The TV show "Ancient Aliens" produced by the History channel tends to
present "theories" of past human-extraterrestrial
interactions. These ideas and theories are at best
pseudo-science. One such claim is that the Dogon people of Mali
were given knowledge of a companion star(s) to Sirius by
extraterrestrials ("The Visitors", Season 1, Episode 2). The
show tends to ignore any challenges to the claim and scientific
evidence that refutes the claim (of which there are plenty). It is
unfortunate that the History channel promotes these ideas as
accurate and/or history.
b. Questions to think about while watching the show:
Where does the show get their information?
What does the commentator mean by the knowledge of the orbit is correct?
Does a star called Sirius C actually exist?
What evidence is there that the Dogon had this information for
centuries before the visit of anthropologists in the 1920's?
2. Read book/article where the claim came from:
Temple, Robert K. G. "The Sirius Mystery" link
Griaule, M. & Dieterlen, G., "A Sudanese sirius System" - translated
and reprinted in "The Sirius Mystery" link
3. Read the challenges to the claim:
Oberg, J., 1982 "The Sirius Mystery" from the book "UFOs and Outer
Space Mysteries" link
Pesch, P. R. 1977, The Observatory, 97, 26 article
van Beek, W. E. 1991, Current Anthropology, 32, 139 article
4. Investigate the claim from a probabilistic viewpoint:
What type of star is Sirius?
What is the probability that a star has a companion?
5. Investigate third companion claims - scientific evidence:
a. No evidence of a third companion (Sirius C):
Bonnet-Bidaud, J. M. & Pantin, E. 2008, A&A, 489, 651 link
Thalmann, C., et al. 2011, arXiv:1104.1427 link