The book presents the hypothesis that the Dogon people of Mali, in West Africa, preserve a tradition of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings from the Sirius star system.

A substantial bulk of The Sirius Mystery consists of comparative linguistic and mythological scholarship, pointing out resemblances among Dogon, Yoruba, Egyptian and Sumerian beliefs and symbols.

Noah Brosch explained in his book Sirius Matters that cultural transfer could have taken place between 19th century French astronomers and Dogon tribe members during the observations of the solar eclipse on 16 April 1893.

[7] Others, such as Marcel Griaule's daughter Geneviève Calame-Griaule and an anthropologist, Luc de Heusch, came to criticize Van Beek's dismissal as "political" and riddled with "unchecked speculation", demonstrating a general ignorance of Dogon esoteric tradition.

[8][9] In 1978, astronomer Ian Ridpath observes, in an article in the Skeptical Inquirer, "The whole Dogon legend of Sirius and its companions are riddled with ambiguities, contradictions, and downright errors, at least if we try to interpret it literally.

Furthermore, most Dogon symbology already has multiple levels of meaning; the sketches used to illustrate the Sirius secrets are also used in puberty ceremonies" while pointing out that the evidence for it being recently acquired remains circumstantial.

Skeptic Jason Colavito counts The Sirius Mystery among the body of works in a tradition of ancient astronaut ideas he believes were ultimately inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

[15] An apparent "third star" observed in the 1920s is now confirmed as a background object,[16] something previously suggested by Holberg in 2007: Benest and Duvent found that stable orbits with a period of up to six years exist around Sirius A.