Modern flat Earth beliefs

The Flat Earth Society is an organization first based in England and later in Lancaster, California that advocates the Flat Earth hypothesis.

Origins of the flat Earth movement

Contemporary theory supporting a flat Earth originated with an English inventor, Samuel Rowbotham (1816-1884). Based on his interpretation of certain biblical passages, Rowbotham published a 16-page pamphlet, which he later expanded into a 430-page book, Earth Not a Globe, expounding his views. According to Rowbotham's system, which he called "Zetetic Astronomy", the earth is a flat disk centered at the North Pole and bounded along its southern edge by a wall of ice, with the sun and moon 3000 miles (4800 km) and the "cosmos" 3100 miles (5000 km) above earth.

Rowbotham and his followers gained notice by engaging in public debates with leading scientists of the day. One such debate, involving the prominent naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, concerned the Bedford Level experiment (and later led to several lawsuits for fraud and libel).^[1]^[2]^[3]

After Rowbotham's death, his followers established the Universal Zetetic Society, published a magazine entitled The Earth Not a Globe Review, and remained active well into the early part of the 20th century. After World War I, the movement underwent a slow decline.

In the United States, Rowbotham's ideas were taken up by the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church. Founded by a Scottish faith healer, John Alexander Dowie, in 1895, the church established the theocratic community of Zion, Illinois on the shore of Lake Michigan forty miles (seventy kilometers) north of Chicago. In 1906, Dowie was deposed as leader of the sect by his lieutenant, Wilbur Glenn Voliva. The flat earth doctrine was exclusively taught in community schools. Voliva was a pioneer in religious radio broadcasting and described his views in broadcasts on a 100,000-watt (100 kW) radio station. Voliva died in 1942 and the church declined. A few flat earth supporters persisted in Zion into the 1950s.

Flat Earth from space

The flat Earth faced challenges posed by photographs of the earth from space and later the moon. Member Samuel Shenton remarked: "It's easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye." The society took the position that the Apollo Moon landings were a hoax, staged by Hollywood and based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke, a position also held by some others not connected to the Flat Earth Society (see Apollo moon landing hoax accusations).

In a March 2001 message to a friend, Clarke facetiously responded to the society's claims as follows:

"I've written to [former NASA director] Dan Goldin saying I was never paid for this work and unless he does something quickly he'll be hearing from my killer lawyers, Geldsnatch, Geldsnatch & Blubberclutch." ^[4]

Charles K. Johnson

In 1971, Shenton died and Charles K. Johnson became the new president of the Flat Earth Society. Under his leadership, over the next three decades, the group grew in size from a few members to about 3,000. Johnson distributed newsletters, flyers, maps, and other promotional materials to anyone who asked for them, and he managed all membership applications together with his wife, Marjory, who was also a flat-earther.

The most recent world model propagated by the Flat Earth Society holds that humans live on a disc, with the North Pole at its center and a 150-foot (45 m) high wall of ice at the outer edge. The resulting map resembles the symbol of the United Nations, something Johnson used as evidence for his position. In this model, the sun and moon are each a mere 32 miles (52 km) in diameter.

A newsletter from the society gives some insight into Johnson's thinking:

Aim: To carefully observe, think freely rediscover forgotten fact and oppose theoretical dogmatic assumptions. To help establish the United States...of the world on this flat earth. Replace the science religion...with SANITY

The International Flat Earth Society is the oldest continuous Society existing on the world today. It began with the Creation of the Creation. First the water...the face of the deep...without form or limits...just Water. Then the Land sitting in and on the Water, the Water then as now being flat and level, as is the very Nature of Water. There are, of course, mountains and valleys on the Land but since most of the World is Water, we say, "The World is Flat". Historical accounts and spoken history tell us the Land part may have been square, all in one mass at one time, then as now, the magnetic north being the Center. Vast cataclysmic events and shaking no doubt broke the land apart, divided the Land to be our present continents or islands as they exist today. One thing we know for sure about this world...the known inhabited world is Flat, Level, a Plain World.

We maintain that what is called 'Science' today and 'scientists' consist of the same old gang of witch doctors, sorcerers, tellers of tales, the 'Priest-Entertainers' for the common people. 'Science' consists of a weird, way-out occult concoction of gibberish theory-theology...unrelated to the real world of facts, technology and inventions, tall buildings and fast cars, airplanes and other Real and Good things in life; technology is not in any way related to the web of idiotic scientific theory. ALL inventors have been anti-science. The Wright brothers said: "Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." By the way, airplanes all fly level on this Plane earth.

Charles Johnson died on March 19 2001, leaving the fate of the Flat Earth Society uncertain, though attempts at re-establishment by leading Flat Earthers in different parts of the world are currently under way.

Physics of a Flat Earth

The modern Flat Earth Society describes the Earth as being a disk with a diameter of about 24,900 miles (40,000 km) and a circumference of 78,225 miles (126,000 km). The sun and moon are both discs about 32 miles (52 km) in diameter (although some sources say that the sun and moon are spheres) and are about 3,000 miles (4,800 km) above the Earth, and the stars about 100 miles (160 km) above the sun and moon.

The Flat Earth Society also maintains that the Earth is accelerating upward at a rate of 9.8 m/s², thereby simulating gravity. ^[5] This upward momentum is caused by a form of dark energy. Gravity cannot exist on a flat Earth since the disc shape would eventually collapse on itself. However in a few Flat Earth models, other planetary bodies such as the moon and the sun are alleged to have gravitational pulls, causing the gravitational force on an object to decrease as it increases in altitude. This also allows spacecraft to "orbit".

The planetary bodies above the Earth revolve above it, thereby causing sunrise and sunset to occur. As the sun moves farther away, it shrinks until it is no longer able to be seen. The same phenomenon occurs with the stars to cause their movement.

The sinking ship effect is explained by a series of perspective laws, in which a ship on the horizon intersects with the vanishing point, causing it to appear as if it is sinking. The Flat Earth Society holds that there are multiple first hand accounts of the hulls of ships reappearing after the image is viewed through a telescope or binoculars.

The exact explanation for lunar eclipses in the Flat Earth theory is vague. However, two commonly accepted theories are the Shadow Object Theory (that an object undiscovered and undetectable by science obscures the moon causing moon phases and lunar eclipses) and the Reflection Theory (the sun's light reflects off the Earth and reflects back to the moon, with some areas of the Earth being less reflective than others, thus producing shadows). There is also a minority which believes moon phases are caused by weather patterns on the moon.

As the sun orbits over the Earth, the Flat Earth theory maintains that the sun's orbit radius changes, causing it to be directly overhead different locations at different times of the year. There is no explanation of the mechanism that causes this.

The Flat Earth Society in popular culture

In the 1980s, talk show host Wally George often sparred with and ridiculed members of the Flat Earth Society on his show Hot Seat. Australian talk show host Don Lane also had Flat Earth Society advocates on his show.

A 2007 tourism commercial for Newfoundland and Labrador states that the Flat Earth Society believed that Newfoundland and Labrador was one of the four corners of the world.

California-based punk rock band Bad Religion include a song entitled "Flat Earth Society" on their 1990 album Against the Grain (as well as their compilation album All Ages), written by Brett Gurewitz. A prominent feature of the song is the refrain "lie, lie, lie", indicating a strong denunciation of the society and its theories. The band has produced similar songs criticizing other movements it views as pseudoscientific.

It was satirised in the Terry Pratchett novel Small Gods, set on a flat Discworld, in which a monotheistic religion (Omnianism) asserts that the world is a sphere.

Notes

^ Nature 7 April 1870.
^ "The Form of the Earth—A Shock of Opinions". New York Times. 1871-08-10. Retrieved 2007-11-02. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
^ Hampden, John (1870): The Bedford Canal swindle detected & exposed. A. Bull, London.
^ Hill, Graham (2001-01-08). "Arthur C Clarke Looks To The Future". BBC World Service. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
^ Flat Earth FAQ, http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=1324.0

References

Archival documents: The Papers of the Flat Earth Society, University of Liverpool Library, Special Collections and Archives, reference GB 141 FES. The collection comprises in 31 boxes and folders the papers of the Flat Earth Society during Samuel Shenton's involvement with the society (1956-1971). The material includes incoming and outgoing correspondence, promotional material such as leaflets and posters, magazines, manuscripts, lecture material including maps and diagrams, photographs, press cuttings, notes, books on astronomy and the Earth, and various other ephemera.
Earth Not a Globe Online text of Samuel Birley Rowbotham's 1881 treatise on Zetetic (Flat Earth) Astronomy.
$5,000 for Proving the Earth is a Globe, Oct. 1931 article from Modern Mechanics and Inventions about Voliva and his flat earth cosmology.
The Flat Earth Professor Donald Simanek's web page on the history of flat earth movements.
The Flat-out Truth: Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophet by Robert J. Schadewald. Science Digest, July 1980. A very detailed look at the Society and its leader. Schadewald was president of the National Center for Science Education and an expert on alternative earth movements.
Looking for Lighthouses by Robert J. Schadewald, Creation/Evolution #31 (1992). This article explains the use of lighthouse data by Samuel Rowbotham.
Scientific Creationism, Geocentricity, and the Flat Earth by Robert J. Schadewald, from the Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 1981–1982. Describes the movements leading to the Flat Earth Society and discusses parallels with creationism.
The International Flat Earth Society. By Robert P. J. Day, 1993. Documents the full Flat Earth Society newsletter. Part of the Talk.Origins archive on the Evolution/Creationism archive.
Holding, James Patrick, 2000. Is the ’erets (earth) flat? TJ 14(3):51–54.
Russell, Jeffrey Burton, 1997. Inventing the Flat Earth : Columbus and Modern Historians ISBN 0-275-95904-X
Russell, Jeffrey Burton, 1997. The Myth of the Flat Earth (summary of above book).
Flat Earth Society Inc. Flat Earth Society Home Page What happened to this website, I can't get on anymore?

External links

[1] Nature 7 April 1870.

[2] "The Form of the Earth—A Shock of Opinions". New York Times. 1871-08-10. Retrieved 2007-11-02. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

[3] Hampden, John (1870): The Bedford Canal swindle detected & exposed. A. Bull, London.

[4] Hill, Graham (2001-01-08). "Arthur C Clarke Looks To The Future". BBC World Service. Retrieved 2008-06-26.

[5] Flat Earth FAQ, http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=1324.0

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