YouTuber and 747 pilot Kelsey (74 Gear) posted a video a year ago outlining a method by which Flat-Earthers could prove their theory: charter a flight from South America to Australia. Airliners have terrain detection systems, and if the plane is about to fly into the disc-surrounding wall they believe Antarctica is, the system will detect it. (If not, the flight will continue to Australia, of course.) He even offered to be the pilot, if the group chartered the plane from his company.
Flat earthers apparently gave him a hard time for not actually making all the arrangements for them himself, even though he never offered to do that.
So a few days ago, he launched a $1.5 million Link removed campaign to actually arrange the flight, which is tentatively set for October 20, flying from Buenos Aires to Perth. He describes the plan in the new video below. It includes hiring a documentary film crew to record the whole deal. He won’t be piloting, and although he hopes to be a passenger, he says that will depend on his work schedule at the time.
Although he points out that some Flat-Earthers have offered large sums to people who could prove them wrong, I have a feeling that if the Kickstarter is funded, it will be mostly by skeptics who want to watch a bunch of Flat-Earthers’ heads asplode. (I know that’s why I would want to go.) Which means there may not be any Flat-Earthers. Which would be a shame.
As I write, 167 backers have pledged $28,000, with 43 days to go.
Any “Here’s a dumb thing I believe, I’ll pay lots of money if you prove me wrong” is stupid. This is worse, this is “here’s a dumb thing other people believe, pay me lots of money to prove them wrong”. We can prove them wrong by walking down to the beach and watching a ship disappear over the horizon, no flight necessary.
A flat earther will either deny the flight happened, say they did it wrong, ignore it entirely, or come up with some new theory to explain it away. Even if it were to happen, it would achieve nothing.
You don’t even need to charter a flight; Qantas has a regularly scheduled flight from Santiago to Sydney. Or rather they did – it’s currently suspended due to the pandemic. Presumably they’ll start flying it again at some point, though. I’m pretty sure they once served Buenos Aires, too. Or do those flights to Sydney not fly close enough to the South Pole to satisfy flat earthers?
I think it’s unlikely that many hardcore FEers are going to pony up the bucks, but maybe he’s just hoping to get them off his case by saying, Look, I told you how to do it, then I offered to arrange it for you, and you didn’t step up to the plate. Now go away and leave me alone.
If so, I’m not sure it’ll work. FEers aren’t “put up or shut up” types when it comes to their world view.
I quite understand. I used to watch his aviation videos. I’m suggesting that this picture, authenticated by NASA, should be more than enough to convince any flat-earthers except for those who will never be convinced by anything at all.
In all seriousness, I’m not sure that flat-earthers really exist, except as a sort of self-perpetuating joke. If any really do, I don’t know how they can breathe without assistance and constant coaching.
They exist, because I’ve met them at gatherings. I have found the best response when the topic comes up is to say, “You are too stupid to have an adult conversation with” and walk away.
Best response for me, anyway.
Yes to both of these. For flat-earthers, “the earth is flat” is as much of a universal constant as the speed of light. That is to say, everything else can change except that. Their consistent denial of the entire body of currently available evidence should make it plain that no matter what irrefutable round-earth proof you think you can provide, they’ll poke a hole in it somehow. Your video footage was faked/edited, your photo was 'shopped, instruments don’t work when you’re near the Antarctic ice wall, there’s a conspiracy to hide the truth, blahblahblah.
$28,000 from 167 donors so far is about $160 per donor. I hope those donors are happy with the outcome.
I apologize to the mods and the board about including a link to the fundraising site. I didn’t know there was a rule about it and it certainly wasnt my intent to promote it, other than than in a point-and-laugh way.
How do they explain that going West from California will eventually end up in New Jersey?
Czarcasm, how do you get into a conversation with a flat earth cretin? Are you hanging out at a party, he comes up and asks, “Did you know the Earth is flat?”
Discussions about conspiracy theories will happen, a flat earther will state that there is a conspiracy to hide the “real” evidence, and hilarity ensues.
Yep. This is just a fool’s errand. Absolutely nothing can be accomplished except, perhaps, some idle entertainment of laugh-and-point-at-the-idiots, which, unfortunately, I don’t find very entertaining.
