AAA Meeting Report 12 / 01 / 2024

After a warm welcome to all including a first time visitor, Richard, (our Chairperson) introduced Isabel, (our Treasurer) to raise a couple of salient points for members, one of which was that membership fees are now due for the next year, and to give the membership monies directly to her.

Full details of membership, the minimal contribution towards nightly room hire and the evening meeting agendas are found online: https://www.airdrieobservatory.com/about

Fees are as follows:
Full Member (Waged / Working) : £15 per annum
Full Member (Unwaged / retired) : £10 per annum
Junior Members (Under 18) : £5 per annum
Family Membership : £25 per annum (Up to 2 Adults and all children under the age of 18)
We ask for a donation towards the room hire of £1.00 from members, £2.00 for visitors, children under 18 are free.
We supply tea, coffee, soft drinks and biscuits for the tea break.

SPACE NEWS with Stuart Winning

Note: clips and images hyperlinked herewith may not be the same as those which we were shown.

Stuart started with the latest news about the launch of the ill-fated Peregrine Mission 1. https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=PEREGRN-1 & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrine_Mission_One. Stuart showed us graphic clips of the trajectory as it was planned to circle our Moon, the payload the propellant leak etc, and the domino effect of this Mission 1 which had been an unmanned prelude to mission 2, (also unmanned), which was to provide some set up for mission 3, the ‘boots on the Moon’ Artemis manned mission to the Moon.

It is thought that the ensuing missions 2 and 3 will be delayed about a year each, so at the moment mission 2 in 2005.

(At Launch) Sky News: https://youtu.be/J8owpaAvSxE & https://youtu.be/QdCBSWoHPzs & Post launch: https://youtu.be/lxtWq3kLolo

Stuart moved on the ‘Other launches’:

(We remember that while we may not hear very much about the flurry of activity re near Earth and orbit space technology, nothing stands still in this day and age and there is a lot more going on than we hear about.

Gravity 1 Launch:

Stuart relayed details of the mission and showed us a clip: https://www.space.com/china-orienspace-gravity-1-rocket-launch-success-video https://youtu.be/13e35XZln1o

IGS Optical 8 Launch:

https://www.space.com/japan-spy-satellite-launch-success-igs-optical-8

In his habitual light hearted look at alien activity on and coming to Earth, Stuart’s next topic was ‘Kentucky Needs Aliens’. Details & embedded clip: https://nypost.com/2024/01/11/news/kentucky-scientists-beam-message-to-star-system-40-light-years-away-inviting-aliens-to-visit-state-we-have-bourbon/.

Staying on the theme of Aliens on Earth:

Aliens in Brazil: https://youtu.be/FjelqIYm2wA & explanation: https://youtu.be/L0QZSg1L4mo .

And he rounded off with another Alien false alarm — Aliens in Miami: https://youtu.be/llK2p9aF1cQ / https://youtu.be/LPrvnyIeyDA .

Fast paced and jovial as always, imparting the latest ‘doings’ and plannings in and about space and our universe.

Bang up to date, goof fun and very informative, great Space News Stuart — as always.

After Tea / Coffee break:

AAA member, Sandra Winning, (assisted on tech by husband, Stuart Winning), with her special topic presentation re: The NAZCA Lines.

Sandra started her presentation with a ‘left field’ approach to her main subject matter in form of introduction to the topic via reminding us of two of her previous presentations, the Nebra Sky Disc and German Cosmonaut, Sigmund Werner Paul Jahn.

Sandra next played us an audio clip from Carl Sagan as he contemplated our ‘little blue marble’, suspended in the vastness of space: https://youtu.be/wupToqz1e2g.

We were introduced to a glimpse of the time line of human civilisation: {Embedded — & found along the way: https://kottke.org/18/02/a-timeline-map-of-the-200000-year-history-of-human-civilization , which in part helps to relay the essence of Sandra’s subtopic}.

We were shown various images of humankind’s design from our human built environment evolutionary journey — how and why they were built.

Sandra pointed out that our assumed time line is constantly being pushed back and asked, can we ever know, really, why some of these structures were built? Can we with 20th century mindsets ever tune into the minds and ideologies of these far distant and ancient ancestors, those who for whatever reason designed and built e.g… standing stones? Were they just solar / planetary observational markers? This I took to be the gist of Sandra’s subtopic and is a good point and perhaps a conundrum. To quote Sandra, “So many questions and so few answers”.

Sandra then introduced us to the ‘glyphs’ noting that there were several different types of glyphs:

Hieroglyphs, Pictoglyphs, Pectoglyphs and Geoglyphs. We were shown a chart example of these: Sandra explained what glyphs were: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyph and showed us an example of the various kinds: {I couldn’t find the one example of all — these examples are embedded}:

Heiroglyphs: https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/gardiners-sign-list/ .

Pictoglyph: https://tnmuseum.org/TN225/artifacts/001 .

Pectoglyph: https://www.nps.gov/petr/learn/historyculture/what.htm .

Geoglyphs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoglyph.

Then Sandra introduced the main subject of her presentation: The Nazca Lines — Geoglyphs: {Taking a short cut to the background to the Nazca site, which Sandra relayed so succinctly, I’ve attached this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines} .

Sandra noted that there have been several notable figures who have been trying to unravel the mystery / the reasons behind these lines.

Sandra threw up several line images on the screen; {here’s one of them}: https://www.machutravelperu.com/blog/nazca-lines-map .

We were shown a clip: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=527119532084535 and another from a water dowser — in considering that perhaps the answer was identifying the path of water sources: https://youtu.be/N14Q-9jpAPM .

Sandra introduced us the Paul Kossok, another notable figure in the NAZA lines subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kosok , and others.

Throughout her presentation, adding to her engaging and thought provoking talk, Sandra peppered it with fascinating asides and, in the spirit of Stuart her tech for tonight, she periodically posed us quiz questions along the way.

We looked to the rediscovery of the Nazca lines by Pedro Cieza de León in his book of 1553 {embedded info}: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines..

Sandra then moved to Maria Reiche, the “Lady of the Lines”: {Sandra’s talk was so full of absorbing material that I’m cheating again to encapsulate}… https://youtu.be/oxZqMcJUCrw?si=ZX4_ay0yPrgd-GHz & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Reiche & https://angelusnews.com/voices/maria-reiche-feminist-student-of-the-nazca-lines/ & https://flashbak.com/maria-reiche-and-the-mystery-of-the-nazca-lines-461047/ & https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-german-mathematician-took-responsibility-ancient-peruvian-artifact-180963217/ .

We were shown a clip, in Spanish, but as Sandra pointed out it is very clear what the guide is telling us: https://youtu.be/nxfKXzpAyTk.

So… Sandra asked us, the as yet fundamentally unanswered questions:

What is the meaning of the lines / why are they there?

· Is it to indicate water?

· To mark the Solstice?

· Part of the then indigenous tribe’s religious symbolism?

· Sandra noted that Maria’s idea was that the spider depicted Orion and the monkey part of the big dipper, with the humming having a similar connotation.

· Perhaps an alien landing site? { https://www.nazcalinestour.com/nazca-lines-theories/ }.

So many theories / reasons Sandra again underlined, and also pointed out the sheer size of the images: {Example}: https://www.britannica.com/place/Nazca-Lines .

Sandra touched upon Erik Von Daniken who promoted the :astronaut image’ as being one of the indicators that there was an extraterrestrial answer to these lines and why they were there: { https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_D%C3%A4niken

We were told that The German Nazca engineer, Josef F Blumrich had set out to prove Von Daniken wrong, but had ended up coming to the same conclusion regarding alien influences. She noted that these lines are designed to only be seen properly from the air.

The Flat Mountain a mountain which has been artificially leveled flat: https://youtu.be/NDBGPcAxj8s .

With a couple more clips, Sandra ended her presentation… and wow! What a thought provoking and fascinating one it was! There were some observations and questions which followed as you can imagine.

Richard returned to wrap up this evening’s meeting and, as always, thanked our evening’s Space News and Special Topic presenters Stuart and Sandra, Jack for Tea and Coffee break, mentioning, (and always including), Joyce for usually playing the main part in running the refreshments break in his thanks and this week a mention of Kirsty for bailing in too with coffee / tea break — after which Richard bid everyone have a great weekend.