All right everybody, welcome back to the conspiracy podcast, part two. You’re still here? Yeah, especially after Flat Earth one. This is the good one. In part one we talked about the history of the Flat Earth concept and the whole movement, and when they started believing in Flat Earth compared to this spherical planet that we are on. It’s so funny how it went from “it’s round” to “yeah, but is it?”

What’s strange though is, remember we were talking about the way the Flat Earth is structured and there’s an ice thing. Why is there ice, and if there was ice around our entire flat perimeter wouldn’t we have reached the ice? There’s a wall. What’s the science behind why that ice doesn’t melt? I guess if the sun is right next to it, because space is right there. But isn’t the Flat Earth theory that the sun is right 200 miles above us? It’s far more than a million. The sun is 93 million miles away, 93 million, not 200 miles above us.

If you didn’t listen to episode one, check that out, because we go over the history of it and then leading up to the lull, which was from like the ’50s to the early 2000s, then the resurgence. So we’re really at the resurgence and we’re coming up to more present. We said it was 2010ish when the resurgence happened. I wanted to go over a couple other things that I think are kind of funny and interesting.

So this is based on speakers at the 2018 UK Flat Earth convention. Believers in Flat Earth vary widely in their views. While most agree upon a disc-shaped Earth, some are convinced the Earth is diamond shaped. I don’t know how that works. Is it a flat diamond? The map is a diamond. Most believers don’t believe in outer space, and apparently none of the Flat Earth believers believe that we’ve ever traveled to space, and so it’s fake. They believe space is not real.

Can we touch on this for a second? Why? And how is that possible? Why would we trick everybody? So there’s no space, where is the moon, where is the sun? They believe it’s all like a painting on the ceiling. It’s like The Truman Show. But who’s in The Truman Show? Who do they think is the executive producer of this show? Aliens? Well, clearly they don’t believe in space but they believe in aliens controlling the dome. No, because then that would mean that there is space, because there’s aliens out there. It’s like, well, the aliens are just in another room. There’s no space, a big warehouse they’re all living in.

So there was this documentary called Behind the Curve. Those filmmakers attended another Flat Earth conference and a substantial number of people believed the Earth was an infinite plane, going on forever, potentially with more continents beyond the purported circular ice wall of Antarctica. As Eric was saying, there’s an ice wall, the night’s watch is up there. So some Flat Earth believers also suspect that other Flat Earth believers are somehow part of the global conspiracy and aren’t to be trusted. So they don’t even trust their own members, like infighting. You’re sus, you’re super sus.

Members of the Flat Earth Society and other flat earthers claim that NASA and other government agencies conspire to fabricate evidence that the Earth is spherical. According to the most widely spread version of current Flat Earth theory, NASA is guarding the Antarctic ice wall that surrounds Earth. They also argue that NASA manipulates and fabricates satellite images. Here’s a fun fact: they believe there’s no space yet there’s satellites floating around in the sky. They’re saying the satellite images are wrong but they’re agreeing that there are satellites, but there’s no space, so I’m kind of confused here.

They based that off observations that the color of the oceans changed from image to image and that the continents seem to be in different places. Because the satellites are traveling like 50,000 miles an hour around the planet, so of course it’s in a different place. So far I have not heard one that’s convincing, except for the whole telescope and the canal thing. So there are actually three different factions of flat earthers. Did you find out how many people are flat earthers? It’s not a membership, you don’t have a card, it’s not like Republicans. Based on what we researched, that Instagram page is like 160,000 people.

If there are seven billion people, there’s got to be a couple hundred thousand that believe. That’s such a small fraction, but it’s a large number of people who believe something. Way more than I anticipated. I was thinking it was like the ’50s. So the first faction subscribes to a faith-based conflict in which atheists use science to suppress the Christian faith. Their argument is that atheists use pseudoscience, evolution, big bang, and the round earth to make people believe that God is an abstract idea, not real. Instead they use the scripture word by word to support an argument that enables God to really exist. This faction frames Flat Earth arguments as revelatory.

I don’t know how they believe that the circular Earth means God’s not real. I don’t believe the Christian faith says anything about the Earth being flat. My grandmother literally reads scripture every day for the last 60 years and she’s never mentioned flat Earth to me. I don’t know how those two things go together at all. The second faction believes in an overarching conspiracy for knowledge suppression. Building upon the premise that knowledge is power, the Flat Earth conspiracy argues that a shadowy group of elites controls knowledge to remain in power. This faction frames Flat Earth arguments as liberatory.

It’s very 1984, like big brother, we’re in a bubble, keep these little ants working, keep them thinking. But wouldn’t it be more beneficial for them to make people believe it’s flat, like there’s nothing out there, you can never escape, you’re trapped here, instead of being like there’s a whole universe out there? How would that keep them in power? If it was flat I’d be like, you’re in a colony, ain’t no escape, there ain’t no space, I put that moon up there, it’s an ornament. In their view, lying about the fundamental nature of the earth primes the population to believe a host of other conspiracies. I think it’s this deep-seated disbelief in the powers that be.

As a rational human being I’m trying to understand it, no offense, but I’m having trouble. When you take somebody’s view and you try to go, okay, let me see if I can see the view, I’m having trouble. Look, if you’re a flat earther you’re cool, we should have gotten one on. We would love a flat earther on, we have space for another mic here. Write us if you’re listening. The good thing is I’m not trying to be a jerk to you, I’m more just confused, I want to understand what’s happening. Even when we did the Freemasons thing, I was super happy to get the guy who wrote into us, because I was putting in information where I didn’t know.

So the third faction believes that knowledge is personal and experiential. They are skeptical of knowledge that comes from authoritative sources. This is the first thing I can understand. This is “feel Earth,” feel what’s true because you saw it, you experienced it for yourself and made the conclusion, as opposed to being told what you’re supposed to believe. They’re skeptical of knowledge from authoritative sources, especially government-sanctioned quote-unquote experts, and especially book knowledge. They don’t trust books. Books are for plebs.

So this faction would like to find out themselves whether the Earth truly is flat. This is where you take a sailboat out to the ocean and you’re like, do I see the horizon or do the walls go? It’s like a spiritual thing, do you see the horizon with your own eyes? Because they distrust book knowledge and mathematical proof. So you can’t trust math now. You don’t trust math, science, history, economics, literature. This faction believes the Earth is flat because their observations and lived experiences make it appear as if we live on a flat surface. If you’re only going off what you’ve experienced, I can understand believing it’s flat.

There is the element that we’re so small. Go to Louisiana, you look out and all you see is flat. But what about when you’re flying? You’ve seen the curvature on a plane, I think so, yeah. Obviously you can get way higher and see it way clearer. It’s not flat when you’re over Colorado looking wherever. And how do they explain zero G? You can take a plane in the stratosphere and you can experience zero G. Does this negate gravity? Not necessarily, because gravity is based off mass. Even in a flat Earth scenario, as long as there was enough mass, the mass is actually pulling you towards it.

The one thing they probably can’t explain is the atmosphere. The reason there’s a magnetic field protecting us from the nuclear sun, which is literally a nuclear warhead 3,000 times bigger than us, constantly shooting death rays at us, there’s a magnetic field. They would say that’s just what the books are telling you, that’s fake. There’s a literal magnetic field around the planet, according to the books. Name one book that tells me otherwise. That’s right, all the books are fake. Look at Columbus’s book.

There are various skeptic organizations, but it’s hard to do this with a straight face, because you’re not telling a story, you’re just reading words. So these fringe groups perform tests to try to demonstrate the local curvature of the earth. There’s a YouTube show called Globe Busters, the lamest name I’ve ever heard. They use a ring laser gyroscope to show that the Earth is actually not rotating. Instead they detected that there’s a 15 degree per hour rotation of the earth. So they proved it, they proved that it was moving. And so they dismissed this measurement as a corrupted device, and said they were somehow picking up the rotation of the firmament. The firmament is the dome, the rotation of the dome.

There’s another group that used lasers in an attempt to show a several-mile stretch of water is perfectly flat by measuring the distance between the water level and the laser beam along three vertical posts. They were unable to align the beam as they expected because the surface of the still water was in fact bent over several feet of the distance measured. The experiment was dismissed as inconclusive. So literally they’re like, it’s flat, watch, I’m going to take this laser beam to this pole, and they couldn’t do it because the Earth bends. They’re constantly proving themselves wrong and they’re like, it was a mistake, the book’s wrong, the laser’s broken.

The Behind the Curve filmmakers spoke with a lot of people who said that as a result of being Flat Earth believers they lost a lot of romantic partners, they no longer spoke to many of their friends and family, they were literally ostracized because people thought they were insane. One of the guys is like, I’m tired of being told I’m an idiot, maybe it’s true. So you’re with a girl, it’s a serious relationship, you’re nine months in, living together, and then she goes, hey, I’m a flat earther, is that a red flag? A hundred percent for me. First you laugh, but for real, are you? I’d be like, okay, explain it, go through any of these scenarios. I might argue with her just for the funsies.

There’s actually a Facebook group called Flat Earth Match, and it’s a dating site to find romantic partners who share the same belief. Listen sweetheart, you should get off Bumble and go to Flat Earth Match, find some like-minded people. The experts pointed out that after social ties to people outside the Flat Earth community are lost, one consequence of abandoning the Flat Earth belief would be loss of all remaining relationships. That’s ruthless, that’s crazy.

I’m going to tell you a story about Mad Mike Hughes. In 2020 he died in California following the crash of a rocket that he was piloting. He built it out of scrap metal, and he was doing a TV show with the Science Channel called Homemade Astronauts. That was the concept of the show, people who were going to build their own rockets to prove astronauts wrong. They did fundraising to get funding for the show, but the way they got fundraising was saying they were flat earthers. He went up, did multiple, the second one crashed, and he died.

Following his death, Darren Schuster, his public relations rep, stated, “we used the Flat Earth as a PR stunt.” It was clickbait, pure clickbait. Flat Earth allowed us to get so much publicity that we kept it going. It’s such a polarizing thing, people are instantly like, I’ve got to watch this. I know that Mike didn’t believe in Flat Earth, it was just a shtick. So he died for nothing, he died just for ratings, just for fame. It’s crazy what people do for the views and the money. Have you ever seen those guys that hang off buildings, and they’ll slip and drop off a cliff?

Then I wanted to go through some of the people we earmarked as either believing it or maybe believing it. The first one, Millie Bobby Brown, from Stranger Things. She did an Instagram live video and was asked by a fan if she believed the Earth was flat. Her response was, “there are so many reasons that lead to the fact that it is flat, I mean think about it.” That’s all we know about Millie Bobby Brown. She could have been joking, just promoting Stranger Things at the time. That’s not enough info to really say.

Next up is Geno Smith, quarterback of the Seahawks. In 2018 Geno tweeted, “how many of the people who undoubtedly know Earth is a globe also believe in the Big Bang Theory and evolution?” That’s not really saying anything, he’s just questioning it. He’s saying the big bang is not something that’s really provable, whereas the Earth being a sphere is, with math and physics. The Big Bang is older than the earth, how can they carbon date that? First of all, 98% of the universe is hydrogen and helium, so you can’t carbon date something that’s not carbon.

Next is Kyrie Irving, played for the Cavs, the Nets, now Dallas, he’s been everywhere. He said, “does it matter to you that I believe the world is flat?” He proceeded to talk about how happy he was that his conversation got people talking about Flat Earth. He’s a very controversial guy, he likes to be the talk of the town, so he’ll say whatever. That being said, he said it several times, I think he really is a flat earther. I personally think Kyrie has got the wrong people in his court, he just needs a new PR.

Backing him up is Draymond Green, on the Warriors a long time. Right after Irving made those headlines he said, “who’s to say that picture from NASA is telling the truth? I can make a round picture with my iPhone today on the panoramic camera and make it look so round, so I don’t know, but it could be.” That sounds like he’s just trying to get some views, this is all clickbait. Another guy is Stefon Diggs, Vikings wide receiver, now the Bills, he’s so good. He tweeted, “how mad would you guys be if I said I agree with Kyrie?” And he went on to ask for somebody to prove that it’s not flat.

I love these people who are like, prove to me it’s not flat. We’ve done everything, what else do we need to do? Have you watched DirecTV, it’s a satellite that’s orbiting Earth, how do you think your phone works? Another one is Tila Tequila, the reality star. She said, “how come in all the fake NASA CGI pics of the earth you never see the background stars and the planets?” So the Hubble telescope is also fake. My father-in-law does long exposures of nebulas in space, and that’s just fake? Is NASA bluetoothing their videos to his telescope? He’s actually taking them, I’ve seen the pictures, they’re of different things.

You would have rather had some more credible type people. Yeah, if it was like Stephen Hawking I would have liked one. Remember when we did the Shakespeare episode, you had Mark Twain, you had some guys that had some weight, not Tila Tequila and a bunch of sports people. So here we are, that’s Flat Earth, and my views have not changed, not even one. I’m actually more vehement that it’s round because the arguments weren’t that great, especially because every time they got proved wrong by their own experiments it was technical difficulties.

The conspiracies are that NASA’s fake, the government is propagating the lies, there’s a planet government, and there’s some sort of big brothery thing keeping it from you. But for what purpose? Supposedly it’s control, domination. But in my entire life there’s never been something where someone had more power over me because the Earth was round. I’ve actually never had a conversation with another human being in my entire life about the Earth being round or flat. It’s never been, oh well, you’re not getting paid as much because the Earth is flat.

It’s been picking up steam in the last five or ten years. Before that it was kind of just died out from 1950-something to 2010 or whatever. Now it’s a thing because of social media and all these famous people. You can make an argument and there’s no debate, you make a video, you don’t have to answer them, it’s got animation, you can turn the comments off. There’s no Neil deGrasse Tyson going, no, this is wrong for this reason. There’s people that say, you see these stars that perfectly align with the pyramids, if we were actually moving through space why are they still aligned? Technically everything is moving through space at the same rate, everything is expanding at that same rate.

There’s no actual beneficial reason for it to be flat and then to hide it. In every tyrannical regime where they’re using propaganda to push a narrative, it’s something that benefits them. There’s nothing they gain from thinking the Earth is round and that there’s space, there’s no game, what do you win? I think this might be the first episode where we’re all on the same page, the first conspiracy that we all agree on. We were close on Natalie Wood, and I think Shakespeare we all agreed on. God forbid we do a pyramid episode, me and Eric might fight in the parking lot after.

Why is it that it’s not like there’s just four people, there’s hundreds of thousands supposedly. It’s relatively small compared to the population of Earth. There’s always going to be a little small group that believes something the majority doesn’t, and I don’t think that’s a wrong thing. That’s something that we do personally, to question the narrative, that’s why we’re here, question everything. I think that’s actually a sane thing to do, at least do it sanely. It’s stupid to just blanketly accept everything you’re told, because as a human being it’s your right to get the answers and make something make sense to you. This just doesn’t make any sense.

I read a survey done a couple years ago, a 10,000 person poll, and 86% of Americans believe the Earth was round. That’s 14% now, I’m not saying 14% said it’s flat, but they said I’m suspect, I’m questioning it, they’re not sure. What if it’s egg shaped, an oval? So I’m just trying to understand why somebody would believe it, because they’re intelligent people, these are not a bunch of idiots, there’s a whole walk of life believing in it. I bet they can’t even tell you why. They like the story, they’re contrarian, some people just want to disagree, they don’t want to be part of the sheep, they want to be different.

If you are a flat earther, please write us, email us, I want to know. I don’t want to be this jerk on you without you getting your chance to rebuttal or give me information that I don’t have, and maybe I’d feel a different way. I’ll go on the record and recant if you make me believe. But based on what we’ve seen it doesn’t make sense, there’s no plausible, legitimate argument, especially since all of their experiments to prove it have failed, and then they won’t acknowledge that it failed. At least admit it, except for that telescope in episode one, the Six Mile Channel, that was the only legitimate experiment that’s ever been conducted.

I do think that half of the people who believe in it found that the sense of community was really nice. I watched a lot of these interviews, they want to be part of a movement, of a community, I can understand that. But then when it comes time to back it up, what’s your reason, what’s your proof? At a lot of the interviews that get done at conferences, they don’t talk about why the Earth is flat, they just talk about how happy they are. Which is great, but they don’t want to get caught facing the actual question. And one of the things I read was that there’s some extreme flat earthers that don’t trust other flat earthers and think they’re part of the conspiracy. They can’t even trust their own kind.

All right guys, that’s what we got tonight. I’d love to hear from you, we’re not making fun of anybody, and we also don’t believe that we’re the end all be all. We’re three guys with three high school diplomas here, so this is not us preaching, we just want to talk about it and hear what you’ve got to say. We’ll catch you next time on the conspiracy podcast. We’ve got OJ, we’ve got RFK, we’ve got Superman, we’ve got a lot of stuff coming down.