Creator:egal Credit:Getty Images/iStockphoto
Author Mike Klepper once said, “Of everything we must first ask: is it real or not?” As a human, your entire ideology stems from the teachings of textbooks, teachers, parents, etc. Ultimately, humans are able to choose what and who they want to believe. Recently, a conspiracy theory questioning the very shape of our Earth has resurfaced, in turn leaving many people claiming to be serious flat Earth believers.
Most of us would deem the world being flat as completely ridiculous. So what is the flat Earth society’s belief? They claim that the Earth is not a globe like you may know it, but instead a flat disk like shape. The Bedford level experiment is what supposedly proves this claim. The experiment was conducted by a man named Samuel Birley Rowbotam during the summer of 1838. What Samuel suggested, was he would stand on a long river with a telescope and have his friend take a boat ride a number of miles down the river. His hypothesis was, that because of the curve of the globe, he shouldn’t be able to see his friend after about 6 miles. According to his calculations, if the Earth was dome shaped, by the end of 6 miles, the top of the boat’s sail should have been about 13 feet out of his view because of the Earth’s curvature. To his surprise, he watched his friend go more than 6 miles, and was still able to see the entire boat, leading him to believe Earth is not a globe.
So what about pictures of the Earth being round? Well, the flat Earth society doesn’t lend much credibility to photographic evidence by NASA. They say that it’s too easily manipulated and altered. In fact, they don’t trust NASA at all. All the information that we have about the Earth, the moon, and space comes directly from NASA. Every picture you’ve ever seen is given to you by them. NASA is also often associated with faking the moon landing and photoshopping their pictures. Although those are just conspiracies, it’s enough evidence for the flat Earth society to completely distrust them. Quoting the words of St. Eds senior, Nick Wright, “I believe it’s flat and everything else is a lie.”
You might be asking, if the Earth is flat, then why haven’t we fallen off? Where does it end? Those who believe in a flat Earth, believe that the Antarctic surrounds the edges of the Earth with ice walls and that the water on Earth is held in place between these ice masses. One of the reasons for this, that in the late fifties a treaty was signed by almost all major countries of power to not let anyone go into Antarctica. Although they allow boat trips, going on an excursion is not possible without people there to monitor. Also, no airline is currently allowed to fly over Antarctica. All flight patterns actually fly away from it, even taking seemingly unnecessary routes to avoid it.
The Flat Earth Society also doesn’t believe in gravity. To them, gravity is only what it’s definition says it is, a theory. Instead, they think that the reason we are held down to earth is because the Earth and Sun are constantly moving upwards, and the reason we have seasons is because the world is connected to a magnet in the middle of the Earth, which creates things like tides.
To sum up, flat Earth believers think that everything they’ve been taught about the Earth is a lie. They give no credibility to NASA and consider the government to be shady. To them, unless they see it, they won’t believe it. But, is it entirely crazy to think the Earth is flat? Is NASA really 100% trustworthy? That’s up for you to decide.