Supporters of the flat Earth suffer mockery, die, but do not give up

The other day, the supporters of the flat Earth theory suffered an irreparable loss — one of the most active and crazy adherents, the self-taught inventor Mike Hughes, died. This extraordinary man spent many years of his life trying to prove that our planet has the shape of a frisbee plate, but he left without receiving confirmation of this.

It should be said right away that Hughes is not some armchair theorist who conducts lectures bent over a flat globe. Mike went to the other world with a noise and a rumble, surrounded by clouds of hot steam. Hughes died during a test of a steam rocket of his own design. On it, he planned to climb to a height of 5 thousand feet (1.5 thousand meters) to once again try to get proof of his theory and become a star.

Mike Hughes fell 800 meters from the start point and was already dead when help arrived. The flight of the modern steam Icarus was supposed to be shown in the program about the" beaten off "inventors" Home astronauts " on the Science channel, but now the plot's broadcast is under a big question. However, the short flight of the flat earth supporter got on an amateur video and has already been distributed on the Internet.

Who are the people who are sure that the Earth is flat and why do they hold on to their absurd theory so much that they are willing to take risks?

The fact that the earth has the shape of a ball, people had the opportunity to make sure in the late Middle Ages. But in the middle of the XIX century, for some reason, a lot of people appeared again who strongly doubted this. Oddly enough, there are many of them today — the theory of a flat Earth lives and thrives.

"Ploskozemelschiki" not only convince everyone of their rightness, but are also ready to use the latest achievements of science and technology to search for evidence. In addition to the late Hughes, the famous rapper B. o. b. distinguished himself in this field. This eccentric guy does not have enough NASA images as evidence, and he decided to get his own.

Bobby Ray Simmons Jr., which is exactly the full name of this artist, in September 2019, began a campaign on the Go Fund Me crowdfunding platform to raise money for the launch of "one or more" satellites. The purpose of the rapper's space program is to collect evidence that NASA is lying to us, and the earth is shaped like a saucer with rounded edges.

At first, B. o. b. announced the collection of 200 thousand dollars, but realizing that this was not enough, he quickly raised the bar to one million. For six months, only 6 thousand dollars (382 thousand rubles) were transferred to the account of the "plosozemelschik". Seeing the lack of enthusiasm among investors, the rapper somewhat moderated his ardor and now describes his intentions as follows:

The epiphany came to the musician suddenly. A year ago, he posted a photo on Twitter against the horizon and provided it with the following caption: "The city in the background is about 16 miles away… Where is the bend? Please explain this." Of course, there were people who wanted to object to the naturalist.

Neil Degrasse Tyson, a well-known astrophysicist and popularizer of science in the United States, replied to the rapper that the curvature of the earth's surface can be seen only at an altitude of 150 feet (46 meters) above Manhattan, but even in this case, the picture will not be completely complete, since there are a lot of houses around that are much higher than this mark.

These arguments did not affect the stubborn Bobby Ray Simmons in any way and only prompted him to write the composition "Flatline" in which the words "you managed to fool us for the last time"were written. To this, the scientist only replied that the lag in knowledge for five centuries does not affect the musical talent of B. o.b. and left him alone.

In Russia, the excitement was caused by the REN TV program "The most shocking hypotheses" from September 25. It included interviews with former NASA employee Matthew Boylan — one of the most ardent supporters of the flat Earth theory. Matthew claims that he was told about the lie about the spherical shape of the planet in the first days of his work at the Agency.

Boylan said that he had seen real, unprocessed images from space and our planet is flat on all of them, like on the UN emblem. There are supporters of the hypothesis and in Of Russia. Astrologer Pavel Sviridov is convinced that the best proof that our planet has the form of a disk can be considered a video with a view of the city of Chicago, taken from a distance of 100 km by photographer Joshua Novinsky.

A frame from the video of Joshua Novinsky. The distance to Chicago in a straight line is about 100 km

In this case, Chicago was filmed from the opposite shore of Lake Michigan and, according to all the laws of classical science, it should not have been visible on the horizon. But it is clearly visible, although the reason is not in the flat shape of the planet, but in the so-called "upper mirage". This unusual phenomenon of nature is associated with the difference in the temperature of air flows, the refraction of which allows you to see objects hidden behind the horizon line.

The experts whose opinion was presented on REN-TV claim that the pictures on which the curvature of the Earth is clearly visible were taken with a fish-eye lens and it is impossible to believe them. And they lie to ordinary people because billions of dollars are allocated annually to the space industry around the world, and if the hoax is revealed, then someone will lose income and will have to answer for lying and embezzling money.

In the Russian social network Vkontakte, there are many groups in which those who believe in a flat earth communicate. The largest of them is the "Flat Earth Society", in the description of which there are such words:

At one time, the most active propagandist of the theory was a 13-year-old schoolboy Maxim Kolerev from Miass, Chelyabinsk region. The teenager led his YouTube channel dedicated to exposing the classic version. Maxim was often and a lot mocked and the young genius in 2017 deleted his account on the video hosting.

Maxim Kolerev

But one of the videos was so loved by users that it still wanders the network. Thanks to him, a new term "sharoe***" appeared, as an obscene version of the nickname "sharolyuby". We also owe the appearance of the definition of "flat-earthers" to this video of Kolerev.The theory of a flat Earth is not at all new, but for some reason its supporters have been especially active recently. Characters like B. o. b. are increasingly appearing on the web and on television, and programs like the one shown by Russian REN-TV are released regularly around the world. In 2017, the theory was recognized as viral, as it gave birth to a huge number of memes.

Since then, bullying of "flat-earners" has become signs of good taste and tons of jokes, jokes and outright insults have poured out on the poor fellows. But the best of all, of course, are memes, the deposit of which is fueled by more and more nonsense generated by dissidents from the "flat-earthers" camp.