Fact check
Is it true: The Dogon and Sirius B: Did Amphibious Aliens Teach an African Tribe About an Invisible Star??
There's no solid evidence for it.
The extraterrestrial-contact claim is unsubstantiated and, in its strongest form, debunked. The specific astronomical facts were known to Western science well before Marcel Griaule's 1930s-40s fieldwork, and Walter van Beek's 1991 restudy found Dogon informants did not reliably hold the Sirius-B knowledge Griaule reported and said they had learned about the star from Griaule himself. Ordinary cultural contact, plus a leading ethnographer, explains everything without aliens.
The claim
The Dogon people of Mali possessed detailed ancient knowledge of Sirius B, the invisible white-dwarf companion of Sirius and its roughly 50-year orbit, which they could only have obtained from amphibious extraterrestrial visitors called the Nommo.
Key evidence
Griaule and Dieterlen reported Dogon lore of a Sirius companion star
Van Beek's 1991 restudy could not reproduce the Sirius-B lore
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