The Flat Earth Society

Marcie, in a recent blog, talked about visiting Fogo Island, which is a small island off the north coast of Newfoundland. It’s an interesting place, with a mix of fishermen whose families have lived there for generations, part-timers who spend their summers there, and full-time artisans and craftsmen. One of the things the island is best known for, however, is that it is one of the four corners of the flat earth.

The members of The Flat Earth Society (FE), as you probably know, believe that the world is flat - not a sphere. I had long presumed that modern day flat earthers weren’t serious. “Here’s more proof (wink,wink) that the earth is flat”, or “Right after the Star Trek convention, as soon as I get out of my Vulcan costume, I’m off to the Flat Earth convention”. But  as I discovered when I researched the topic, many of these people really do believe that the earth is flat… and their numbers are growing.

The concept that the earth is a sphere was established by the ancient Greeks, and, in fact, Eratosthenes calculated the diameter of the earth in 240 BC. Magellan’s crew circumnavigated the world in the 1500s, and Cook went around twice in the 1700s, followed by thousands of other seafarers and aviators since then - including us. And if there was still any doubt, photos taken of earth from space should have been the final proof.

The idea of the earth being flat emerged in the 1800s, probably as a negative response to the scientific advances of the time. One theory was that the earth was a flat rectangle, which was based on a literal interpretation of a few Bible passages that refer to the four corners of the earth. One believer of this theory was Paul Krüger, the president of the Transvaal, which was an independent country north of South Africa. In the late 1800s, Joshua Slocum was in the process of becoming the first person to sail around the world alone. When he stopped in Capetown, South Africa during his circumnavigation, he travelled inland to the Transvaal where he received a rather unfriendly welcome by Mr. Krüger, who insisted that what Slocum had pretty much accomplished was totally impossible.

Probably the most notable proponent of the flat earth theory and the father of the modern flat earth movement was Samuel Rowbotham, an English inventor and writer. He published three editions of his book Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe! between 1849 and 1881 arguing that the earth is a flat disc with the North Pole in the center and an impassable ice wall around the disc’s outer edge - which presumably keeps the oceans in place. His map, shown below, is still the most widely accepted among the flat earthers. He was, by most accounts, a quick wit and excellent debater, and won many converts to his beliefs.

After Rowbotham’s death in 1884 the number of believers in a flat earth dwindled until the 1950s when the Flat Earth Society was formed. Since then, their numbers have increased significantly, especially since the advent of social media.

When perusing the various flat earth websites, it’s apparent that many of these folks really believe it. They are convinced that those of us who are certain that the earth is a sphere have either been duped by or are part of a massive conspiracy preventing the flat earth truth from being divulged. And their arguments supporting their beliefs range from quite credible to outlandish. Here are some FAQs from The Flat Earth Society website:

People have been into space. How have they not discovered that the earth is flat?

“… the space agencies of the world are involved in a conspiracy faking space travel and exploration. This likely began during the Cold War's 'Space Race', in which the USSR and USA were obsessed with beating each other into space to the point that each faked their accomplishments in an attempt to keep pace with the other's supposed achievements. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the conspiracy is most likely motivated by greed rather than political gains, and using only some of their funding to continue to fake space travel saves a lot of money to embezzle for themselves.”

This means, of course, that the governments of all the EU countries, Great Britain, Russia, China, Japan, North and South Korea, Canada, Mexico, the U.S.A., India, Pakistan, Iran, and at least six other countries, not to mention the tens of thousands of people who work at those agencies would all have to be be complicit in this conspiracy. Even for conspiracy theorists, this has to be a stretch.

How is circumnavigation possible?

“As seen in the diagrams above, the Earth is in the form of a disk with the North Pole in the center and Antarctica as a wall surrounding the known continents. This is the generally accepted model among members of the society. In this model, a circumnavigation is performed by moving in a great circle around the North Pole.”

Okay, but in this model, the distance around Antarctica is much, much greater than in the spherical version of the Earth. Having personally sailed many miles in the Southern Ocean, we know firsthand that this isn’t true.

How do you account for day/night and season cycles?

“A simplified animation of the day/night cycle in FET over the course of 24 hours. Note that, in actuality, the lunar cycle is slightly slower than the solar cycle.”

So, apparently the sun is sort of a spotlight in the sky that rotates circularly above the earth. Given that, the explanations presented by the flat earthers for how the sun and moon set in the west and rise in the east, were totally unconvincing to me. In addition, I did not see explanations of how those two orbs appear so much larger as they rise and set, how they slowly disappear over the horizon at sunset and rise up from the horizon at dawn, nor how it is we see the moon phases, but I’m sure these are all subjects that are covered somewhere in the doctrine.

There are many more questions I wonder about related to the flat earth model: how is gravity explained; why are there seasonal differences in the day length; why are there latitudinal differences in the length of the day; if the Antarctic is a massive wall of ice encircling the entire earth, how is it that thousands of people, Marcie and me included, were and are able to visit it by ship… to name a few.

In actuality, while I think there are many people who buy into the flat earth theory, I also think that just as many people are using their wit and intellect to come up with seemingly reasonable arguments supporting the idea, but don’t really believe it.

Anyway, I hope that’s the case and there aren’t actually all that many people who truly believe in this ridiculous theory. Now the Illuminati - that’s different…

See you next week.