This was one of the first cosmic facts to be worked out correctly by ancient people because evidence of a spherical Earth is visible to the naked eye. The globe has been understood for thousands of years. Furthermore, flat earthers claim that all images of the globe are fraudulent inventions and all testimony from astronauts is false.

Many claim that gravity does not exist at all. They claim that light, perspective, and gravity work differently than we understand from the evidence of science and our senses. Why do people think the Earth is flat?įlat Earth conspiracy advocates rely upon made-up excuses and inventive forces to explain away the problems of their model. However, we know that in the Southern Hemisphere it is a completely different sky filled with foreign constellations compared to the ones that we see here in the Northern Hemisphere.

If the world were actually flat, then we’d be able to see the same night sky from anywhere on Earth. Flattening the globe would also severely distort the shapes of oceans and continents and the distances between them. Flat earth models do not explain the broad range of natural phenomena that are well explained by the modern scientific understanding of the globe and its place in our solar system. The flat Earth conspiracy bases its arguments on perceived flaws in mainstream science, while ignoring major problems with its own claims. Left to itself without divine intervention, a disc world would collapse under its own gravity forming a sphere like other planets, large moons, and stars. This remains the position of many flat earthers today.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, flat earthism was primarily motivated by biblical literalism. The flat Earth conspiracy varies, but usually involves a large disc shaped world with a relatively tiny sun and moon circling above it like lamps above a table.

Is the earth flat or round?