Is The Earth Really Flat?

The Flat Earth Society is growing with new members every year. They argue that the world we live in isn't really a sphere in space, but a flat disc orbited by the Sun and the Moon.

But can it be really true? Is the Earth really flat?

Members of the Flat Earth Society claim to believe the Earth is flat. The theory follows from a mode of thought called the "Zetetic Method”.

Walking around on the planet's surface, it looks and feels flat, so they deem all evidence to the contrary, such as satellite photos of Earth as a sphere, to be fabrications of a "round Earth conspiracy" orchestrated by NASA and other government agencies.

It would seem that these people genuinely believe the Earth is flat. But in the 21st century, can they be serious? And if so, how is this psychologically possible?

The leading flat-earther theory holds that Earth is a disc with the Arctic Circle in the center and Antarctica, a 150-foot-tall wall of ice, around the rim.

NASA employees, they say, guard this ice wall to prevent people from climbing over and falling off the disc.

Earth's day and night cycle is explained by positing that the sun and moon are spheres measuring 32 miles (51 kilometers) that move in circles 3,000 miles (4,828 km) above the plane of the Earth. (Stars, they say, move in a plane 3,100 miles up.) Like spotlights, these celestial spheres illuminate different portions of the planet in a 24-hour cycle. X Flat-earthers believe there must also be an invisible "antimoon" that obscures the moon during lunar eclipses.

Earth's gravity is an illusion, they say. Objects do not accelerate downward; instead, the disc of Earth accelerates upward at 32 feet per second squared (9.8 meters per second squared), driven up by a mysterious force called dark energy.

As for what lies underneath the disc of Earth, this is unknown, but most flat-earthers believe it is composed of "rocks."

Flat-earthers believe photos of the globe are photoshopped; GPS devices are rigged to make airplane pilots think they are flying in straight lines around a sphere when they are actually flying in circles above a disc and it would logically cost much less to fake a space program than to actually have one. Read more.