Flat Earth theorists: remnants of a bygone era

When humans began sailing across vast oceans in the search for fertile land, other civilizations and fame, it was a common school of thought that if you sailed too far into the unknown that you’d fall off the face of the Earth. That is because many cultures believed the Earth to be flat, and the myth was perpetrated across centuries until the first few centuries AD. Whilst the idea of a spherical Earth had already been discussed by Greek philosophers in 6 BC, it had yet to engrain itself in mainstream thought for a while to come.

It is understandable that the concept of gravity and other physical phenomena were not only vacant from any rationale but also a fairly difficult concept to grasp at the time. However, much like the rumors of monster-infested waters, society and its’ sea-faring folk believed less and less in the Earth being flat. The advancement of science was primarily the cause for the death of the Flat Earth Theory, and the last modern society to accept the fact that Earth was indeed round, was China in the 17^th Century.

However, like many ancient stories and beliefs, they find themselves at the centre of some weird modern-day following. Somehow making hunters for mystical beasts look like sane and rational individuals, the Flat Earth Society is alive and kicking. Commonly labelled pseudoscience and dismissed by every serious scientific entity, the Flat Earther movement comprises of a relatively large amount of people, who as the name suggests, believe the Earth is flat.

Millenia of scientific studies have failed to convince of them of the shape of our planet, as have the images from the International Space Station, NASA and any other space-based image system. For the most part, the adherents to this philosophy believe in a flat Earth due to religious beliefs as well as a general mistrust of government institutions, which helps explain their past harassment of NASA officials and continued protests to prove that there is a global conspiracy against them.

Recently, the Flat Earth Society found themselves in the media on two separate occasions. The first came as the leaders of the movement led an “experiment” by which he flew across the United States on a commercial airliner armed with a spirit level and camera with the intent of proving that the Earth’s curvature did not exist. As the flight went on, he observed that the level never changed position, which he took as proving his point that the Earth was indeed flat. The second media appearance happened after a member publicly harassed a NASA employee in an attempt to force him to admit that the planet was flat. Although he didn’t get the answer he was looking for, he walked away with some NASA stickers.