The movement of the flat earth: a society of disbelievers of scientific fact

If you imagine the Earth as a ball spinning in space. people who recently gathered in a park in Arcadia, California, are eager to argue: you are wrong! The Earth is actually "flatter than a pancake," said Nathan Thompson, part of a movement of people who say they are terrible.

They insist that the Earth is flat.

We live, say these people, on a disk floating in space, with a tiny sun hovering just above us. But what about the curvature of the Earth? "I do not know, nobody has ever seen it," said a man.

"The perimeter of the flat Earth is a wall of ice," Thompson said.

"It's what's being held in the ocean?" asked correspondent Brook Silva-Braga.

"That's what contains all," he said.

And what's under it? "Well, you know, we have not dug so deep," said Flat Flatter Rene Flat.

Netta Hagler, who organized the Flat Earthers meeting, questioned the fact that the Earth is turning in a vacuum at a speed of 1,000 miles at the hour. "But we can not feel it. I do not think I'm running right now. No, "says Hagler.

Patricia Steere, who is part of what you might call the "stars" of the current Flat Earth movement (which orbits mainly around YouTube), told Silva-Braga: "Most people who have heard about it will laugh probably idiots, but we are do not idiots; we are smart people from all walks of life and all ages. "

The Earth Earth brought levels on planes (to prove that they were flying level), they zoomed on the moon and "found" supposedly drifting clouds behind he. "Moon is only a few kilometers away," said a YouTuber of the flat earth. "We were lied to on such a scale!"

Steere agreed to play "20 Questions: Cosmic Edition" with Silva-Braga.

Photos of the Earth from the space? "Completely and completely wrong," she says.

Is the sun 93 million kilometers? "No, the sun is not as far as we've been told, nor the moon, they're probably the same size."

Images of astronauts floating on the space station? "Completely wrong, harness, son."

Have we really gone to the moon? "No, we did not go to the moon," said Steere. "And we have no rover on Mars, and we have not flown over Pluto, we have never been in space.

In short, Earth Earthers do not believe much in anything unless they see it for themselves. They think that NASA is only part of a larger plot.

According to Steere, "It's a giant chess game, we, all of us in humanity, are pawns, part of the flat Earth issue is keeping us locked up, without knowing who we are, who we are truly as people, and of what we are capable of. "

National security expert Tom Nichols, who teaches at Harvard Extension School, has a bleak view of the flat Earth. He told Silva-Braga that he thought something new was happening: "People are really obsessed with the idea that, if it's not part of their direct experience, it can not be true.

"People have lost confidence in the experts.We have developed a kind of inverted snobbery that says that if you have a lot of education, if you are in a well-known institution, you must by definition be a liar!"

Nichols poured his expertise in a book on "The Death of Expertise" (Oxford University Press).

He said: "Often, young people say," Internet is only a big library ". That's wrong, the internet is a big dumpster. Nothing guarantees that everything you find on it is true. "

"It's more democratic, is not it good?" Silva-Braga asked.

"No, as far as knowledge is concerned, more democratic is not good, absolutely not, we do not decide how quickly things go faster in the void. vote above."

So, in this world where I showed myself, we traveled in the desert of Southern California to meet, by ourselves, the only man who boldly goes where no Flat Earther has gone before.

Meet Michael Hughes – "Mad Mike" to his fans. A limo driver, a self-proclaimed daredevil and, more recently, a self-built explorer, Flat Earth. "I am their best hope. I am the best hope to prove Flat Earth, "he said.

"The thing of the flat earth is like all that I think, I just want people to question everything, ask what your congressman is doing, your city council, ask what really happened during the civil war, which happened during 9/11. "

And this rocket sitting in front of her house? Mad Mike has built it himself.

Silva-Braga asked, "How do you know how to build a rocket?"

"Trial and error," said Hughes. "It's a lot of that, you know?"

"You do not have a lot of second chance, though, in the rocket industry."

"No, not at all, especially at about 800 meters high."

Last March, Mad Mike actually climbed into his rocket and went to see what he could see. And to the surprise of almost everyone, Hughes took off and landed more or less intact.

Certainly 1,800 feet is not high enough to monitor the planet well. But Mad Mike now intends to climb up to 100 km to the edge of space, where he can see (or not see) the curve of the Earth.

A model hung in his house shows how he hopes to attach to a craft with balloons and rockets and fly away. "The first 20 miles will be with a ball," he said. "And after that, my rocket will fire, shoot me, then once the rocket stops shooting, I'll fly like Superman for about 30 seconds without energy, just in the atmosphere."

And if he succeeds in one way or another, Mad Mike says that he will refute once and for all the centuries of science.

Or, do not.

"I'm waiting to see a flat disk up there," he said. "I do not have an agenda.If it's a round earth or a ball, I'll go down and say:" Hey guys, I'm mean. "C & # 39; is a bullet, OK? "

And with that, we put the ball back in Professor Nichols's court.

"The world looks apartment. I look out the window, I do not see a curve, "said Silva-Braga.

Nichols replied, "Yes, the world looks apartment. And who are you to tell me that my perception is not better than that of someone else? And I think it's a very dangerous thing, because, you know, the earth is round, and you'll learn that the hard way if you try to fly a plane! "

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Story produced by Alan Golds