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 (Taken from _Burnham's Celestial Handbook_, Vol. 1, (C) 1978 by Robert
 Burnham, Jr., published by Dover Publications, Inc.  Pages 415 and 416
 are quoted here.)

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 ANOTHER SIRIUS MYSTERY?  In a recent book called "The Sirius Mystery"
 by Robert K. Temple (1975) the claim is made that the existence of the
 white dwarf companion to Sirius was known to the members of the Dogon
 tribe of Mali in Africa, a people whose religion and culture involves
 unusually sophisticated concepts concerning the stars and planets.
 According to the two French anthropologists M. Griaule and G. Dieterlen
 of the Societe des Africanistes in Paris, the Dogon have long had a
 tradition of an unseen companion to Sirius, with an orbital period of
 50 years, and consisting of a material called "sagla" ("strong") which
 is said to be vastly heavier than any metal on the Earth, "so heavy
 that all earthly beings combined cannot lift it."  According to Temple,
 the Dogon also accept a heliocentric theory of the Earth's motion, and
 are familiar with with the four large satellites of Jupiter, and know
 that the planet Saturn is surrounded by a ring which "is different
 from the ring sometimes seen around the Moon."  Evidently, as Temple
 says, "the obvious parallels between this tribal information and the
 known facts concerning true Sirius B are to elaborate and precise to
 be ignored."  He suggests that the Dogon reverence for Sirius may have
 been inherited from ancestors who once lived in Egypt, but admits, of
 course, that this would not explain their seemingly scientific know-
 ledge of the nature of the star's faint companion.

 If these are indeed genuine tribal traditions, we would seem to be
 faced here with a truly inexplicable enigma.  The "traditions"
 concerning the Jovian moons and Saturn's rings, however, would seem
 to lead us to the virtually unavoidable conclusion that these people
 have at some time in the past been in contact with travelers from the
 western world who had some astronomical knowledge.  "Surely the most
 reasonable hypothesis, state I. W. Roxburgh and I. P. Williams of Queen
 Mary College in London, "is that fairly soon after the discovery of
 Sirius B, a missionary, explorer, or French administrator, by accident
 or design, comes across this tribe of Sirius-worshippers and decides
 to give them new information about their god.  He may even have had a
 telescope with him (a very popular piece of hand luggage in Victorian
 times) which he used to demonstrate his knowledge of the heavens,
 showing Jupiter's satellites and Saturn's rings.  The Dogon would
 rapidly absorb such information into their religion so that by the
 thirties, when they were anthropologically investigated, the knowledge
 about Sirius B had become firmly part of their traditional beliefs."

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  SLMR 2.1a  UFOs?  Just another phenomenon of nature...