Apparent motion is the appearance that celestial objects move due to the motion of Earth. If all the objects that appear in the sky are moving similarly, then it is far more likely that the movement is only apparent and caused by the motion of the observer.

Flat-Earthers claim that the motion of celestial objects “proves” that Earth is stationary, and the celestial objects are moving. By the same “reasoning,” we can conclude that the train we are in is stationary, it is just all the objects outside, as luck would have it, are moving in a very similar fashion.


Flat-Earthers would say that we know the train is moving from different observations, like that we can feel the train is accelerating. However, the same thing can also be said for the motion of Earth. While the movement of celestial objects is only indirect evidence we can infer from, we can directly know the Earth is rotating from the Coriolis effect, the Eötvös effect, and gyroscopic precession. And we can directly know Earth is in motion around the Sun from observations like stellar parallax, stellar aberration, and the Doppler effect.

Camera zoom works by enlarging the center portion of the image, or in other words, by making its field-of-view narrower. Zooming in on the setting sun will not reveal more of the sun and will only enlarge the size of the sun in the resulting image.

Flat-Earthers claim that zooming in on a setting sun will reveal the full sun and somehow lift it out of the water. In reality, they used incorrect exposure settings, making the sun still above the horizon appear already half-obscured by Earth’s curvature.

Zooming on the setting sun will never reveal the sun already obstructed by Earth’s curvature.


When fully zoomed in, the sun appears larger and fills more of the frame. As a result, the frame is dominated by a bright object (the sun). The auto-exposure system will thus compensate by lowering the exposure. The sun will appear in the correct exposure with a clearly defined edge. This is done by sacrificing the appearance of all the other objects, which now appear dark.

On the other hand, the sun appears very small when fully zoomed out and occupies far less of the frame. The picture is dominated by dark objects, like the evening sky and the ocean. The autoexposure system now thinks the photographer wants to take a picture of the entire landscape and compensate by raising the exposure. The sky and ocean appear correctly exposed at the expense of the sun, which now looks too bright. Not only that, the glare around the sun will appear too bright as well, and it can be impossible to distinguish the sun from its glare. Flat-Earthers think the glare is part of the sun and incorrectly assume the sun is larger than it is.

To take a good picture of the sun during sunset, it is sometimes necessary to use manual exposure. The autoexposure system can only guess the intention of the photographer. Sometimes it guesses wrong, like when the intended object is far brighter than its surroundings or vice versa.

According to dictionary.com, these are the meanings of ‘theory’:

a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein’s theory of relativity.
a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.
Mathematics. a body of principles, theorems, or the like, belonging to one subject: number theory.
the branch of a science or art that deals with its principles or methods, as distinguished from its practice: music theory.
a particular conception or view of something to be done or of the method of doing it; a system of rules or principles: conflicting theories of how children best learn to read.
contemplation or speculation: the theory that there is life on other planets.
In the scientific context, ‘theory’ means 1, 3, or 4. In other cases, ‘theory’ might mean 2.

Flat-Earthers assume that because something is called a ‘theory,’ then it is still unproven. For example, when they find the phrase “theory of relativity” and “theory of evolution” in scientific writings, they would incorrectly conclude that relativity and evolution are still unproven. In the scientific context, an unproven supposition is referred to as a ‘hypothesis” not a ‘theory.’

Honestly I am not surprised.

A man who claims to be the founder of the “Biblical Flat Earth Society” has been charged with 56 counts of child sexual exploitation.

Phillip Stephen Stallings, 40, from Durham County, US, was arrested after a joint investigation by the Durham Country Sheriff’s Office and the US Department of Homeland Security.

A zero-gravity aircraft flies in a parabolic motion following a free-fall motion to provide a brief weightless environment.

Flat-Earthers claim videos of astronauts in space were faked in zero-gravity aircraft. In reality, a zero-gravity plane can only provide ~25 seconds of continuous weightlessness and cannot be used to film long-take videos in a weightless condition.

The weight of an object is the force exerted on the object by gravity. The gravitational force exerted by the Earth on an object is what we feel as the ‘weight’ of the object.

Many flat-Earthers fail to understand that the gravitational force is just another name for ‘weight’. Much misinformation in flat Earth communities arises from this misunderstanding.


One of the most common misconceptions found in the flat Earth community is that if gravity is so strong that it can make ocean water stick on Earth, it should affect objects that weigh less, like feathers & dandelions, with a far stronger force.

What we experience as the weight of an object is, in reality, the force of gravity itself, which is exerted by Earth’s mass on the object. The more massive an object, then the greater is its weight, or in other words, the greater the gravitational force exerted by the Earth on the object. And as a result, it would require more force to lift the object.

Mofo skinny going vegan is too funny, next he'll move to Thailand and be riding Eric Dubay's cock.

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These are some of the information we can gather about a photo to determine if it is real:

Image forensics: Change levels & curves to find hints of cloning. Use ELA to determine the difference of image degradation in different parts of the image.

Metadata analysis: Look for the image’s date from HTTP headers. Find out if the EXIF metadata exists, check for times, camera & lens, exposure settings, GPS information, etc. and see if everything checks out.

Reverse image search: Use Google Image Search, TinEye, or similar tools to search for similar images on the Internet.

Scene analysis: Find discrepancies between light sources and shadows. Use common sense to find things out of place.

Source of the photo: Find the source of the image. Is the source of the image identifiable? Check if they are trustworthy.

Scene plausibility: Is the event in the picture possible? Has it occurred before? Are there other sources that can corroborate the event’s occurrence?

Appeal to emotion: Do the image and the accompanying information make us emotional? If so, then it deserves more scrutiny before we can regard it as real.

Weather & astronomy: Verify the weather using sites like weather.com. Verify the positions of astronomical bodies like the Sun & the Moon using an app like Stellarium.

Fact-checkers: Check with sites like Snopes or other fact-checkers. Viral images are usually already addressed.

And last but not least, just because a photo is fake does not mean the things depicted in the photo are also fake.

The Cavendish experiment was the first experiment to measure the force of gravity between masses in the laboratory and the first to yield accurate values for the gravitational constant.

Flat-Earthers are in a constant effort to discredit the Cavendish experiment. They would invent various “explanations” to “explain” the result of the experiments. However, the experiment was not only done once by Henry Cavendish in 1797-1798, and has been replicated numerous times by multiple independent parties for centuries, all yielding consistent results.


The Cavendish experiment consists of a wooden rod horizontally suspended from a wire, with two small lead balls attached to each end. Two more massive lead balls were placed near the smaller balls. Gravity would pull the freely suspended rod and small spheres toward the more massive balls.

Flat-Earthers are always trying to discredit the experiment by aiming their attention to the original experiment, and even toward Henry Cavendish himself as an individual. In reality, the experiment has been replicated numerous times and gave practically the same results. The term ‘Cavendish experiment’ refers not only to the original Cavendish experiment but also to the method and procedures from the original experiment. Anyone is free to attempt the Cavendish experiment, and when done correctly, they will get practically the same results.

https://youtu.be/jkjqrlYOW_0

https://youtu.be/Mcg2h--JDv4

The “8 inches” rule is also an approximation. It remains usable until up to about 100 miles. After that, it deviates from the correct value very quickly.

The correct formula being;

h = r - r cos(s/2r)

h = height
r = radius
s = arc length

Red Bull Stratos was a high-altitude diving project involving Felix Baumgartner. In 2012, Felix Baumgartner flew 39 km (24 mi) into the stratosphere in a helium balloon before free falling in a pressure suit and then parachuting to Earth. Flat-Earthers invented various excuses to dismiss the resulting footage from the project.


Fisheye lenses were used to record the footage of the jump. Flat-Earthers used the fact to rule out the apparent curvature in the videos as if the curve were produced by the fisheye distortions. In reality, the camera and the lens used were identified, and from that, it was possible to perfectly defish the footage. The defished footage still shows the curvature very clearly.

Before Felix performed the jump, he did test runs twice, using a different module. Flat Earthers identified several differences from the different footage of the drop and concluded it was a sloppy manipulation. In reality, there were two modules, one for the test jumps, and the other for the actual record-breaking jump.

From the published videos, the entire Earth’s surface visible to Felix was all land, and no ocean was in sight. Flat-Earthers questioned it: if Felix jumped from space, then Earth’s ocean around the US should be visible. In reality, Felix jumped from merely 39 km, not nearly high enough to call it “space.” From such an altitude above Roswell, NM, the ocean should not be visible, consistent with the published videos.

Flat-Earthers questioned that if the Earth is rotating, then why Felix jumped straight down to the same location? First, Felix still retained the inertia he had when he was still standing on the surface. And second, he did not jump straight down to the same location. He went up 39 km and landed 37 km away due to various factors, including the Coriolis effect from Earth’s rotation.

Accounting for the curvature of the Earth is not usually needed for narrow high-rise building projects. Designers only need to ensure the foundation is flat, and the curvature of the Earth becomes non-factor.

For projects that extend over a long distance, like roads, railroads, canals, etc., they are built along the curvature of the Earth, and specifically accounting for the curvature is usually not needed.

But when the project extends on a long distance, as well as extending upwards, then we have no choice but to take the curvature of the Earth into account. One of such projects is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, New York, United States.

The towers of the bridge are 1⅝ inches (41.275 mm) farther between the tops than at the base. The curvature of the Earth needs to be taken into account because the project extends on a relatively long distance as well as upwards. The height of the towers is 693 ft (211 m), and they are 4,260 ft (1,298 m) apart.

If the curvature of the Earth is not taken into account, then the two poles would not be straight towards to the center of Earth’s gravity, and the bridge will not be able to support itself properly. The cables would have to support some of the weight of the towers, as well as the load from the passing vehicles.

 1871, George Airy attempted to measure the drag of light that would change the stellar aberration of light by using a water-filled telescope, instead of an air-filled one. His observation did not indicate the change exists and does not support the Aether drag hypothesis, hence the popular name “Airy’s failure.” It does not support a flat & stationary Earth as the underlying phenomenon —the annual stellar aberration— can only occur if the Earth is in motion around the Sun.

The Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887 proved that if the Earth is in motion, then Aether could not exist. This experiment alone cannot confirm if the Earth is or is not in motion, but that does not stop flat-Earthers. The fact that the Earth is in motion had to be concluded from other observations.

Georges Sagnac in 1913 conducted an experiment where he rotated his interferometer. He concluded the Aether exists, but only because he was unaware of what we call now the Sagnac effect. This effect is used today in optical gyroscopes, and cannot possibly be utilized had the Aether theory is correct.

The Michelson–Gale–Pearson experiment (1926) was a very large interferometer designed to detect Earth’s rotation by measuring the resulting Sagnac effect. The experiment was successful and confirmed the angular velocity due to Earth’s rotation.

Flat-Earthers claim there is no scale model of the Solar System and use the fact to “prove” the failure of science to explain the world. The Sweden Solar System proves them wrong and gives us an idea about the problem of making a scale model of the Solar System.

In the Sweden Solar System, the Sun is depicted by the Globe Arena building (the Globen) in Stockholm, which is sphere-shaped with a 71 m diameter. Earth is represented by a sphere with a diameter of 65 cm, 7.6 km from the Globen. And the Moon is represented by an 18 cm sphere, about 20 m from the Earth.

The misconception is more than a century old. In 1881, Samuel Rowbotham wrote it in his book ‘Earth not a Globe, second edition.’ In 1885, another perpetrator of flat Earth, William Carpenter, also covered it in his book ‘One Hundred Proofs That the Earth is not a Globe.’ In 1890, Alex Gleason —who is more known for his so-called ‘flat Earth map’— also got his hands dirty spreading the misconception in his book ‘Is the Earth a Globe?’. And more than 100 years later, Eric Dubay repeated the same mistake in his book ‘The Flat Earth Conspiracy.’

All made the same mistake by misinterpreting the Suez Canal’s datum line which was 26 ft below sea level at the time of its initial construction. They claim if the Earth is a sphere, then the Suez Canal must be dug according to a straight line between 26 ft below sea level from either side, which would require digging 1666 ft deep below sea level in the middle of the Suez Canal.

They are wrong. The surface of the water is equipotential or is at the same level, including when the water flows through the Suez Canal. The engineers only need to ensure the canal bed is 26 ft deep, relative to the equipotential surface of sea water. Because the surface of the water curves, then the foundation of the canal will also curve along the curvature of the Earth.