The Sirius Mystery: New Scientific Evidence of Alien Contact 5,000 Years Ago

Using research in physics and astrophysics, Temple investigates the beliefs of some present-day African tribes that civilisation on Earth is the result of contact from inhabitants of a planet in the system of the star Sirius prior to 3000 BC.

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LibraryThing member Jonathan_M

A difficult but very thorough book which elaborates on a hypothesis first proposed by I.S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan in 1966: that the ancient Babylonian legend of the amphibious god Oannes might represent an instance of paleocontact (i.e., human contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence

thousands of years ago). Robert Temple offers the religious and historical traditions of Mali's Dogon tribe as evidence that Oannes and his cohorts came from a planet in the Sirius star system, and that the knowledge passed on by these alien beings was the basis for Earth's earliest civilizations.

Does Temple make his case? As effectively as it can be made, yes. He draws upon a wealth of historical resources, and it was quite obvious to this reader that the Dogon could not have known about Sirius B (Sirius's companion star, a white dwarf invisible to the human eye; it was discovered in 1862 and first photographed in 1970) unless their ancestors had encountered someone with advanced astronomical knowledge. The objections to Temple's theory are intellectually suspect, predicated solely on the notion that things just couldn't have happened as he claims they did. It has been proposed, for example, that the Dogon learned about the existence of Sirius B from astronomers who were in the tribe's vicinity for five weeks in 1893 to study a solar eclipse. Trouble is, beings from other star systems are depicted in Dogon statuary which is at least 300 years old, and Temple includes photographs of two examples in the book.

Whether or not you agree with the author's conclusions, The Sirius Mystery is a rigorous scholarly work, and will require a period of adjustment for those whose only previous acquaintance with the subject of Paleo-SETI is muddy claptrap like Chariots of the Gods. Temple provides a summary at the end of each chapter, but be prepared to take notes.

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LibraryThing member tuckerresearch

A classic in the "ancient astronaut" genre, Temple's book is the best on the subject. He doesn't make huge leaps (Sitchin), or fabricate evidence (Däniken), he lays the evidence out, cites all of his sources, and makes a good case. Did the Dogon know Sirius was a binary (or trinary) star? Did they

know other strange stuff? A good read.

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LibraryThing member millsge

I had a lot of fun with this book. It's great to suspend disbelief and imagine that there really is a civilization out there. Aside from this, the value of works like this is that they bring out many things for which we have no answer. Academia needs to address itself to the Dogon and not simply

wave their mythology off - vacuums have a way of being filled up.

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LibraryThing member rajaratnam

Very difficult to accept; yet, the writer seems to be well accepted, and this book has been favourably reviewed. A seeker of knowledge cannot close his mind in these circumstances. Certainly challenging, but nor persuasive. How could it?

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