The Best Flat Earth Stories and Trolls

February 2, 2021

Do you know a know-it-all?

Funnily enough, it's not the old fashioned "been there, done that' generations of yester-decade that think they know it all.

It's millennials.

According to a study, millennials between the ages of 18 and 24 are more likely than any to answer the question 'Is the earth flat or round?' with the answer "flat" at am alarming 4%.

That's high.
If you're in a room with 100 people, there are four of the bastards in there breathing the same air as you.

Scary.

Scarier still...
In the age where information is at our very fingertips, this generation is just as likely to believe the Earth is flat than to visit the dentist.

I mean, ancient civilisations figured out the Earth is rounded with some basic maths.

Despite overwhelming scientific proof, flat-earthers are out there spreading their not so level ideas. Some have even gone so far as to create an official organization known as the flat earth Society. And, of course, what society can call itself a veritable one without a few conspiracy theories? With the flat earth theory henchmen, NASA is the one to blame for our wrongful belief that the planet earth, is indeed round.

This know-it-all friend, what if the subject matter they thought they knew was utter nonsense?
Mathematically? Visually? Astrologically? And a plain violation of common sense?

We believe they must be ridiculed accordingly.

As the wise prophet Rowan Atkinson said: "The right to ridicule is far more important than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression."

So in the spirit of openness, let's tear into the Flat Earth Theory!

When Flerfers realise our planet is round...

The following are just a handful of stories about people who found out the Earth was round and joined the rest of us in common sense. Applaud them, they saw the light. Or better yet, the curve.

“I have an acquaintance I met in the Navy, who joined specifically so he could see that the Earth was flat while at sea. Every day he would chart the ship’s location, speed, heading, etc so he could make a map of their path. Ultimately, he realised that the path the ship was taking would be impossible if the earth was flat.” - Trungus McTungus via Reddit

“I fell in and out of the belief over time until I saw a video of an experiment where one group flew a helicopter far out over the ocean and another group watched it with a powerful telescope as it slowly lowered to the horizon. It disappeared behind the horizon while the helicopter was still a considerable distance from the ground. That ended that phase for me for good.” - I_literally_can_not via Reddit

“[My Mum and I] both came to the conclusion that the flat Earth doesn’t adequately explain many of the things we observe on earth. For example, we know there are two hemispheres of stars that can be observed from the earth, in the northern and southern sky. It's been well-documented throughout history. But if the Earth is flat, wouldn't we see only one hemisphere of stars from any point on the earth?” - EchoBladeMC via Reddit

“My husband got trapped in a YouTube black hole of flat earth videos for a while. Drove me up a wall. As of recently I discovered he changed his mind. His reasoning? He discovered the majority of flat earthers are Trumpers with extreme political views. Husband’s flat Earth ideas died that day.” - Seaotter_toebeans via Reddit

These "chef's kiss' flerfer stories...

These stories are completely true accounts. They make us very happy in one way or another. They both involve what we'll call "proactive" Flerfers who take the curvature (or lack of) into their own hands and attempt to prove the Earth is flat.

Read on...

Flerfer duet sail to the edge of the Earth

In the height of Italy's lockdown, a man and wife set out to prove the Earth's non-bumpiness once and for all by sailing to the edge. Conveniently, this edge is located near Sicily which they expected to take about a days travel.

So, along with the Leaning Tower of Pisa is the edge of the entire Earth. Yet the tower gets far more attention for tourists? Go figure.

"The two left the Veneto during the lockdown for Lampedusa, violating all restrictions," Salvatore Zichichi of the Maritime Health Office of the Ministry of Health told Italian newspaper La Stampa. "In Termini Imerese they sold their car and bought a boat."

"For them, Lampedusa [an island of the Italian Pelagie Islands in the Mediterranean Sea] was the end of the Earth."

For us sane individuals, we know the trip was a dumb idea from the get go. but doing it during a lockdown amidst a pandemic is plumbing a new depth of plain old non-think.

Using a compass (a navigation system that relies on the principle that the Earth is not a pancake), the couple set off in their boat and attempted to navigate their way through the Pelagie Islands to reach Lampedusa, La Republica reports. You probably won't be surprised to learn that a couple that sold their car in order to reach the end of the world perhaps hadn't thought things through, however, and they soon found themselves lost, tired, and washed up on the island of Ustica instead.

Unsurprisingly, the couple were forced into quarantine.

But, as these types often do, they escaped and continued on their plan. It's pretty safe to assume they thought the whole pandemic was just as silly as the concept of a rounded Earth. And their "incarceration" probably meant they were getting closer to the truth.

I mean, can you blame them?
The cops jurisdiction has to end when the boat starts floating off into space, right?

Sadly, they were caught 3 hours later and returned to quarantine. Always wondering hwo close they came if the world police didn't keep them from the truth...

Flerfers spend $20,000 accidentally proving Earth is round

This one is truly satisfying.

In the Netflix documentary Behind the Curve, a group of Flerfers call themselves a "small but growing contingent of people who firmly believe in a conspiracy to suppress the truth that the Earth is flat".

Okay, so far we're on brand.

One of the contingent is Bob Knodel, the host of a YouTube channel dedicated to the concept of the flat earth theory. Bob and his *team* are actively relying on a $20,000 gyroscopic laser to prove that the Earth isn't rotating. And by that logic, the sun rotates around Earth.

Except, it doesn't.

"What we found is, when we turned on that gyroscope, we found that we were picking up a drift, a 15-degree per hour drift." Knodel explains to the camera.

The following is almost everything wrong with this type of thinking: bias, illogical rationality, covering up experimental results, not accepting evidence and the list goes on.

"Now, obviously we were taken aback by that - 'Wow, that's kind of a problem. We obviously were not willing to accept that, and so we started looking for easy to disprove it was actually registering the motion of the Earth. We don't want to blow this, you know?" Knodel then says to another Flat Earther. "When you've got $20,000 in this freaking gyro. If we dumped what we found right now, it would be bad? It would be bad. What I just told you was confidential."

Knobel actively enthuses that the have to hide proof that the Earth is round because it does't support their theory. A decent experiment user takes the data and uses it to move humanity forward, but these guys are happy to return us to the dark ages.