There… is a lot of strange stuff on this planet. Including
people who challenge things that everyone else assumes to be true about the
planet. Like… the shape of the planet.
I know, right? It can seem so completely, incredibly
ridiculous. How could anyone question the fact that the Earth is round?
And yet people do. In fact, the reason why I am doing this
now is that I became aware of the existence of a document called “200 Proofs Earth
is not a Spinning Ball!” (available at http://www.atlanteanconspiracy.com/2015/08/200-proofs-earth-is-not-spinning-ball.html).
And in some ways, I think I can almost understand it. The influence of large
business groups on our world, the corruptible nature of many governments, the
general feeling that cold hard cash is the boss at the end of the day. I get
it. It’s easy to question whether there are other motivations at play out
there, and whether what we are told is true.
However, there are people out there who will take advantage
of people’s mistrust and manipulate it into a tool for them to profit, to gain
publicity, or simply because they have misunderstood a piece of information,
and have then woven a web of untruths around it.
So, if I can, I want to try and make some of the science
surrounding these area more understandable and approachable. I will start by
going through “200 Proofs Earth is Not a Spinning Ball” one proof at a time, to
see if I can explain away each point.
So, starting at the beginning….
1) The horizon always
appears perfectly flat 360 degrees around the observer regardless of altitude.
All amateur balloon, rocket, plane and drone footage show a completely flat
horizon over 20+ miles high. Only NASA and other government “space agencies”
show curvature in their fake CGI photos/videos.
Well, I think we need to deal with this in two parts. Firstly,
the bit about the horizon appearing flat, even at high altitudes. Actually, you
don’t need to go very far at all to see that the horizon is curved. Only to the
coast, in fact (https://www.howitworksdaily.com/how-high-do-you-have-to-go-to-see-the-curvature-of-the-earth/)
. When the Ancient Greeks watched ships sailing away, they could see that the hulls
dip below the horizon before the masts do. Now, I’m no artist, but let me try
and illustrate this…
So, if the Earth is flat, a ship’s hull and sails should disappear
at the same time. In reality, however, we don’t see that. I’ve included a few
links below to show what really does happen.
So, hopefully you see how the curvature of the Earth can be
demonstrated in a really simple way.
Now then, onto part two of this point…
The conspiracy. Honestly, I just don’t get this one. In
order for there to be worldwide conspiracy, which multiple governments have opted
into throughout history, there have to be three things. Means, motive and opportunity.
So, means is simple enough to discuss. In order to manage
something of this scale, you would need every person who has been into space,
every space agency in the world and numerous government officials, scientists
and others to keep this secret. The number of people, and their dispersion
around the world through territories with markedly different ideologies makes
this seem completely impracticable to me. Still, I accept that it could
technically be done. You could get this many people to all agree to lie to
everyone they know about the fact that the Earth is really flat, but….
Motive. This is the real hang-up for me, because who profits
from the Earth being flat not round? For this to work, a huge number of people
all need to agree to hide the flat Earth from the public, but… why? What is the
point? A few minutes googling has found me nothing that even begins to answer
this question. Please, if you are a flat Earther, comment below and let me
know?
And opportunity. Here, I think the most important thing is
timing. So when were the first photos taken of the Earth from space, and who
by? Well, the first photo comes in 1946 ( read all about it here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/the-first-image-of-earth-taken-from-space-its-not-what-you-think/260755/),
captured by the Americans. At around the same time, a very important time for
the World’s history of space exploration began, the famous space race. This
resulted in both sides sending satellites up into space and, you guessed it,
taking some lovely pictures 😊
And… drumroll please… they show the Earth is round. Now, I
wasn’t alive during the Cold War, and I can’t even start to understand the politics.
But surely if one side wanted to one-up the other, surely revealing that their
enemies had been lying about the shape of the planet would be a pretty good way
of doing that? But, that didn’t happen. Both sides published pictures of a
round Earth. Either could have chosen to doctor flat photos to make them look
round, but both of them? And to what benefit? Also, that would be some pretty
impressive doctoring for the 1940s….
Look, I could be missing something here. But to me, the evidence
presented in the first point of the two hundred seems to be pretty much unsupported.
And before you head down to the comments section, yes, I
know I haven’t addressed the issue of private individuals taking photos showing
no horizon. The reason is simply this, to break that down I would have to go
through all of the thousands of videos, trying to work out from the confusing and
often incomplete information presented there what their methods had been. If I don’t
know what methods have been used, I can’t challenge them for accuracy, or judge
for myself whether they could be effective. This is why the peer review system
exists, and why when people do science they record every minute detail of their
experiment and make it public. I’m sorry, but I can’t judge evidence when it isn’t
presented in full.
So, am I convinced by point number one?
Um… no. Sorry.
But I’ll be back soon looking at point number two.
I feel like this could go on for a while...
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