When Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, the good England cricket hero, gave credence to the idea that the Earth is flat, he was in good firm.
For his confession 2017 adopted that of former basketball participant Shaquille O’Neal and American rapper Bobby Ray Simmons Jr.
They have been propounding a concept that actually kicked off within the Victorian period, when Biblical Creationist Samuel Birley Rowbotham carried out a take a look at referred to as the Bedford Stage Experiment in 1838.
Having positioned a pair of surveyor’s rods six miles aside alongside a straight part of the Outdated Bedford River, Rowbotham declared that he might see one rod whereas standing subsequent to the opposite – in order that meant that the world should be flat.
No matter the truth that the take a look at was later conclusively debunked, the idea that the Earth is flat refused to die.
Within the twentieth century, what turned the Flat Earth Society was led by tireless campaigner Samuel Shenton after which California-based Charles Johnson.
The web period has introduced a brand new military of ‘believers’, certainly one of whom hinted this week that he has concluded the Earth could be spherical in any case.
Jeran Campanella, who runs the favored Flat Earth YouTube present ‘Jeransim’, travelled to Antarctica and witnessed first hand that the solar does not set in the course of the southern hemisphere’s summer time.
When Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, the good England cricket hero, gave credence to the idea that the Earth is flat, he was in good firm. Above: Flintoff on the Oval in September
He tells viewers in a brand new video: ‘Generally you’re incorrect in life and I assumed there was no 24-hour solar. In truth I used to be fairly certain of it.
‘And it is a reality – the solar does circle you within the south. So what does that imply? You guys are going to have to search out that out for your self.’
Campanella thanked the organiser of the journey, which value $35,000 (£27,500) – though he stopped in need of saying that the Earth is spherical.
In 2018, daredevil beginner ‘Mad’ Mike Hughes launched himself practically 2,000 toes within the Earth in a home made steam-powered rocket in a bid to show the Earth is flat.
He injured himself within the onerous touchdown that adopted after which was killed in one other rocket launch in 2020.
The Historic Greeks first found that the Earth shouldn’t be flat in not less than 200BC.
Strong mathematical proof was delivered by astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543.
Then got here the primary photographic proof of the Earth’s form, culminating within the preliminary picture of the Earth as a full sphere in 1966.
In 2018, daredevil beginner ‘Mad’ Mike Hughes launched himself practically 2,000 toes within the Earth in a home made steam-powered rocket in a bid to show the Earth is flat
Hughes injured himself within the onerous touchdown that adopted after which was killed in one other rocket launch in 2020
Rowbotham’s experiment in 1838 was adopted by the issuing of a £500 public wager by his supporter John Hampden in 1870.
He provided the cash to anybody who might show that the Earth was not flat.
Surveyor and scientist Alfred Russel Wallace took up the problem. Understanding that Rowbotham’s ‘findings’ have been the results of an optical phantasm referred to as ‘atmospheric refraction’, he adjusted the unique experiment to get rid of it.
When it was repeated, Russel Wallace was capable of present that there was a level of curvature.
However Hampden refused to simply accept the end result and as a substitute sued Wallace, claiming he had cheated.
After an extended courtroom battle, Hampden was jailed for libel and for threatening to kill Wallace.
But it surely was dominated that the wager had been invalid as a result of Hampden had retracted the wager, so Wallace needed to return the cash.
One among Hampden’s supporters, Christian campaigner Woman Elizabeth Blount, then arrange the Common Zetetic Society to show his level.
Within the twentieth century, what turned the Flat Earth Society was led by tireless campaigner Samuel Shenton
After Shenton’s loss of life, California couple Charles and Marjory Johnson led the Flat Earth Society
And, after his preliminary experiment, Rowbotham had written a pamphlet titled Earth Not a Globe, which was expanded right into a e-book in 1865.
Blount’s society revealed a journal utilizing the identical title and attracted members together with an archbishop and numerous aristocrats and literary figures.
Woman Elizabeth Blount arrange the Common Zetetic Society
In 1956, the group turned the Worldwide Flat Earth Society.
Its principal organiser, Mr Shenton, dismissed NASA’s photographic proof of our spherical planet, by saying: ‘It is easy to see how {a photograph} like that might idiot the untrained eye.’
When Shenton died in 1971, the Society’s membership data handed to Charles Johnson in California.
He declared himself the ‘president of the Worldwide Flat Earth Analysis Society of America and Covenant Individuals’s Church’.
Johnson instructed Newsweek in 1984: ‘If Earth have been a ball spinning in house, there could be no up or down.’
After Johnson’s loss of life in 2001, the flat Earth concept continued with the growth of web use.
The Flat-Earth Society was resurrected as a web based dialogue discussion board in 2004 and the group was formally re-launched in 2009.
Critical Flat-Earthers imagine that Nasa faked its footage of the planet from house.
In November 2017, Flintoff declared himself a Flat-Earth fanatic.
He requested: ‘In case you’re in a helicopter and also you hover, why does the Earth not [rotate under you] if it is spherical?’
Biblical Creationist Samuel Birley Rowbotham Rowbotham carried out what turned often known as the Bedford Stage experiment in 1838
Rowbotham wrote a pamphlet titled Earth Not a Globe, which was expanded right into a e-book in 1865
Rowbotham’s map of the flat Earth. His theories have been conclusively disproven
The previous cricketer added: ‘Why would water keep nonetheless if we’re hurtling by way of house? Why is it not wobbling?’
Months earlier, Shaquille O’Neal had mentioned: ‘I drive from Florida to California on a regular basis, and it is flat to me,’ he declared.
‘I don’t go up and down at a 360-degree angle, and all that stuff about gravity.’
In 2018, a YouGov survey of greater than 8,000 adults within the US advised that as many as one in six People will not be solely sure the Earth is spherical.
Conferences within the US elsewhere have attracted hundreds of holiday makers from world wide.
One other influential determine within the motion is Mark Sargent, who propounded his views on ITV present on This Morning in 2020.
