AYNTKA – Flat Earth Society

What is the Flat Earth Society?

The Flat Earth Society, in essence, is a group of individuals who believe that the earth is a flat disk rather than a spheroid.

A lot of these ideas are motivated by religious literature, pseudo scientific experiments and theories and sensory proof, which the society considers absolute and sufficient.

Flat Earth Society : Origin and Ideology

The foundation for the modern Flat Earth Society was laid down in the 19th century by the English writer, Samuel Rowbotham. He carried out a series of observations on a stretch of the Old Bedford River in the United Kingdom to measure the curvature of the earth (the Bedford Level experiment). The results of this experiment and his belief in literary theology led him to conclude that the earth is a flat disk centered at the north pole and is bounded along its southern edge by a 150-foot-tall wall of ice, Antarctica.

This society laid the framework for the International Flat Earth Society which was formally founded by Samuel Shenton in 1956. The society was relaunched in 2009 by David Shenton, after years of inaction following the death of the previous president, Charles Johnson, in 2001.

They have attracted roughly 200 members every year since 2009.

What do they propose?

According to them, the sun, the moon and all the stars rotate at a point above the north pole centered around a shared, imaginary point of attraction. They act as spotlights and illuminate different parts of the earth, resulting in day and night. The FES also advocates the existence of a celestial body called the anti moon to account for lunar eclipses.

The FES believes in Universal Acceleration as its theory for gravity, which asserts that the earth is constantly accelerating upwards at 9.8 meters/second squared, rather than attracting objects to itself at that rate. This is due to the presence of a force called dark energy which constitutes 70% of the universe. 

They promote the idea that earth is the only disk shaped body in the universe, all other celestial bodies being spherical.

The FES asserts that all photographs and models of the earth taken from the space are manipulated. They don’t accuse international space agencies (especially NASA) of deliberately feeding people with false information about the earth’s shape – they just believe that NASA’s real purpose is not to run an actual space program, but to expand the military and financial dominance of America, which they are attaining by means of an exploratory front. FES believes that the roots of this deception were laid during the Cold War when USA and USSR were both itching to establish their superiority.

Modern Flat Earth Society

The FES currently relies mostly on the virtual domain to spread its ideas and gain members. It has an extensive online database and it maintains its own virtual library of related literature.

Modern FES dissociates itself from any kind of religious beliefs or justification and takes a purely empirical and scientific viewpoint.

Mike Hughes, a flat earth enthusiast, had planned to launch himself up into space in a self-made scrap metal rocket to take a picture of the earth and prove that it is flat. However,the lack of federal permits and a string of mechanical problems stalled his launch.

The FES has been in spotlight recently following an interaction with Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. 

Rapper B.o.B came out in open support for the Flat earth Society and has reportedly started raising funds for launching satellites.

Quoting Shakespeare, “A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet”. Be it flat or curved, our Earth won’t treat us any different nor would we treat it any different.