In a remote, rocky, desolate and acrid region of Western Africa, a tribe called the Dogon scratch out a way of life that has changed little over the centuries. With traditions firmly rooted in agriculture, western technology has no place in their lives, although their philosophy and religion is both rich and complex.

The exact origin of the Dogon tribe is lost in history, however they are known to have settled in the Bandiagara Plateau, at the Southern edge of the Sahara desert (where they remain today) some time between the 13^th and 16^th centuries. They are originally believed to have been of Egyptian descent.

Today the tribe has a population of 600,000; 138,000 of whom live in Burkina Faso, with the majority of 462,000 living in Mali itself.

The Dogon way of life is steeped in astronomical tradition based on a knowledge kept by the tribe’s priests that dates back to 3200 BCE. It is this knowledge that makes the tribe so remarkable, for they appear to know facts not supposedly known to man until the twentieth century.

The Dogon have long held that the star Sirius, some 8.7 light years away, has a companion star which is invisible to the human eye. They state that this companion star, which rotates on its axis, has a 50-year elliptical orbit around the visible Sirius and is extremely heavy. They also have knowledge of the rings of Saturn, Jupiter’s satellites and other detailed astronomical data some, of which, it has to be acknowledged is inaccurate.

This knowledge was first recorded by two French anthropologists, Marcel Griaule (below) and Germain Dieterlen following discussions with four Dogon priests in the 1930s. Perhaps none of this seems remarkable, however Sirius B was only seen for the first time by telescope in 1970 when photographed by Irving Lindenblad of the US Naval Observatory. Yet the Dogon had apparently known about this second star for millennia.

The renowned astronomer, Carl Sagan concluded that the Dogon could not have acquired their knowledge without contact with an advanced technological civilisation. He suggested, however, that the civilisation was terrestrial rather than extraterrestrial in origin (1).

Sagan believed that the Dogon gained their knowledge from western travellers who visited the tribes during the 1920 and 1930s. His view is that these travellers would have discussed astronomy with the Dogon priests who would then have weaved this new information into older traditions, which in turn, mislead the anthropologists. However, this is purely conjecture, accurate though it may be.

It is true, however, that there have been French schools in that area teaching geography and natural history in their curriculum since 1907 (the Republic of Mali was formerly known as French Sudan). It has also been noted that there has been a nearby Muslim University at Timbuktu since the 16^th century and evidence that some members of the Dogon fought side by side with the French during the First World War (2). Could these have been the sources of the Dogon knowledge?

Robert Temple, author of ‘The Sirius Mystery’ thinks not. "The two French anthropologists [Griaule and Dieterlen] started their work in 1931, and they are positive that the Dogon knew details about Sirius B when they arrived …Eddington revealed the superdensity of Sirius B around 1926 … so there is a narrow period …when one has to imagine some group of amateur Western astronomers rushing out to … Mali and implanting this knowledge in the presumably pliant minds of the Dogon."(3)

The Dogon account for their ‘forbidden’ knowledge, however, appears equally unlikely. They claim that a people from the Sirius system called the ‘Nommo’ visited Earth thousands of years ago.

The Nommos were described as ugly, amphibious creatures that resembled mermen and mermaids (right). (Incidently, it should be remembered that humans and other mammals originally evolved from amphibians.)

According to Dogon legend, the Nommos lived on a planet that orbits another star in the Sirius system. They landed on Earth in an ‘ark’ that made a spinning descent to the ground with great noise and wind. Temple gives the following account of this event. "The [Dogon] descriptions of the landing of the ark are extremely precise. The ark is said to have landed on the earth to the north-east of the Dogon country, which is where the Dogon claim to have come from originally.

"The Dogon describe the sound of the landing of the ark. They say the ‘word’ of the Nommo was cast down by him in the four directions as he descended, and it sounded like the echoing of the four large stone blocks being struck with stones by the children, according to special rhythms, in a very small cave near Lake Debo. Presumably a thunderous vibrating sound is what the Dogon are trying to convey. One can imagine standing in the cave and holding one’s ears at the noise. The descent of the ark must have sounded like a jet runway at close range." (4)

The Dogon claim that not only did the Nommos give them knowledge about Sirius B, they also advised that Jupiter has four major moons, that Saturn has rings, and that the planets orbit the Sun. Much of this knowledge was not accepted or known until recent centuries.

These, then, are the two known accounts of how the Dogon received their knowledge of Sirius B (the tiny dot to the lower right of the large star Sirius pictured on the first page of this chapter.) Whilst Sagan’s theory has more immediate appeal, it does not account for a 400 year old Dogon artefact that apparently depicts the Sirius configuration, nor the ceremonies held by the Dogon that can be traced back to at least the 13^th Century to celebrate the cycle of Sirius A and B, nor how they knew about the super density of Sirius B, a fact only discovered a few years before the anthropologists recorded the Dogon story.

These facts are enshrined in ancient Dogon rituals, portrayed in sand drawings, built into their sacred architecture and can be seen in carvings and patterns dating back hundreds if not thousands of years.

So, how can this knowledge be accounted for? It certainly predates the modern ‘discovery’ of Sirius B by hundreds of years and therefore any talk of westerners contaminating the Dogon traditions becomes irrelevant.

Yet it is unlikely that if the Dogon had had early contact with an extraterrestrial race that this would have happened in isolation. We know that the Dogon originated elsewhere in Africa spreading out to Mali by the 13^th to 16^th centuries. There should therefore be evidence of this contact, if it did happen, in the traditions of other related cultures.

And there is, for the creatures described by the Dogon also feature in Babylonian, Greek and Sumerian mythology.

From Berossus, a Babylonian priest, there is a description of creatures known as the ‘Annedoti’, the ‘Repulsive Ones’. These Annedoti were fishmen who introduced civilisation. The first and most famous of these was called ‘Oannes’ or ‘Oe’, who instructed the Babylonians "in everything which could tend to soften manners and humanise mankind" (5).

Fishbodied aliens are also featured in Greek mythology, notably in the island of Rhodes, with its culture-bearing gods, the ‘Telchines’. (Above, the hounds of Actaeon. According to legend, these were the survivors of the Telchines.) Diodorus Siculus, the Greek historian, wrote that they were "the discoverers of certain arts and introduced other things which are useful for the life of mankind." (6). Other texts speak of them being "submarine magic spirits". They had "dog’s heads and flippers for hands" (7). The Philistines also worshipped "Dagon and Atargis"; two amphibian deities who had human bodies but the tails of fish.

There is also some evidence to tie the Dogon claims into Egyptian mythology. The Egyptian dog god Anubis is often identified with Osiris, companion of the goddess Isis. Temple concludes that as Isis herself was identified with Sirius, it is reasonable to suppose that her companion was identified with the companion of Sirius, suggesting that the Egyptians knew of the existence of Sirius B.

Temple realised the implications of his work: "When I started writing this book [The Sirius Mystery] in earnest in 1967, the entire question was framed in terms of an African tribe called the Dogon … the result in 1974 is that I have been able to show that the information which the Dogon possess is really more than 5000 years old and was possessed by the Ancient Egyptians in the pre-dynastic times before 3200BC." (8)

It is this Egyptian connection that is so intriguing. We have already seen that from no-where, the Egyptians suddenly formed a technologically proficient society with astronomical, mathematical and other knowledge that should have been unknown to them. Could the basis of Von Daniken’s claims (as opposed to the evidence he draws on to support them) be accurate?

There is one piece of scientific fact that could prove or disprove the claims once and for all, for the Dogon speak of a third star, Sirius C, around which the Nommos’ planet revolves. If the existence of this star is verified then, the rest of the Dogon claims would have to be taken as probable fact. To date, however, there is no information on the existence of Sirius C. (It should be remembered that it was as late as 1930 that a planet was discovered in our own solar system, so Sirius C could well be undiscovered.)

Yet what we do have is a wealth of information regarding possible extraterrestrial contacts with the planet Earth, and when put together with the Dogon claims, the puzzles over forbidden knowledge, and pictorial evidence, a convincing case appears to emerge.

It is all too easy to assume that the extraterrestrial phenomenon is a product of a latter-day television age and gullibility. Yet sightings of mysterious objects in the sky go back into the depths of history.

Of course the further one goes back, the more fact, myth, culture and religious illustration become blurred, however there are some ‘facts’ that defy reasonable explanation.

One of the earliest possible ‘records’ of extraterrestrial contact was discovered by Tschi Pen Loa formerly of the University of Peking. He found drawings some 47,000 years old on a Hunan Mountain and on an island in Lake Tungting. These granite pictures showed people with large trunks and cylindrical objects in the sky on which similar figures are seen standing (9).

However probably the earliest authenticated report of a UFO can be found in an ancient Indian text called the Samarangana-Sartradhara that dates back to at least 500BCE. In one passage of this text, there is a description of curious machines called ‘vimanas’, which can fly and be controlled by pilots. The same devices are described in the Hindu epics Mahabharata and Ramayana as military machines with the capability of carrying ‘death’ to anywhere in the world.

Roman writers make reference to strange sights in the sky. Livy (59 BCE-AD 17) described a ‘sighting’ in 214 BCE at Hadria in Italy that looked like an alter in the sky. Pliny the Elder (AD23-79) refers to ‘gleaming beams in the sky’ in his De Rerum Naturae, which describes how, in 66BCE, a ‘spark’ fell from a star to the Earth, became as large as the Moon, and then, shrinking in size returned to the sky.

Inevitably we can only speculate as to what was seen. Others who believe in ancient contact have presented cave and rock paintings in support of their arguments.

 Such pictures have been quickly dismissed by others who claim that they are merely pictures of hunters wearing ceremonial head-dresses or masks as a ritual part of their culture. Whilst this may be an acceptable explanation, it does not account for the similarity of pictures from cultures on opposite sides of the oceans thousands of years ago. For example, the above picture (right) is from a pre-historic rock carving near Capo di Ponte in Italy, whilst the picture (above - left) is from the Toro Muerte Desert in Peru, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, yet the headgear drawn is almost identical.

Of course, too much can be read into a couple of primitive pictures, if that’s all that existed, but it in fact there are other strange representations noted in pictures and images throughout the world. For example, this ancient aboriginal cave drawing (above) from 5000 years ago appears to show strange beings with non-human features.

In 1961, the Russian astronomer Alexander Kazantsev brought to the attention of the readers of the then Soviet magazine ‘Smena’ a discovery made by Henri Labote in the Tassili plateau in the Sahara desert. Labote had found sculpted rocks showing figures with strange rounded heads and other mysterious scenes. These sculptures have been dated to circa. 6000BCE (10).

These images are all the more remarkable because of their similarity to the costumes worn in rituals of the Kayapo Indians of Brazil, a tribe that has existed for at least 4000 years. This tribe’s rituals commemorate Gods descending from the heavens bringing with them advanced knowledge and skills.

The ceremonial costume shown here (left) represents such a ‘Teacher from Heaven’. Its resemblance to a modern day astronaut’s suit is remarkable.

Similarly this 3000-year-old statue (right) found on the Equador-Bolivian border also appears to represent a humanoid in a space suit.

Yet caution has to be advised when considering these ancient images for we can only cast modern day man’s eyes over them and offer a modern interpretation of what our ancestor’s were attempting to record.

For some of the images, however, our knowledge of past cultures can offer a better insight into what the artists are trying to portray. For example, at first glance, the Egyptian mural (below) appears to show in the upper left-hand area a helicopter, with the upper right image appearing to be a boat or even a submarine. The image below that resembles an airplane (or even a UFO) and the bottom image could be taken as a jet-plane.

Yet, in fact, the hieroglyphs are not a record of ancient knowledge of machines similar to modern technology, but merely a co-incidental combination of quite common ancient Egyptian symbols.

Again this Japanese Dogu sculpture has been proposed by some as the representation of a ‘space-visitor’.

This 5000-year-old artefact shows a figure wearing what appears to be a helmet, and even goggles that should not have existed in that period of history.

However, although looking bizarre and out of place, the sculpture can hardly be deemed proof of extraterrestrial contact.

Nevertheless some of the ancient images are quite intriguing.

Whilst this Neolithic cave painting from circa 3000BCE from south-west France seems to depict a landscape rich in wildlife but with strange circular discs dotted around the image, other ancient pictures appear to be much more explicit.

Take for example this cave painting from circa 2000BCE found on the Russian-Chinese border. It could of course be argued that our modern eyes can only interpret pictures in certain ways, however (and perhaps falling into this trap) it appears that the figure closest to the viewer is clutching some form of dial, the furthest away individual has a helmet on with antenna, and what appears to be a UFO under some form of propulsion hovering above them both. Few of the features in this picture appear compatible with images that should have formed the everyday world of ancient man.

The above picture appears all the more convincing when compared with the plate (below) which appears to show a type of alien known as a ‘Grey’ and a ‘UFO’. This plate is thousands of years old, however the idea of ‘Greys’ is supposedly a totally modern concept, first featured in Hollywood blockbusters.

It will be remembered that other images of UFOs and alien type figures and astronauts also featured on the stones at Ica, whose origins are lost in the depths of time.

One of the earliest ‘UFO’ reports came from Ancient Egypt. Writer Brinsley Le Poer Trench (left) quotes in his book ‘Sky People’ from a papyrus found amongst the papers of Professor Alberto Tulli, former director of the Egyptian museum at the Vatican. The papyrus was from the original annals of Pharaoh Thutmose III (d.1436BCE), the grandfather of the intrepid Thutmose IV who had investigated the pyramids. Unfortunately it was badly damaged with many of the hieroglyphics being unreadable. Despite this Prince Boris de Rachewiltz was still able to offer a translation:

"In the year 22, of the third month of winter, sixth hour of the day … the scribes of the House of Life found it was a circle of fire that was coming in the sky … it had no head, the breath of its mouth had a foul odour. Its body one rod long and one rod wide. It had no voice. Their hearts became confused through it: then they laid themselves on their bellies … they went to the Pharaoh … to report it.

"His majesty ordered … has been examined … as to all which is written in the papyrus rolls of the House of Life. His majesty was meditating on what had happened. Now after some days had passed, these things became more numerous in the sky than ever. They shone more in the sky than the brightness of the sun, and extended to the limits of the four supports of the heavens … Powerful was the position of the fire circles. The army of the Pharaoh looked on him in their midst. It was after supper. Thereupon, these fire circles ascended higher in the sky towards the south…" (11)