The Flat-Earth Conspiracy

The Measurable Non-Curvature of the Flat-Earth

NASA and modern astronomers claim we are living on an oblate spheroid 25,000 statute miles in equatorial circumference with a curvature of 7.935 inches to the mile, varying inversely as the square of the distance, meaning in 3 miles there is a declination of nearly 6 feet, in 30 miles 600 feet, in 300 miles 60,000 feet and so on. Therefore, if we wish to prove or disprove the validity of their convexity claim, it is a fairly simple, straight-forward matter of measurements and calculations.

For example, the distance across the Irish Sea from the Isle of Man’s Douglas Harbor to Great Orm’s Head in North Wales is 60 miles. If the Earth was a globe then the surface of the water between them would form a 60 mile arc, the center towering 1944 feet higher than the coastlines at either end! It is well-known and easily verifiable, however, that on a clear day, from a modest altitude of 100 feet, the Great Orm’s Head is visible from Douglas Harbor. This would be completely impossible on a globe of 25,000 miles. Assuming the 100 foot altitude causes the horizon to appear approximately 13 miles off, the 47 miles remaining means the Welsh coastline should still fall an impossible 1472 feet below the line of sight!

“In the Times newspaper of Monday, Oct. 16, 1854, in an account of her Majesty’s visit to Great Grimsby from Hull, the following paragraph occurs: ‘Their attention was first naturally directed to a gigantic tower which rises from the center pier to the height of 300 feet, and can be seen 60 miles out at sea.’ The 60 miles if nautical, and this is always understood when referring to distances at sea, would make 70 statute miles, to which the fall of 8 inches belongs, and as all observations at sea are considered to be made at an elevation of 10 feet above the water, for which four miles must be deducted from the whole distance, 66 statute miles will remain, the square of which multiplied by 8 inches, gives a declination towards the tower of 2,904 feet; deducting from this the altitude of the tower, 300 feet, we obtain the startling conclusion that the tower should be at the distance at which it is visible, more than 2,600 feet below the horizon!” -Dr. Samuel Rowbotham, “Earth Not a Globe, 2nd Edition” (174)

Indoctrinated naysayers will often retort that light refraction off the water’s surface could account for such phenomena. To begin with, the idea that we cannot differentiate between the refracted light of something and the thing itself is preposterous, but even assuming we couldn’t, surveyors’ general allowance for refraction is only 1/12th the altitude of the object observed, making it a completely implausible explanation. Using the previous example of 2,600 feet divided by 12 gives 206, which subtracted from 2,600 leaves 2,384 feet that the tower should have remained below the horizon!

“In September, 1898, I received a letter from Australia in which the writer says: ‘In the year 1872 I was on board the ship ‘Thomas Wood,’ Capt. Gibson from China to London. Owing to making a long passage, we ran short of provisions, and so short after rounding the Cape that the Captain spoke of putting into St. Helena for a supply. It was then my hobby to get the first glimpse of land, make a survey, just as the sun would be rising. The island was clearly in view, well on the starboard bow. I reported this to Capt. Gibson. He disbelieved me, saying it was impossible as we were 75 miles distant. He, however, offered me paper and pencil to sketch the land I saw. This I did. He then said, ‘you are right,’ and shaped his course accordingly. I had never seen the Island before and could not have described the shape of it had I not seen it. St. Helena is a high volcanic island, and if my informant had seen the top only, there would have to be an allowance made for the height of the land, but as he sketched the island he must have seen the whole of it, which should have been 3,650 feet below the line of sight, if the world be a globe.” -Thomas Winship, “Zetetic Cosmogeny” (21)

In Chambers’ Journal, February 1895, a sailor near Mauritius in the Indian Ocean reported having seen a vessel which turned out to be an incredible 200 miles away! The incident caused much heated debate in nautical circles at the time, gaining further confirmation in Aden, Yemen where another witness reported seeing a missing Bombay steamer from 200 miles away. He correctly stated the precise appearance, location and direction of the steamer all later corroborated and confirmed correct by those onboard. Such sightings are absolutely inexplicable if the Earth were actually a ball 25,000 miles around, as ships 200 miles distant would have to be well over 4 miles below the line of sight!

“Astronomers are in the habit of considering two points on the Earth’s surface, without, it seems, any limit as to the distance that lies between them, as being on a level, and the intervening section, even though it be an ocean, as a vast ‘hill’ - of water! The Atlantic ocean, in taking this view of the matter, would form a ‘hill of water’ more than a hundred miles high! The idea is simply monstrous, and could only be entertained by scientists whose whole business is made up of materials of the same description: and it certainly requires no argument to deduce, from such ‘science’ as this, a satisfactory proof that the Earth is not a globe. Every man in full command of his senses knows that a level surface is a flat or horizontal one; but astronomers tell us that the true level is the curved surface of a globe! They know that man requires a level surface on which to live, so they give him one in name which is not one in fact! This is the best that astronomers, with their theoretical science, can do for their fellow creatures - deceive them.” -William Carpenter, “100 Proofs the Earth is Not a Globe” (18, 28)

“Vast areas exhibit a perfectly dead level, scarcely a rise existing through 1,500 miles from the Carpathians to the Urals. South of the Baltic the country is so flat that a prevailing north wind will drive the waters of the Stattiner Haf into the mouth of the Oder, and give the river a backward flow 30 or 40 miles. The plains of Venezuela and New Granada, in South America chiefly on the left of the Orinoco, are termed Ilanos, or level fields. Often in the space of 270 square miles the surface does not vary a single foot. The Amazon only falls 12 feet in the last 700 miles of its course; the La Plata has only a descent of one thirty-third of an inch a mile.” -Rev. T. Milner, “Atlas of Physical Geography”

“These extracts clearly prove that the surface of the earth is level, and that therefore the world is not a globe. And when we come to consider the surface of the world under the sea, we shall find the same uniformity of evidence against the popular view. In ‘Nature and Man,’ by Professor W.B. Carpenter, article ‘The Deep Sea and its Contents,’ the writer says: ‘If the bottom of the mid-ocean were laid dry, an observer standing on any spot of it would find himself surrounded BY A PLAIN, only comparable to that of the North American prairies or the South American pampas … The form of the depressed area which lodges the water of the deep ocean is rather, indeed, to be likened to that of a FLAT WAITER or TEA TRAY, surrounded by an elevated and deeply sloping rim, than to that of the basin with which it is commonly compared.’ This remarkable writer tells of thousands of miles, in the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the great Southern Ocean beds being a plane surface, and from his remarks it is clear that A FLAT SURFACE IS THE GENERAL CONTOUR OF THE BED OF THE GREAT OCEANS FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF SQUARE MILES.” -Thomas Winship, “Zetetic Cosmogeny” (23)