For millennia, scientists, mathematicians, and people receptive to learning have understood the Earth is a round sphere. Thanks to a combination of factors, there are arguably more people today that believe the Earth is flat than in the last 2000 years. Part of this is a sense of paranoia and mistrust in authority, part of it is social media influence having a very negative impact on others. But some of these flat-earthers got a shock to their belief system thanks to a recent trip to Antarctica.
There are many things that flat-earthers claim are impossible. One of these is the 24-hour or midnight sun that can be found in Antarctica. The idea is that if Earth is flat, then this would be impossible. That’s why, according to these conspiracy nuts, the area is “gated off to prevent people from going there to see that the midnight sun does not exist.”
Turns out there is no gate, there is no organization preventing people from being there, and the sun is there all the time.
All of this was part of something called The Final Experiment that was set up by Pastor Will Duffy. The goal was to take eight people, four flat-earthers and four sensible people, to Antarctica in order to see that the 24-hour sun does indeed exist. As they visited there, footage proved that the sun rotated across the horizon, something that could only happen on a spherical Earth. You can see the footage in the post below.
As often is the case though with a lot of conspiracy theorists, this wasn’t enough for them and some decided to move the goalposts or refuse to give up their stances. “I know a lot of people want to know what my take is in terms of how does it work and stuff,” Austin Whitsitt said. “Quick teaser: I have seen a physical demonstration that could show this working, but I do think that some of the data we’re going to have from this trip will help to clarify if that is what’s actually happening.”
That’s a long-winded way of saying he’s in denial.
Some people like to play-off conspiracy theories and theorists as being funny or weird or just crazy. The problem with that is that when people start warping their view of the world and universal constants, it can distort sensibility in other ways. They can be dangerous roads to go down and there’s a sadness to seeing people fall into these mental traps. So yeah, the Earth is round and you don’t have to take it from us, you can take it directly from the sun.
