Flat Earth conspirators have one core belief that the Earth is not spherical but is instead a disk shape. The origin of this belief is widely disputed but largely stems from the simple idea that as you walk around the Earth it looks and feels flat. Believers discount most scientific evidence to the contrary, claiming that NASA and various government agencies have shielded the Earth’s true shape in favour of a ‘Round Earth conspiracy’.
Flat Earth belief is also linked to a distrust of Space travel, suggesting that NASA has convinced us the Earth is round due to space travel being possible. The Cold War, pitted the world’s two great powers the United States and the Soviet Union against each other in the late 1950's. Space would later become another aspect of this battle, as each side sought to prove victorious with its technology. The United States proved superior by landing on the moon first, an historical event that would later be called into question by the flat Earth believers.
Dr. Neil Havard, amateur astronomer and Physics teacher of 26 years believes that the flat Earth belief starts with an element of distrust of higher powers and authorities. He likens this theory to similar ones such as whether the moon landing was faked or whether 9/11 was an inside job “It all starts with a mistrust of authority and politicians. People get disillusioned with those.”
" It would’ve been simpler to go to the moon than to pull off some grand conspiracy"
When America launched a rocket into space in 1969, other countries were brought in to help track the rocket as the moon wouldn’t always be facing America. Neil suggests that to carry out the entire conspiracy, all of the countries that helped track the rocket such as Australia and the UK would have needed to be involved in the plot “With the moon landings it would’ve been simpler to go to the moon than to pull off some grand conspiracy, you see how incredibly leaky the government is, they practically fail to keep any secret long. So could they really keep 20,000 NASA employees button-lipped?”
Neil believes that there are two types of Flat Earther: Those that hang onto the idea and those that actually push it forward. Neil feels that those who actively promote the theory are the more sinister ones and questions what their agenda is “I think it is perhaps control over others. Those that follow often have a lack of knowledge or an unwillingness to look beyond that. For the same reason why sometimes in the cults and suicide cults the followers are often intelligent people, they’re not all daft as a brush that follow them.”
Flat Earthers don’t just discount the evidence provided by NASA, they also have their own evidence that they believe proves their theory. Some believers promote the idea that the sun and the moon are the same size and a are lot closer to Earth than we have been told. Some online sites tell us that they have measured the size of the sun with a sextant, a navigation instrument that measures the angles between objects. Neil discounts this evidence “sextants don’t measure distance, they measure angles. They use this phrase where more sinister believers are preying on the gullibility of others who follow. They have told them they have measured the distance with a scientific instrument and people believe them.”
Darren Nesbit, an established flat earth believer and musician, has supported the flat Earth theory for many years “I came across the theory in the summer of 2014, when a friend mentioned it to me and of course I thought it was ridiculous just like everybody else does.” After 6 months of researching the theory in depth, Darren found many flaws with the globe model and believes that we have been brainwashed into accepting the round earth theory. “Once you start delving into it and start looking at the history that you aren’t taught and you’re not encouraged to go searching for, you realise that a lot is a myth”
'Won't go back to the ball' - a song written by Darren Nesbit.
Darren agrees like Neil that the flat Earth theory starts with a mistrust of authority “The mistrust in authorities comes from discovering that they have been lying to you about certain things. For many people, take the JFK assassination or 9/11, the moon landings are right up there with maybe up to 50% of Americans don’t trust their government on that. The government lie, they steal, they cheat, they rape, they kill so why would you trust an individual like that?” Darren also believes that the mainstream media are deceiving us “The corporate mainstream media is ridiculously biased, you hardly ever hear them criticise the government anymore. You might hear a token piece now and again but they’re just mouth pieces”
"They admit they have never taken a single photo of the earth in all its glory.”
Along with believing that the moon landings were faked, many Flat Earth Theorists do not trust NASA due to there being no one true photo of the earth as a whole. Darren argues that it is hard to ignore the discrepancies with NASA “The photos that NASA show you, they admit themselves are all composite or photoshopped. They admit they have never taken a single photo of the earth in all its glory.”
Although the flat Earth theory is often written off as ludicrous due to the evidence against it, many scientists spend time trying to debunk their theories. Neil spots a problem with the people who spend time arguing with Flat Earthers “Those trying to debunk them often fall into the trap of just referencing to their own scientific knowledge but don’t ask ‘How do you measure the distance of the sun to the earth with a sextant?” He believes that many scientists let the theorists set the agenda and rather than unpicking their points they just reference the evidence that is already widely accepted.
Not only do people follow this theory because of the mistrust they have of authorities, Darren also believes that the theory is so attractive due to it giving humans more purpose on Earth. “There’s a lot of depression in the world and suicide, because people don’t see the point. I imagine there are no figures for thousands of years ago but I bet there weren’t many suicides. Firstly, because they believed we were a fixed plane earth and secondly because they knew that there was a god and there’s a purpose, even if they don’t know what that purpose is” This is a widely accepted aspect of the theory, the idea that living on a planet designed for us gives us purpose, rather than living on a planet that was created by accident.
Neil finds this theory unusual as he speaks about the overwhelming evidence against it. He believes that Flat Earthers use science and twist it to their advantage. Neil calls it ‘pseudoscience’. “They will focus on curvature and the horizon and will come up with an equation like ‘8 inches per mile by the distance squared’, I’ve said something scientific, an equation which if I asked someone to go and prove that equation either right or wrong you probably wouldn’t want to do it. A lot of people either wouldn’t be bothered or know how to go about it.”
Many followers of the theory rely on their instincts about their surroundings. They believe that because the sun and moon look the same size in the sky, they must be. Neil argues that “they do not believe that the sun is 93 million miles away and believe that the sun and the moon are the same size. But if you look at someone who is far away they look quite small but that doesn’t mean that they are.”
Neil suggests that the Flat Earth Society doesn’t deny science and often use scientific facts to their own advantage, they instead reject scientists. He believes that there is no one coherent theory throughout to explain it, the believers instead rely on ‘prodding people’ with different bits of information they can’t explain. He says that once they have people hooked, then they’re not afraid to come out with the downright false “They’re quite adamant that nobody has done an experiment on earth to show the force of gravity between two objects. That’s absolutely false. Henry Cavendish did that in 1798. And it’s been done many times since. But by the time you’ve hooked them. They won’t check.”
There are two beliefs as to why people are so drawn to this theory. Both Neil and Darren believe it stems from a mistrust of authority. Neil suggests that pseudoscience fuels this distrust and helps the theory gain traction. Darren, a firm believer of the theory argues that the mistrust causes people to think that there is a lot more to the story than meets the eye.
By Romy Francesca Mulholland