# The spherical\* Earth conspiracy
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 3, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226 "2017-01-03T13:34:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/1 "2017-01-03T13:34:25Z")
So, I don’t know how familiar you are with the baffling phenomenon of [modern flat Earth societies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_flat_Earth_societies) who are slightly behind scientific understanding of the shape of the Earth by about 2500 years. The gist of their argument is that the Earth is actually a flat disc with the Arctic circle in the middle and Antarctica as a wall of ice around the edge. Rapper BoB got into an amusing twitter fight with [physicist Neil DeGrass Tyson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHBZkek8OSU) last year about it.
As for the conventional wisdom that the round shape of the Earth, it’s is just a smokescreen from the liars Pythagoras and NASA, [wake up sheeple!](http://xkcd.com/1013/) But what I can’t find out is _why_ on Earth these people think a vast multi-national, multi-generational conspiracy about the shape of our planet is being perpetrated, what motive is there? Who the hell’s benefiting from covering up their ‘truth’ of a flat Earth, globe makers?
\*yes, oblate spheroid, technically.
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### Author:  [@GoodOmens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GoodOmens)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/2 "2017-01-03T13:40:33Z")
I suspect the flat-Earthers can mostly be divided into two camps:
1. People who don’t really believe it and are just taking the piss.
2. Crazy people.
You’re not likely to get logical reasoning from either one.
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/3 "2017-01-03T13:41:48Z")
No, it is a [hollow sphere](http://www.ourhollowearth.com).
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/4 "2017-01-03T13:44:18Z")
They are all rabid Pratchett fans and believe that the Earth is a flat disc balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/5 "2017-01-03T13:47:33Z")
Fair point, though the same can be said about, well take your pick of anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers, holocaust deniers, Obama birthers, moon hoaxers…
But in each of those cases they have at the very least presented a motive for why the conspiracy conventional wisdom is being perpetrated; evil big pharma wanting to turn a buck, Bush trying to justify a war for oil, the Jews building support for Israel, etc. But for flat Earthers, I’ve no idea what they think the conspirators are getting out of the spherical Earth conspiracy.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/6 "2017-01-03T14:16:00Z")
It’s the Big Globe industry. They have their tentacles everywhere.
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### Author:  [@Willcross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willcross)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/7 "2017-01-03T14:22:08Z")
I can’t speak for them all, but I asked the same question of someone who claimed to be a flat earth believer.
He stated that basically when NASA and the Soviets sent up the first satellites, they discovered the earth was actually flat. This would cause the public to lose all confidence in NASA and pull all their funding since they were wrong for so long. So to keep the money coming in, NASA and the world faked the photos and results to keep the public thinking the earth is round. This way they can continue to make satellites and earning money.
He kept saying things like “It costs 2 billion in funding for Nasa to launch a satellite or probe. They don’t want to lose that money.” I realize this makes zero sense but that was the logic of at least one of those people.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/8 "2017-01-03T14:22:46Z")
> [@bob\_2](#):
>
> They are all rabid Pratchett fans and believe that the Earth is a flat disc balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle.
I think Sir Terry got this from older myths - [World Turtle - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Turtle)
Anyway, from some reference frames, the Earth is actually pretty flat.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNqNnUJVcVs)
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/9 "2017-01-03T14:27:36Z")
From my own observation, I think they are right. Last summer I flew from Dubai to Houston, and when I looked out the plane window I saw Greenland, so we were pretty much cutting across the center of the disc. I flew from Houston to Manila to Addis Ababa to Dubai to Houston, and never got anywhere near the wall of ice around the edge of the disc. How could that be possible on a spherical earth? So, I’m a confirmed flat-earther, and you can’t tell me any different.
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### Author:  [@doubleminus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doubleminus)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/10 "2017-01-03T14:28:02Z")
In the oldy days, Flat Earth was real cool. You had tons of physicists trying to explain away the observations of spherical earth. Some of them were real deep. It was a sign of British eccentrism. Like \*The Order of The Garter \*and such.
Nowadays, they split into two groups that are both different types of crackpots. Much less fun.
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### Author:  [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/11 "2017-01-03T14:35:21Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#):
>
> Who the hell’s benefiting from covering up their ‘truth’ of a flat Earth?
Who the “hell” indeed: flat Earth is a classic God’s Truth vs. forces of Satan fight, as several Bible verses allude to the Earth being flat (and immobile). Scientists at NASA and elsewhere claiming the Earth’s sphericalness are just the Devil’s more-or-less unwitting pawns in the whole thing (see also: biological evolution).
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### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/12 "2017-01-03T14:54:31Z")
> [@Willcross](#):
>
> I can’t speak for them all, but I asked the same question of someone who claimed to be a flat earth believer.
>
> He stated that basically when NASA and the Soviets sent up the first satellites, they discovered the earth was actually flat. This would cause the public to lose all confidence in NASA and pull all their funding since they were wrong for so long. So to keep the money coming in, NASA and the world faked the photos and results to keep the public thinking the earth is round. This way they can continue to make satellites and earning money.
>
> He kept saying things like “It costs 2 billion in funding for Nasa to launch a satellite or probe. They don’t want to lose that money.” I realize this makes zero sense but that was the logic of at least one of those people.
Did he offer any theory of [orbital mechanics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_mechanics)that was consistent with a flat-earth model? Something that explained why satellites would fly indefinitely in a circular pattern above the flat earth, while humans and airplanes were compelled to fall back down in relatively short order?
Interestingly, [the first image of Earth from space](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/the-first-image-of-earth-taken-from-space-its-not-what-you-think/260755/) (and many [subsequent such photos](https://www.nasa.gov/news/highlights/john_mengel_pioneer.html)) predate the establishment of NASA by about a decade, and seem to pretty clearly indicate a curved surface…
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### Author:  [@Saffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saffer)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/13 "2017-01-03T15:20:22Z")
The Earth is indeed flat and all the planets are also flat and are clearly aligned perfectly with us to be face on at all times. This is because we are the center of the universe, of course.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/14 "2017-01-03T15:23:13Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#):
>
> [snip] … \*yes, oblate spheroid, technically.
Er … Umm … [**Geoid**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoid) is the correct term for the shape of the Earth … it’s not strictly an oblate spheroid (a.k.a. ellipsoid) … very close but not exact …
These Flat Earth conspirators thrive on mockery … it’s the main conduit to get their message out … lots of people don’t understand science and like to cling to anything that science disputes … kind of the nose-in-the-air “I know something you don’t” … they’re happy to be getting all the free advertising … the more science posts that condemn them, the more members they can attract …
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/15 "2017-01-03T15:24:43Z")
> [@Willcross](#):
>
> He stated that basically when NASA and the Soviets sent up the first satellites, they discovered the earth was actually flat. This would cause the public to lose all confidence in NASA and pull all their funding since they were wrong for so long. So to keep the money coming in, NASA and the world faked the photos and results to keep the public thinking the earth is round. This way they can continue to make satellites and earning money.
Did he explain why the former Soviet space bureau workers didn’t tell everyone after 1991?
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### Author:  [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/16 "2017-01-03T15:26:44Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> {…} I flew from Houston to Manila to Addis Ababa to Dubai to Houston, and never got anywhere near the wall of ice around the edge of the disc. How could that be possible on a spherical earth? So, I’m a confirmed flat-earther, and you can’t tell me any different.
😕 :dubious: :smack:
CMC fnord!
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### Author:  [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/17 "2017-01-03T15:36:40Z")
Be very careful with this line of questioning. The last guy that took on Big Global got thrown off the edge.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/18 "2017-01-03T15:43:19Z")
> [@Willcross](#):
>
> I can’t speak for them all, but I asked the same question of someone who claimed to be a flat earth believer.
>
> He stated that basically when NASA and the Soviets sent up the first satellites, they discovered the earth was actually flat. This would cause the public to lose all confidence in NASA and pull all their funding since they were wrong for so long. So to keep the money coming in, NASA and the world faked the photos and results to keep the public thinking the earth is round. This way they can continue to make satellites and earning money.
>
> He kept saying things like “It costs 2 billion in funding for Nasa to launch a satellite or probe. They don’t want to lose that money.” I realize this makes zero sense but that was the logic of at least one of those people.
So, if the earth is flat, how do satellites stay in orbit?
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/19 "2017-01-03T15:46:28Z")
> [@whc.03grady](#):
>
> Who the “hell” indeed: flat Earth is a classic God’s Truth vs. forces of Satan fight, as several Bible verses allude to the Earth being flat (and immobile). Scientists at NASA and elsewhere claiming the Earth’s sphericalness are just the Devil’s more-or-less unwitting pawns in the whole thing (see also: biological evolution).
Exactly. The Bible says the Earth is flat, and so anything else is a satanic conspiracy.
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### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spherical-earth-conspiracy/776226/20 "2017-01-03T15:55:30Z")
So you’re telling me time zones don’t exist?? Who’s behind \*that \*scam???
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