The Mysterious World of Trees and Plants
Plants may look like passive greenery, but beneath the leaves they’re running a sophisticated communication network. Steve will explore how plants sense their world, how they broadcast messages, and why forests operate less like collections of individuals and more like chatty, cooperative societies.
The Enigmatic Ancient Maya
Have you ever wondered about the fascinating and enigmatic civilisation of the Ancient Maya of Mexico and Guatemala? Why and how did they develop such a brilliant and original civilisation in the jungles of Central America, and why did it apparently disappear?Neil will take you from their early development to their glorious apogee around 700-800 AD. Join him in a tour of their wondrous cities, and mysterious culture which has been made so much more accessible by the deciphering of their strange hieroglyphic writing. And then lament their tragic downfall, so soon after such an effervescence, but again relish their subsequent glorious but short-lived resurgence.
PIRATES - The Origins & Truth
The swashbuckling heros and villains of Hollywood.
But what is the truth about Piracy over the last 1000 years, the origins of such as we understand it and its relevance to today
The Dodleston Messages
We all use computers with email and Internet and are used to receiving messages on a daily basis. But back in 1984, when the first BBC Micro computers were being issued to schools in the UK, no one had even heard of the Internet because it wasn't used by the public till 12 years later. So it was a complete shock for a school teacher to start receiving strange messages on his computer, but even more shocking when the sender claimed he was from the year 1533. Neil Ward explains the strange case known as The Dodleston Messages.
AGM and Short Talks Night (NB - Not the First Thursday but the Second)
Members will be presenting a variety of short talks. This evening is open to all, and proved a great success in previous years.
The three speakers for the evening are:
Debbie Pike – An Introduction to Numerology
Tina Reidy – Ley Lines and Dowsing
Roger Anderton - Aliens and AI
Bronze Age Barrows
Where do the lines of Bronze Age round barrows ‘point’ towards in the landscape? What does it show about the beliefs of the people who built them? These round earthen structures, covering burials of the dead, appeared in England about 4000 years ago. They often contained a new shape of pottery, and, for the first time, objects made of copper, bronze, and gold. Some were built alone, others in groups. At least 3,600 individual barrows have been identified in Dorset and the New Forest. One is next to the hall hosting this talk. This talk is about an attempt to find how many lines of barrows can be seen today, and how many of these lines pointed towards predictable astronomical events.
Bird Migration
Bird migration is the seasonal movement of birds between breeding and wintering grounds, driven by food, daylight, and survival. In the UK, migration is a constant aerial traffic jam. Swallows, swifts, and cuckoos arrive each spring from Africa to breed, then vanish south again by autumn. Winter brings the opposite flow: redwings, fieldfares, geese, and ducks pour in from Scandinavia and the Arctic, escaping frozen landscapes.
As a keen member of Milford Conservation Volunteers, Douglas will present us with some interesting facts.
Strange – Weird Events in Weird Times
Andy is a leading researcher into mysteries and cover-ups and is the author of the new book Strange – which launched in July 2025 and should be available at the talk – which examines everyday occurrences of the unexplained and their deeper significance.
Geopathic Stress: How to Protect Your Health and Home
Paul is the author of Geopathic Stress and Electropollution. Geopathic stress can cause a number of different health problems, from feeling constantly tired and persistent ill health to a failure to respond to treatment, and more serious conditions such as cancer, ME and MS. Geopathic stress can be caused by underground water streams and certain types of earth energies, such as energy lines. It is therefore important to make sure that where we sleep and spend a lot of time is a safe place. Paul will explain how to protect yourself and how to check whether you are sleeping in a safe place.
Polynesian Navigation
The Polynesians were masters of navigation and between 1500BC and1300AD, they travelled throughout the Pacific, settling on the islands of what we now call Polynesia. They completed their journeys of hundreds and even thousands of miles without any advance technology or navigation instruments. Instead, they relied on natural clues from the clouds and waves, the behaviour of birds and understanding patterns in the stars. Using great skill and knowledge, they could set their course, determine their latitude and find the way to their destination.
This talk, by Dr John Macdonald will explore some of the methods they used.
The Origin of Numbers and the Foundations of Civilisation
Hugh examines the Star Maps of Gwynedd —over 1,000,000 acres of star maps on the ground in North Wales. Hugh argues that the Star Maps of Gwynedd, composed of 48 constellations, were created by an ancient pre-Younger Dryas people who observed the heavens to understand their movements, and that these people designed and named the constellations to identify their movements over several precessional cycles