No, we are not quoting from a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, but rather summarizing what supporters of the “Flat Earth” theory believe. Let’s get to the bottom of the most common *cough* “evidence”….

One should actually assume that humanity's knowledge has increased since the Internet gave everyone the opportunity to access knowledge and obtain information. Shockingly, the opposite sometimes happens: almost everything is believed just because it is on the internet, almost nothing is questioned anymore and people rarely think about it for themselves. A well-known example of this is the so-called “Flat Earth” conspiracy theory.
Claim: People have always believed in a flat earth
A popular claim that conspiracy theorists like to use in the same breath that all NASA images are fake. Maybe they should have paid attention in history class, because as early as 600 BC. In the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras proposed that the Earth was a round planet that revolved around the central sun with the other planets, which is now known as the Copernicus model.

Claim: All images from space are fake

“There is no evidence that the Earth is round!” is often emphasized, and all the images are fake. Nobody can say why such a gigantic fake should even exist. Millions of images from the ISS, NASA, ESA, CNSA, Roscosmos and all other space agencies are still all fake. Of course, the images from a Japanese satellite, which takes a picture of the Earth every 10 minutes , are also fake and computer-generated.
Again, since 1946, when the first photo of Earth was taken from space , every space agency has banded together to tell humanity a gigantic lie? Seriously?
Claim: There is a large ice wall around the flat earth, Antarctica

This is the explanation given by Flat Earthers when the question arises as to why no one has fallen off the disk yet. The above photo from the Flat Earth Society forum is (hopefully) meant to be sarcastic, because series connoisseurs know that this is a scene from the series “Game of Thrones”.
The theory goes that the Arctic lies in the middle of the flat Earth, while the inhospitable Antarctica is a large ice wall guarded by NASA employees so that no one tries to climb over the edge of the world.
Somehow this claim completely ignores the fact that there have already been numerous private expeditions to Antarctica and that travel companies even holidays in Antarctica . But they probably all belong to the “big conspiracy”….
Claim: You cannot see the curvature of the earth with the naked eye

Very few people have the chance to see the curvature of the Earth “live”, as for example astronauts do. So many people only know satellite photos, and they could all be fake. Just recently, the singer Xavier Naidoo drew attention to himself by “proving” that the earth is flat: He held a ruler in front of his nose, as the blog rebels reported .
But now the earth is big. Very large.
With an average radius of 6371 kilometers. If I were a small conscious atom standing on a soccer ball, I could also use this ruler method to claim that the soccer ball is actually flat. So you have to be at a certain distance from the ground in order to be able to see the curvature with the naked eye, but this can be calculated mathematically since you know the diameter of the earth.
Without confusing you with formulas, you can, purely mathematically, determine the curvature of the earth at an altitude of around 10,600 meters, i.e. aircraft altitude. To do this, however, you would also need an absolutely cloud-free sky, no mountains in the field of vision and a viewing angle of 60 degrees, as well as a very sharp eye. You can see the curvature (and therefore the spherical shape) much more clearly the further away you are from the Earth. Millions of TV viewers were able to see this in 2012, for example, when Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a helium balloon from a height of 39 kilometers

Claim: Gravity does not exist

Gravity is the force that causes massive objects to attract each other. That's why we land back on the ground when we jump, that's why tides exist due to the moon's gravitational pull, that's why the moon revolves around the earth and the earth around the sun. Due to gravity, the Earth is also round; it is in a so-called hydrostatic equilibrium , where inward and outward forces balance each other out. However, it is not completely round, but more precisely oval, as the equator is further away from the center of the earth than the poles centrifugal force
Well, but how do flat earthers explain this?
Instead, they talk about a universal acceleration of the flat earth. The principle behind it is that the flat world is constantly moving upwards like a gigantic spaceship. So when we jump, we don't fall back to the ground, but rather the ground moves towards us.
Actually, birds, for example, would have to constantly fly upwards, and just as fast as the “Flat Earth spaceship,” in order not to constantly crash into the ground, which is again nonsense - the flat Earth (without gravity) would move with everything on it If you accelerate uniformly at 9.81 m/s², the same force act as the gravitational force, so the birds would not notice any difference. Quite apart from the fact that there is no reasonable explanation in this conspiracy theory as to why the flat earth is constantly flying upwards, pseudoscientific people often simply talk about dark matter that would push the flat earth from below. Of course again without any evidence.
Claim: The sun is small and closer than expected

Above we see a nice illustration from the Flat Earth Society of how the phases of the sun can be explained. In addition, the sun is actually only 4,800 kilometers away and only has a diameter of 51 kilometers. It moves in a circle over the flat earth and thus only illuminates a certain part, which would explain the day and night phases. In the middle you can see the Arctic again, outside the great Antarctic wall.
So. And if you don't think any further, it almost sounds logical. If there weren't some logic problems. Because even if the world looked like this, you would still have to be able to see the sun at night, even if it was so far away that it no longer sufficiently illuminates your own part of the earth. So you shouldn't see it sinking over the horizon, but you should see it getting further away.
Seasons can perhaps be explained by the fact that the sun is sometimes closer, sometimes further away from the earth's disk. OK. The midnight sun at the North Pole may also be explained by the fact that the sun is moving closer to the Arctic in the middle. Also okay. But what about the midnight sun in Antarctica? How does the sun manage to illuminate the entire ice wall day and night for months? Or is the midnight sun in Antarctica also part of the big conspiracy in which all Antarctic researchers and tourists are involved?
Claim: Heaven is a dome

It has to be said that you have to be a hardcore flat earther to believe this. This part of the conspiracy theory is mainly promoted by fundamental Christians who cite the Bible as saying that God stretched the firmament over the earth, with the sun and moon within this dome.
As if the theory that the Earth is actually a Stephen King novel ("Under the Dome") wasn't crazy enough, many proponents of this theory also claim that everything you see in the night sky are just holograms, that are supposed to entertain us. The theory goes even further to the point that the moon itself is also a hologram, or possibly a huge alien spaceship, from which the aliens, God or whoever is watching us. This is what happens when you watch the movie “The Truman Show” too many times. By the way, mon phases are then explained with a second (invisible?) moon, which regularly covers the “real” moon (for whatever reason).
Claim: NASA was founded by the Nazis

For Flat Earthers, NASA is the ultimate evil. Many, many videos claim that NASA is a Nazi project and explain all the fakes: Because the Nazis, disguised as NASA, rule the world together with the Illuminati, the Freemasons, satanic powers and alien reptilian beings.
But why the Nazis? The story begins in 1940, when Wernher von Braun designed rockets for the Nazis, including the infamous V2 rocket that reduced London to rubble in 1944. In 1945, after the Second World War, the USA brought in 1,500 Germans, including von Braun, to work for them as scientists and technicians Operation Paperclip He then developed the Saturn V rocket, which was used to launch the Apollo missions. This collaboration alone, i.e. former Nazi scientists working for NASA, tells Flat Earthers that NASA is just a bunch of liars, charlatans and pseudo-scientists who can't believe a word they say. After all, “Apollo” is just another name for Satan , right?
Conclusion
Unlike many other conspiracy theories, the Flat Earth theory is actually harmless. Many conspiracies give birth to fanatics who see a reptilian creature or an Illuminati behind every politician and want to kill them. The flat-worlders, on the other hand, simply insist on their pizza world with Antarctica as the ice crust. The “evidence” is always a bit crude and confused, you look in vain for scientific explanations, and you also find explanations in vain as to why a flat earth should be kept secret (and if they do, they are just as confusing).
But at least this is how we conclude this little excursion into the world of flatworlders' thoughts:
The Flat Earth Society has members around the world

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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

