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EVIDENCE Case open

Flat
Earth

Case no.013, Space & aliens
ClaimEarth is a flat disc, not a globe
Exhibits4, from 1838 to 2024
First filed1838, a canal in England

Stand on a beach and look out to sea. The horizon is a straight line, as flat as a ruler. Most people stop there. A growing number of people don't, and they've built a whole movement on one question:

The Flammarion engraving: a traveler on hands and knees pushes his head through the edge of the sky to see the machinery of the heavens beyond a flat world.
Exhibit 013-A The Flammarion engraving, first printed in 1888Artist unknown, public domain

Weigh the evidence

0 of 4 rated

Four pieces of evidence the debate keeps coming back to. Look at each one and give your first impression. Then read both explanations. You can change your answer any time.

CASE FILE 013CHAPTER 1

The Greeks already knew

The idea that Earth is round is older than almost any other idea in science. Around 240 BC, the Greek scholar Eratosthenes compared the shadows cast at noon in two Egyptian cities and used the difference to estimate the size of the whole planet. His answer was close.

Educated people in Europe never really lost that knowledge. The popular story that medieval sailors feared falling off the edge of the world is mostly a modern invention.

So the modern flat Earth movement isn't a holdover from ancient times. It's new, and it started with one man and a canal.

CASE FILE 013CHAPTER 2

A pamphlet and a canal

In 1838, an English writer named Samuel Rowbotham stood at the Bedford Level, a long, straight drainage canal in Cambridgeshire, and watched a boat move away from him. He concluded the water was flat, and so was the world.1

In 1849 he published his ideas under the pen name "Parallax" in a pamphlet called Zetetic Astronomy, later expanded into a book, Earth Not a Globe.1

The canal became the movement's first battleground. In 1870, the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace repeated the experiment, correcting for the way air bends light near water, and found the curve.1 Rowbotham's followers rejected the result, a pattern that would repeat for the next 150 years.

CASE FILE 013CHAPTER 3

From a society to a feed

In 1956, an Englishman named Samuel Shenton founded the International Flat Earth Research Society. His successor, Charles K. Johnson, reported about 3,500 members before a 1997 fire destroyed the society's records.1

Then came YouTube. Flat Earth videos took off in the mid-2010s, and in November 2017 the first flat Earth conference near Raleigh, North Carolina, drew more than 500 people paying up to $249 each.1

2%of Americans said they firmly believe Earth is flat in a 2018 YouGov poll. Among 18-to-24-year-olds it was 4%.

The movement has had its tragedies too. In February 2020, "Mad" Mike Hughes, a daredevil and flat earth believer who built his own rockets, died in a crash during a practice flight.1

Illustrated portrait of Rex Marlowe, host of the believer case: a weathered man in a canvas field jacket.Host
Personnel file / Statement ARex MarloweThe believer caseHosted an overnight radio show about the unexplained for 20 years. Now he goes to the places in the files.

"Trust your own eyes"

Go to the beach. The horizon is flat. Put a level on a still lake. It's flat. You've been told the ground under your feet is a ball spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and you've never once felt it move. Everything you know about the shape of the world came from someone else's picture.

And look at who makes the pictures. Many of the famous Earth photos are composites; that's not me saying it, that's in the image credits.5 The same institutions that ran MKUltra want you to take their word on the biggest question there is. Rowbotham did an experiment with his own eyes. Most people have never tested anything.

Illustrated portrait of June Okafor, host of the skeptic case: a woman in a blue work shirt holding manila folders.Host
Personnel file / Statement BJune OkaforThe skeptic caseSpent ten years as an insurance fraud investigator. Now she reads the original records so you don't have to.

"We tested it. A lot."

Eratosthenes measured the planet with shadows 2,200 years ago. Ships disappear hull-first over the horizon. When it's noon in New York, it's night in Sydney. And when flat earthers built their own laser gyroscope for a 2018 documentary, it picked up a drift of 15 degrees an hour, exactly the rotation of a spinning globe.3

In 2024, four flat earth believers flew to Antarctica to see for themselves and filmed a sun that never set. One of their best-known voices said afterward that his model no longer worked.4 Testing things yourself is a great instinct. The tests keep coming back round.

Rex and June are characters written for this site and appear in every file. They are not real people. Their arguments come from the sources listed below.

THE STRANGEST PART

They went to the edge of the world

In December 2024, a Colorado pastor named Will Duffy paid to fly four flat earth believers and four globe believers to Union Glacier, a private camp deep in Antarctica, to settle one question: does the sun set there in December or not?4

It didn't. They livestreamed a 24-hour sun for days. All four flat earthers admitted it was real, and the YouTuber Jeran Campanella said his model was no longer valid.4

Much of the wider movement rejected the trip anyway. Some said the footage was faked in a studio, and others accused Duffy of being part of the conspiracy.4

The flat blue-ice runway site at Union Glacier, with mountains on the horizon under a clear sky.
Exhibit 013-C Union Glacier, site of the 2024 expedition's campPhoto: Christopher Michel, CC BY 2.0
READER FINDINGCASE FILE 013

You've seen the exhibits. Where do you land?

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On film

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The file

Modern originSamuel Rowbotham, 1838
PeakYouTube boom, mid-2010s
BelieversAbout 2% of Americans, per a 2018 poll
StatusContradicted by every independent measurement

Common questions

Do people really believe the Earth is flat?

A small number do. A 2018 YouGov poll found 2% of Americans firmly believed it, rising to 4% among 18-to-24-year-olds.

Who started the modern flat Earth movement?

Samuel Rowbotham, an English writer who claimed in 1838 that a canal experiment showed the water was flat. His followers founded societies that kept the idea alive into the 20th century.

What happened when flat earthers went to Antarctica?

In December 2024, four believers saw and livestreamed a 24-hour sun at Union Glacier. They admitted it was real, though much of the movement rejected the result.

How do we know Earth is round?

Through measurements anyone can repeat: shadows at different latitudes, ships disappearing hull-first, time zones, the round shadow Earth casts on the Moon, and photos from many countries' spacecraft.

Other open files

Ancient AliensDyatlov PassMKUltraThe Illuminati
071 / DEAD INTERNET NEXT FILE: TECH & INTERNET

Dead Internet

Think about the last comment section you scrolled through. Every account had a name, a photo, an opinion. How many of them were people?

Open file 071

Photo credits: Flammarion engraving (public domain); Old Bedford River, J.Hannan-Briggs (CC BY-SA 2.0); Blue Marble, NASA (public domain); Gleason's map, Boston Public Library (public domain); Union Glacier, Christopher Michel (CC BY 2.0). Full list on the credits page.