Dogon

A Dogon Sixth Eye. (TW: Random Shoes)

The Dogon were a thirteen-eyed reptilian race.

Biology

The Dogon were a reptilian species who evolved on a world with a climate colder than that of Earth. (WEB: torchwood.org.uk)

Dogon eyes

Four of the eyes of a Dogon were for sight, six for show, but one of the other three eyes (referred to as the Dogon Sixth Eye) had special abilities. (WEB: torchwood.org.uk)

This sixth eye was located on the back of the head and was nearly the size of a golf-ball, though it looked more like a shifting blue marble. This eye allowed a person to look back clearly on their life and make better choices, especially if swallowed.

Oddly enough, Eugene Jones steadily gained more physical contact with the world after swallowing a sixth eye and then dying. He was able to influence the mind of Gwen Cooper and eventually became corporeal and seemed to float into an afterlife. (TW: Random Shoes)

What the other two eyes could do is unknown, though Dr Rajesh Singh believed they also had special powers.

History

The Dogons developed space travel and occasionally travelled to Earth, first visiting it as early as 1666 at the time of the Great Fire of London. They usually left behind their so-called Sixth Eyes. (WEB: torchwood.org.uk)

In the 1980s, Mr Garret found a Dogon Sixth Eye while golfing. In 1992, he gave it to Eugene Jones as a consolation prize for a science competition. (TW: Random Shoes)

Though unstated, it is likely that the eye came to Earth via the Rift.

In 2005, a Dogon spaceship with a crew of twenty crashed in the river Humber and were studied by the crew of Torchwood One. After the Battle of Canary Wharf, Dogon Sixth Eyes appeared on eBay and became very popular in Belgium. (WEB: torchwood.org.uk)

In 2007, Eugene decided to sell his Dogon eye on eBay. His friends Gary and Josh bid on it to cheer him up. However they accidentally won. They planned to buy the eye and resell it at a higher price. When they tried to take the eye by force, Eugene swallowed it and ran away. Though he was later killed, the eye brought him back as a ghost-like being, allowing him to help Gwen Cooper investigate his death. He remained halfway between life and death even when the eye was removed from him. Torchwood Three retrieved the eye. (TW: Random Shoes)

The collector Henry Parker also had a Dogon eye. (TW: A Day in the Death)

Behind the scenes

• The name Dogon is probably taken from the African Tribe of the same name, that is said by some UFO researchers to to have links to flying saucer and alien lore in its mythology.