hi evidence and his handling of it demand the most careful review.

Krupp cast aspersion on my work and concluded the whole mystery

was more likely 'either a collection of good and bad guesses or a

aarbl ed record of old and recent astronomical tradi 1 ions'. He rid i cui ed

~he fact that the Dogan spoke of the four invisible Galilean satellites

of J upi ter by sarcasti call y saying: 'J up i ter has at least f 0u rt e en

satellites, and visiting spacemen inclined 10 pass this kind of fact

along should have been more accurate.' This implies that some

pacemen landed and chatted with the Dogan, and weren't specific

enough - a complete nonsense supposed to be my fault! For a n

astronomer to make thi cheap poi nt about the III ons of J upi ter i a IIthe more di appointing in that any astronomer knows perfectly \ ell

that there are only four major moons of Jupiter, and the rest are

tiddly little bit of rock which are only called moons' for lack of a

twofold terminology excluding such space rubbish from bei n g

srarued the di snit of the name of 'moon'. Nor is there any certainly" "hat those bits of space junk were circling Jupiter anyway in 3500 BC

when 1 have proposed a possible extraterrestrial visit to Earth.

Anyone actually travelling through space must differentiate

terminologicall between a genuine moon and a bit of rock! Our own

astronomers often que rion, in fact, whether Pluto should really be

called a planet. When we start gelling out and about in space more, we

shall have LO refine our terminology. But even assuming that none of

this were rele ant, and that extrater re trial visitors spoke to

earthlings of the moons of Jupiter and said there were four large and

ten small, and did so 5,500 years ago, should we dismiss the en tire

Sirius Mystery because the Dogon didn't mention it?

The Griff ith Observer brought out a special issue in July 1977, on the

theme of 'Assorted Ancient Astronauts'. E. C . Krupp wrote a very long

article called 'The van Daniken Phenomenon' in which I was

mercifully not mentioned. But in the issue for October 1977, a Jewish

scholar of the Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, Marvin Arnold

Luckerrnan, wrote an article called 'More iriu Difficulties' inspired

by the discus ion of my book but consisting entirely of his own ideas

25




about ancient Sirius lore, which were very interesting. The chief

attraction of the article to me was the spectacular photograph of

Siriu B taken by Lick Observat ry which accompanied it, and which I

had never seen. Luckerman wrote to me in July 1978, and ent the

article. That was the first time I had ever heard of the Griffith

Observer and I immediately wrote asking for copies of the earlier

material, which [ eventually received.

E. C, Krupp wrote on 21 November 1977, 10 my literary agents in New

York, requesting permission to reproduce in a forthcoming book by

himself an illustration fromThe Sirius MYSTery,

and enclosing his

version. They passed this request on to me, fortunately. If they had

granted a routine perrni sion Krupp could have aid I had approved.

My reply to Krupp of 5 December expresses my awareness of his

intentions and refuses cooperation:

'The illu tration to which you refer [Figure 9 in the revised edition

of the book] was originated by myself and then profes ionally drawn

for reproduction by an artist, from my own non-professional

drawing.

"I would caution you to lake note of the qualifications expressed in

the caption,

'I cannot extend to you permission [0 use the illustration ... The top

left of your redrawing is a gro distortion of the Dogan diagram. I

could never condone its use in connection \ i h m name in a n y

event. '" You do not ha e my p rmission to reproduce your drawing asit stands in any edition of your b ok ... '

What Krupp or the Griffith Observatory had done was to m is-d fa w

the Dogan diagram of the orbit of irius B and use thi t recreate my

"ex te nsion- rbr ou gh- t ime ' drawing so that it no longer corresponded

to the modern astronomical version of the same thing. The use K TU PP

intended 10 make of this distorted evidence would soon appear.

M eanwh i Ie, two as tro no rners, ev idently a father and son, n am e d

Pesch and Pesch, Iaunched a second c ri tiq ue of me in the Dece m be r

1977 issue of the Griff ith Observer. They had already publ ished the

very same article in The Observatory. Now they publi hed it again and

called it 'The Last Sirius Inquir ?', and di ine venaeance got their

fir t name wrong on the article, where they v ere called Roland and

Poland! E. C. Krupp wrote the introductory remarks, aying of the

Pesch and Pesch article that ' till more reinforcement have a rri v ed

in thi article'. He thus clearly saw an amassing of attacks against me

as a crusade, and he was sti II ev idently smartt ng from the len g t h y

prai se [had recei ved in his own pages from Sever. He had re c e i v ed

permission from The Observatory to give a further amng La Ihis

attack. The Pesch and Pesch article largely concerned itself IV i t h

Dogon information. But so superficial was their familiarity with the

subject that they stated (in their footnote 3) that the anthropologist

Germaine Dieterlen had only worked with the Dogan until 1952! The

true fact are that as far a I know she is still going [here fa rty- fi v e

years later! At lea t, she was the last I saw olange de Ganay in Pa ri s

about three year ago.

The Pesches claimed that (he Dogan had not said that the orbit of

Sirius B was an ellipse, except in a sacred song. They pointed out that

one of the Dagon diagrams looked more like an oval than an ell ipse,

and they said i ( was a cosmic egg. But thei r se lecti v e use of e vi den c e

was such that they com plerely ignored the very clear Dagon d fa IV i n g s

of an ellipse, such asi n Figures 4 and 8 of the (revised) Sir i1 s

Mys tery < They also claimed that the Dogan only suggested that S i ri us

had a companion tar because of a necessity to give Sirius a 'twin' dueto their obsession with 'twin-ness'. But this ignore the fact that the

Dogan specified that there were three tar in the Sirius System -and

unless the nature f mathematics has been drastically changed, the

last I heard three does not make twins. Meanwhile, nobod w a

sending me the e issues and I was not awar for orne time that 1 had

been re-attacked by Pesch and Pe ch in thi periodical, 0 could

hardly be expected to reply. In any case, their article was so feeble it

wasn't worth replying [0. Krupp finally sent it to me in August 1978.

Meanwhile Krupp brought out his book In Search of Ancient

Astronamies, which contai ned a section on The Sirius Mystery and I

was attacked on the ba is of Krupp's own redrawn illustration, IV h i c h

he had gone ahead and published despite III protests. He used this

di rorted evidence ~ hich he himself r the Griffith Observatory had

created and implied that my conclusions were therefore wrong! Theaudacity of his doing that still makes me catch m breath.

One of the Pe che , the one named not Poland but Peter, had an 0 the r

go at me in ature, Vol. 283, 28 February 1980, p. 810. He accused me of

'carefully avoiding any reference to articles critical of the claims h e

makes in his book The Sirius Mystery. One such article that readers of

Nat u re might \V ish to know about is Pesch, P. and Pesch, R., The

Observatory ... ' Iinslanl1y wrote the Following reply which Nat ure

refused to publish:

'Dr Peter Pesch ha in y OUT Correspondence columns ... accu ed me

of 'carefully avoiding any reference to article critical of' my book,

The Sirius Mystery. One such is a letter written by him and Dr

Roland Pesch in The Observatory three years ago. There is no t rut h

whatever in Dr Pe ch's assertion, He ha at no time contacted me,

nor has he any way of knowing that I have seen any such articles.

It is necessary for me to respond publicly to his assertion by

informing readers that I was ill for a year and unable to work

properl y for many mon ths on end at the ti me IVhen the letter 0 f

Pesch and Pesch, and some others, appeared. I have neve r man age d

to catch up with my work ....

Finally, I shall reprint here my reply to an attack in Nature by the

astra-physicist Michael Rowan-Robinson, in the context of his rev iew

26 27




of Carl Sagan's critique of me (see Part Ifor that saga and my reply).

My letter was published in Nature, Vol. 283, 17 January 1980:

Readers of Nature may well be aware from the review of my book T'h e

Sirius Mystery in the issue of 17 June 1976 (pp. 617-8), that 'the

problem of the remarkable knowledge of the Dagon people of Mali',

referred to by Michael Rowan-Robinson in hi review of Carl Sagan's

Broca's Brain (8 November 1979. p. 176-7), was fi rst brought to pub J i c

attention by myself. Although in his re lew Rowan-Robinson does not

mention me by name, and in his b ok Sagan barely refer to my

seminal po ilion with regard to public knowledge of thi material

except in passing, anyone truly i nterested in this subject is per f e ct J Y

aware that they are referring to myself when discussing this rnauer.It would b inappropriate for me to discus agans own error here.

But I would like to reply to statement made by Rowan-Robinson, who

says that 'Sagan has performed a useful service in collecting together

examples of public gullibilit and demonstrating how a mixture of

deliberate fraud and uncritical thinking has allowed millions to be

bamboozled .. ' He says this immediately after discussing my material.

Istrongly object to the inference that Ihave been guilty of fraud i n

bamboozling a gullible public, and a for 'uncritical thinking', the

many seriou and thoughtful reviews of my book in this very j 0urn a I

as well as others of d isti nction testi fy to the fact that al though the

implications of my work have aroused controversy, it is not widelythought, nor do Iobviously think my elf, that uncritical thinking' is

a fault of which I have been obviously guilty, especial.Jy amy

conclusions were a.11 expi i cirl y hypothetical.

The anthropologists who have spent the forty-eight years from 1931

living with the Dogon tribe are agreed that the knowledge of the

Sirius system which they possessed could not have come fro mEuropeans, who in any case had themselves only discovered the

superdense nature of Sirius B in about 1926. Knowledge of Sirius B

amongst the Dagon goes back hundred of years, a hown by physical

evidence, ome of which was even held up in front of television

cameras by Dr Germaine Dieterlen, who insisted that it was 400 yea r s

?ld and said that the European contact theory (e poused by Sagan) was

"a bsurd ' .

But Ido not wish to open this controversy again here. It is in thecontext of aying that Sagan has shown that the Dogan information

'could all have been learnt from contacts with Europeans' (which is

untrue) that Rowan-Robinson does me less than justice by saying t hisis better than it having 'been learnt from little green men in UFOs'. J

have never at any time suggested this; Iwent out of my way in mybook to say that I do not believe that UFOs are extraterrestrial craft 0f

any kind, or connected \ ith my subject, and Rowan-Robinson'remarks are there fore a slur agai nst my i 11 tell j gence and qual i ty 0f

work which ImOSI strongly reseal.

28


Rowan-Rob i nson also betrays an indef'e nsi ble bias agai nst the

serious possibility that our planet has at some time in its histor be e n

visited by intelligent extraterrestrials. What i so remarkable aboutthis per se'l Are we so incapable of speculating about these ma uer s

that we deny them solely becau e such a v isuation seems to u s

extraordinar? The electric light bulb would have seemed

ex traordi nary to Plato and A ristoile, but does that rule out the

possibi Ii ty of i IS eventual i nvention? This is the ki nd of inverted log i c

demonstrated by those who e minds are too small for large notions.

29

The Sirus Mystery

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