Currently, there is disagreement among flat-earthers about whether or not Einstein's theory of relativity permits Earth to accelerate upward indefinitely without the planet eventually surpassing the speed of light. 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. In a YouTube video of the exchange, Thompson, founder of the Official Flat Earth and Globe Discussion page, shouted that he had proof the Earth is flat - apparently saying an astronaut drowning was that proof - and that NASA is 'lying.')įurthermore, Earth's gravity is an illusion, they say. (In keeping with their skepticism of NASA, known flat-earther conspiracy theorist Nathan Thompson approached a man he said was a NASA employee in a Starbucks in mid-May 2017. NASA employees, they say, guard this ice wall to prevent people from climbing over and falling off the disc. The leading flat-earther theory holds that Earth is a disc with the Arctic Circle in the center and Antarctica, a 150-foot-tall (45 meters) wall of ice, around the rim.

This flat Earth map drawn by Orlando Ferguson in 1893 is also considered the Bible Map of the World. We're an organization of Flat Earth theorists that long predates most of the FEIC newcomers to the scene.') (The Flat Earth Society responded to this by telling CNN, 'We are not a government-controlled body. But some believers want nothing to do with the Flat Earth Society, according to a 2019 CNN article, with some attendees of the Flat Earth International Conference in Dallas that year telling the news agency that the organization is a government-sponsored front designed to make Flat Earthers look bad. Today, the society claims more than 500 members on its roster. According to Smithsonian Magazine, membership in the Flat Earth Society, founded in 1956, once reached 3,500 people. No one knows how many flat Earth believers are out there. Opinions differ on exactly how the flat Earth works, with believers concocting elaborate versions of physics and creative interpretations of the solar system to make their theories work. These believers claim that the Earth is a flat disc, and that evidence that it is round - say, pictures taken from space - are an elaborate hoax involving multiple governments. But a fringe society founded in the 1950s, dedicated to insisting that the Earth is flat, has given rise to a modern ground of flat Earth adherents.

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