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Every time I think that some people can't be that stupid or that gullible, someone or a small bunch of them come along and prove me wrong...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...racy-theorists-gather-discuss-proof-first-uk/
Flat Earth conspiracy theorists gather to discuss 'proof' at first UK convention
133
Organiser Gary John at the Convention Credit: Andrew Fox
30 April 2018 • 12:13pm
The Ancient Greeks first argued the earth was round more than 2,000 years ago while Ferdinand Magellan proved it with the first successful circumnavigation in the 16th century.
Yet 500 years on, a growing number of conspiracy theorists are convinced that every single mainstream scientist since then has got it wrong. The planet, they insist, isn’t spherical at all. The earth, they maintain, is flat.
This weekend, more than 200 believers - among them an NHS manager and a special needs educational worker - attended Britain’s first ever Flat Earth Convention, held in a nondescript, three-star hotel in Birmingham.
Fuelled by social media and a growing conviction that the authorities are not to be trusted, the flat earth business is booming.
In the conference room of the Jurys Inn hotel, delegates bought and sold flat earth merchandise, that included “Flat Power” t-shirts, flat maps and, of course, novelty spirit levels. Flat-earthers came from a wide variety of backgrounds included smartly dressed IT consultants as well as off-grid environmentalists.
In discussions held over three days, guest speakers unveiled their scientific proof that the earth is more pancake than profiterole.
“My research destroys big bang cosmology. It supports the idea that gravity doesn’t exist and the only true force in nature is electromagnetism,” explained David Marsh, a manager at the NHS Supply Chain head office in Alfreton, Derbyshire.
People gathered, united in their belief that the world is flat Credit: Andrew Fox
Mr Marsh has carried out his own year-long research in his back garden, tracking the movement of the moon across the sky using a free mobile phone app and a Nikon camera. His experiments have disproved, he says, the accepted laws of planetary motion.
The convention’s organiser Gary John said the event had been driven by a surge in interest in an idea that was thought to have flat-lined at least half a millennia ago.
“People are waking up,” said Mr John. “We’re seeing an explosion of interest in flat earth theories and increasing mistrust of governments.”
More than 200 flat-earthers gathered for the event Credit: Andrew Fox
During the last five years, online Google searches in the UK for the phrase “flat earth” have risen tenfold, according to Google Trends.
Over the same period Facebook groups and YouTube accounts promoting the flat earth theory have racked up tens of thousands of followers. Many believe in a range of conspiracy theories that include, for obvious reasons, an insistence the moon landings and other Nasa footage were faked.
Then there are the prominent flat earthers with internet disciples. They include Kyrie Irving, one of the big stars of US professional basketball, who repeatedly insisted the earth was flat in a podcast in February 2017 that went round the world - or at least would have done if the globe was basketball shaped .
The US rapper B.o.B (real name Bobby Ray Simmons Jr) has also told his followers the earth is flat. Last November last year, he began a crowdfunding campaign, seeking to raise $1 million with the aim of launching satellites into space to obtain proof. As of yesterday, ‘Flat earth Bob’ - as he is also known - had secured $6,899 in funding.
Though there are disagreements amongst the new wave of flat earth enthusiasts about just how Earth looks, most share a core belief the planet has no curvature, and is not moving through space or spinning.
Participants revelled in attending a conference where they could express their beliefs without being ridiculed. They were prone to shouting out supportive comments and periodically broke out into loud laughter and jeering as convention speakers played Nasa videos and speeches by world leaders.
Gravity is imaginary, according to the flat-earthers Credit: Andrew Fox
While historically sailors might have feared sailing off the edge, modern-day flat earthers scorn such foolishness.
“We know that continuous east-west travel is a reality,” said the convention speaker and expert Darren Nesbit. “No one has ever come to, or crossed a physical boundary.”
Nesbit himself believes he can explain why no sailor would ever fall into the abyss. Mr Nesbit calls it the “Pac-Man effect”. In his theory, celestial bodies are able to teleport from one side of the earth to the other when they reach the horizon - just as the characters in the video game Pac-Man arrive on the right hand side of the screen as they exit the left hand side.
“One logical possibility for those who are truly free thinkers is that space-time wraps around and we get a Pac-Man effect,” he told the convention.
The shape of the earth is another topic that is fiercely debated. There are those who propose that it could be a circle surrounded by ice walls. Others believe that the earth has a domed roof; some suggest it is made up of a series of interlinked rings.
Mr Nesbit’s own view is that the earth is supported by pillars and shaped like a diamond, with the north and south poles in opposite corners.
“I’m not saying this is definitely what is going on, but I think it is a plausible model,” he said.
Sean Connors, a speaker at the conference and an employee at a school for children with special needs, said that he started to question mainstream media narratives after the build-up to the Iraq war.
“I believed Tony Blair when he told me there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” he said. “When I realised that the government had misled me – that was a turning point.”
Iru Landucci, an Argentinian flat earther with more than 40,000 followers on YouTube, had flown in specially for the UK convention. To applause, he blamed mainstream educationalists for keeping the masses ignorant about the truth nature of the earth. Mr Landucci also believes the Vatican has played a significant role in perpetuating the idea of the earth as a globe.
Gary John, one of the co-organisers, has replicated some of the work of the 19th century flat earth enthusiast Samuel Rowbotham, who claimed the earth was flat after carrying out a series of observations carried out along a six-mile stretch of the Old Bedford River in Cambridgeshire.
“It’s just amazing to connect with people and do the experiments and prove to yourself again that the earth is flat,” said Mr John, adding by way of an afterthought. “We’re not saying we have all the answers, but everyone here is united by the knowledge that the earth is not a globe.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...racy-theorists-gather-discuss-proof-first-uk/
Flat Earth conspiracy theorists gather to discuss 'proof' at first UK convention
133
30 April 2018 • 12:13pm
The Ancient Greeks first argued the earth was round more than 2,000 years ago while Ferdinand Magellan proved it with the first successful circumnavigation in the 16th century.
Yet 500 years on, a growing number of conspiracy theorists are convinced that every single mainstream scientist since then has got it wrong. The planet, they insist, isn’t spherical at all. The earth, they maintain, is flat.
This weekend, more than 200 believers - among them an NHS manager and a special needs educational worker - attended Britain’s first ever Flat Earth Convention, held in a nondescript, three-star hotel in Birmingham.
Fuelled by social media and a growing conviction that the authorities are not to be trusted, the flat earth business is booming.
In the conference room of the Jurys Inn hotel, delegates bought and sold flat earth merchandise, that included “Flat Power” t-shirts, flat maps and, of course, novelty spirit levels. Flat-earthers came from a wide variety of backgrounds included smartly dressed IT consultants as well as off-grid environmentalists.
In discussions held over three days, guest speakers unveiled their scientific proof that the earth is more pancake than profiterole.
“My research destroys big bang cosmology. It supports the idea that gravity doesn’t exist and the only true force in nature is electromagnetism,” explained David Marsh, a manager at the NHS Supply Chain head office in Alfreton, Derbyshire.
People gathered, united in their belief that the world is flat Credit: Andrew Fox
Mr Marsh has carried out his own year-long research in his back garden, tracking the movement of the moon across the sky using a free mobile phone app and a Nikon camera. His experiments have disproved, he says, the accepted laws of planetary motion.
The convention’s organiser Gary John said the event had been driven by a surge in interest in an idea that was thought to have flat-lined at least half a millennia ago.
“People are waking up,” said Mr John. “We’re seeing an explosion of interest in flat earth theories and increasing mistrust of governments.”
More than 200 flat-earthers gathered for the event Credit: Andrew Fox
During the last five years, online Google searches in the UK for the phrase “flat earth” have risen tenfold, according to Google Trends.
Over the same period Facebook groups and YouTube accounts promoting the flat earth theory have racked up tens of thousands of followers. Many believe in a range of conspiracy theories that include, for obvious reasons, an insistence the moon landings and other Nasa footage were faked.
Then there are the prominent flat earthers with internet disciples. They include Kyrie Irving, one of the big stars of US professional basketball, who repeatedly insisted the earth was flat in a podcast in February 2017 that went round the world - or at least would have done if the globe was basketball shaped .
The US rapper B.o.B (real name Bobby Ray Simmons Jr) has also told his followers the earth is flat. Last November last year, he began a crowdfunding campaign, seeking to raise $1 million with the aim of launching satellites into space to obtain proof. As of yesterday, ‘Flat earth Bob’ - as he is also known - had secured $6,899 in funding.
Though there are disagreements amongst the new wave of flat earth enthusiasts about just how Earth looks, most share a core belief the planet has no curvature, and is not moving through space or spinning.
Participants revelled in attending a conference where they could express their beliefs without being ridiculed. They were prone to shouting out supportive comments and periodically broke out into loud laughter and jeering as convention speakers played Nasa videos and speeches by world leaders.
Gravity is imaginary, according to the flat-earthers Credit: Andrew Fox
While historically sailors might have feared sailing off the edge, modern-day flat earthers scorn such foolishness.
“We know that continuous east-west travel is a reality,” said the convention speaker and expert Darren Nesbit. “No one has ever come to, or crossed a physical boundary.”
Nesbit himself believes he can explain why no sailor would ever fall into the abyss. Mr Nesbit calls it the “Pac-Man effect”. In his theory, celestial bodies are able to teleport from one side of the earth to the other when they reach the horizon - just as the characters in the video game Pac-Man arrive on the right hand side of the screen as they exit the left hand side.
“One logical possibility for those who are truly free thinkers is that space-time wraps around and we get a Pac-Man effect,” he told the convention.
The shape of the earth is another topic that is fiercely debated. There are those who propose that it could be a circle surrounded by ice walls. Others believe that the earth has a domed roof; some suggest it is made up of a series of interlinked rings.
Mr Nesbit’s own view is that the earth is supported by pillars and shaped like a diamond, with the north and south poles in opposite corners.
“I’m not saying this is definitely what is going on, but I think it is a plausible model,” he said.
Sean Connors, a speaker at the conference and an employee at a school for children with special needs, said that he started to question mainstream media narratives after the build-up to the Iraq war.
“I believed Tony Blair when he told me there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” he said. “When I realised that the government had misled me – that was a turning point.”
Iru Landucci, an Argentinian flat earther with more than 40,000 followers on YouTube, had flown in specially for the UK convention. To applause, he blamed mainstream educationalists for keeping the masses ignorant about the truth nature of the earth. Mr Landucci also believes the Vatican has played a significant role in perpetuating the idea of the earth as a globe.
Gary John, one of the co-organisers, has replicated some of the work of the 19th century flat earth enthusiast Samuel Rowbotham, who claimed the earth was flat after carrying out a series of observations carried out along a six-mile stretch of the Old Bedford River in Cambridgeshire.
“It’s just amazing to connect with people and do the experiments and prove to yourself again that the earth is flat,” said Mr John, adding by way of an afterthought. “We’re not saying we have all the answers, but everyone here is united by the knowledge that the earth is not a globe.”
