The Flat Earth

The Flat Earth by Donald E. SimanekEarly Ideas About the Shape of the Earth.The ancients had many novel ideas aboutthe shape of the earth. The Babyloniansthought the earth was hollow, to providespace for their underworld. The Egyptiansthought the earth a square, (with fourcorners) with mountains at the edgesupporting the vault of the sky.Aristotle argued for a spherical earth, forthese reasons:1. The gradual disappearance of shipsover the horizon, the tops of the sailsdisappearing last.2. The shape of the curved shadow ofthe earth on the moon during Egyptian cosmogony.eclipses.3. The variation of the sun's elevation with latitude. (This was the basis of Eratosthenes'measurement.)4. The variation of a star's elevation with latitude. The fact that one sees new stars as one movesnorth or south on the earth's surface.5. Matter tends to form into drops or globs, and the earth, in forming from chaotic matter, did thesame.6. Proof by elephants: When one travels west from Greece, one finds elephants (African). Whenone travels east one finds elephants (Asian). Not realizing that these elephants are differentkinds, he thought that one was traveling to the same lands by going in opposite directions.The last two are obviously (to us) irrelevant, but the others represent valid arguments based onobservation of nature. Flat earth. [George Gamow] Round earth. [George Gamow]The early Christian Church accepted Aristotle's spherical earth. But a few malcontents within theChurch pointed out that the Bible speaks of 'the four corners' of the earth. In the 5th century CE the converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, in his Christian Topography, described a square earth with a heavenlyvault, much like the Egyptian model. Tertulian also was a flat-earther.Science writer Robert J. Schadewald gave me permission to quote the following paragraphs in whichhe summarizes the Biblical evidence which flat-earthers use to justify their position. He wrote this to ageocentrist fundamentalist who was arguing that the Bible supports a fixed, non-moving earth, with theall the rest of the universe moving around us at about one revolution per day. Bob, of course agreedthat the Bible does support that view, but wonders why this particular fundamentalist did not alsoaccept the idea that the earth is flat, since that has basis in the Bible also. ...The Bible is, from Genesis to Revelation, a flat-earth book....While the Bible nowhere states categorically that the earth is flat, numerous Old Testament verses clearly show that the ancient Hebrews were flat-earthers. This comes through more clearly in modern translations such as the New English Bible, but it's clear enough in the King James Version. The Genesis creation story says the earth is covered by a vault (firmament) and that the celestial bodies move inside the vault. (See Genesis 1:6-8 and 1:17. Note that, even in KJV, while there are waters \"above\" the firmament, the celestial bodies are \"in\" it.) This makes no sense unless one assumes that the earth is essentially flat. That the Hebrews considered the sun and moon to be small bodies near to the earth is clear from Joshua 10:12, which gives specific localities [geographic] in which they stood still. Isaiah 40:22 says that \"God sits throned on the vaulted roof of earth, whose inhabitants are like grasshoppers.\" In the book of Job, Eliphaz the Temanite says God \"walks to and fro on the vault of heaven.'' (Job 22:14. The KJV translators copped out on the last two verses, but in both cases the implications are clear.) That the earth was considered essentially flat is clear from Daniel, who said, \"I saw a tree of great height at the centre of the earth; the tree grew and became strong, reaching with its top to the sky and visible to the earth's farthest bounds.\" (Daniel 4:10-11) Only on a flat earth could one see a tree reaching the sky (dome?) from \"the earth's farthest bounds.\" The New Testament also implies a flat earth. For instance, Matthew 4:8 says that \"The devil took him [Jesus] to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory.\" From a sufficiently high mountain, one could see all of the kingdoms of the world\"but only if the earth were flat. The same applies to Revelation 1:7, which says that at the second coming, \"Every eye shall see him.\" Finally, Revelation 7:1 refers to \"the four corners of the earth,\" and corners are not generally associated with spheres. Actually, if you want a good picture of the hebrew conception of the earth, look in a Jewish encyclopedia under \"cosmography.\" You might also want to read the so-called \"Ethiopic\" Book of Enoch, written perhaps 150 B.C. While notcanonical, it's paraphrased or quoted a couple of times in the New Testament, so it was highly regarded in those days. Its flat earth implications are even stronger.The Biblical cosmos model derives from Egyptian sources, which had a flat earth covered by arounded sky vault supported at the four corners of the earth by high mountains. The 'waters aboveand the waters below' in the book of Genesis refer to the Babylonian notion that the waters weredivided, and some remained above the sky vault. The vault was like a leaky roof and some of thatwater falls down as rain.Astonishingly, some present-day 'biblical creationists' now argue that this water above the sky was thesource of the flood in the time of Noah. They realize that if the waters did cover the earth to thehighest mountain tops, there just isn't any source of that much water in the earth or in the atmosphere!So it must have come from somewhere else, they argue, in their pathetic attempt to make creationismappear 'scientific'. converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

The Round Earth.Eratosthenes (c 276 to 195 BCE) wasprobably the first to accurately measure thesize of the Earth. He knew that at summersolstice the sun was directly overhead inSyene (now Aswan, Egypt). On that day,vertical sticks or poles cast no shadows,and sunlight fills the bottom of wells. Thetown of Alexandria is directly north ofSyene (on the same meridian), and on thatsame day vertical poles do cast shadows,because the sun is then 7.2° from thezenith. Eratosthenes assumed this to be dueto the earth's curvature.Knowing the distance between these cities Eratosthenes measures the earth.to be 5000 stadia (from land surveys), hecalculated the earth's circumference to be250,000 stadia. [1 stadium was 1/8 of aRoman mile, or 220 yards in modernmeasure.] That's a circumference of a littleover 24,662 miles, which is nearly themodern value of 24,900 miles. This valuewas considered too large by most ofEratosthenes' contemporaries, whopreferred the smaller value worked outlater by Poseidonius (18,000 miles). Thelatter value was accepted by Ptolemy (andColumbus, much later).Note that Eratosthenes made theassumption that the sun was far enoughaway from the earth that the incoming solar rays are parallel.Popular histories give the impression that Columbus had to contend with flat earth believers whowarned that he'd sail right off the edge of the earth. It is even said that he set out to prove the earthwas round. That's myth. Geometry of Eratosthenes' measurement of the earth.Most educated persons in Columbus' day accepted a round earth. But there was difference of opinionabout the earth's size. Columbus made the mistake of relying on Ptolemey's value for the size of theearth, which was much too small. Columbus therefore underestimated the length of the proposedvoyage. (He wanted to reach the Orient, but America got in the way.)There were even some who accepted a round earth, but misunderstood gravity. They thought that ifyou went too far you'd roll off. In fact, they had to postulate some sort of mountainous wall aroundthe known world to keep the oceans from spilling off.Revival of Flat Earth Theories.Bob Shadewald, who researced the flat earth idea to a greater extent than I have, tells me that the flatearth idea was revived in the 18th century by the followers of a eccentric English sectarian and tailor,Lodowick Muggleton. I have been unable to independently confirm this. Origins of eccentric ideas are converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

usually difficult to pin down. In any case, from the 18th century to the present day the flat earth beliefis bound up with religious fundamentalism.By 1800, Zetetic societies were flourishing in England. 'Zetetic' means 'seeker' or 'skeptic'. The flat-earthers took this name to symbolize their skepticism toward orthodox scientific views of the shape ofthe earth.However, their skepticism was limited to science. Then, and now, the flat idea goes along withreligious fundamentalism, and a literal interpretation of the Bible. I have yet to hear of a flat eartherwho is not also a Biblical literalist.Samuel Birley Rowbotham (1816-1884), a 19th century religious fundamentalist, headed an Owenitecolony, and promoted the flat earth philosophy. He's a shadowy figure for historians. He had areputation of cynical dishonesty, and some think he didn't really believe what he promoted. He was anitinerant lecurer, and wrote under several pseudonyms: Tryon, S. Goulden, Parallax, and Dr. Birley.His major work was Earth Not a Globe written in 1849.Rowbotham concocted the fiendishly clever idea of light refraction in curved paths to 'save thehypothesis' of the flat earth, to account for what he called the 'optical illusions' of sunrise and sunset.Rowbotham is the first flat-earther to give the size of the sun: 32 miles in diameter, a figure acceptedby flat-earthers today. However, he gave the distance to the sun as 700 miles, a figure hard toreconcile with his value for its diameter.John Hampden (1819-1891) vigorously promoted the flat earth idea in England. He founded theTruth-Seeker's Oracle and Scriptural Science Review in 1876. In 1870 Hampden made a bet withnaturalist Alfred Wallace on the outcome of a test of the flatness of water in the Old Bedford Canal.Both sides claimed the test confirmed their view, and flat-earthers to this day assert that \"watersurfaces have been proved to be flat.\"Hampden was known for his piety, and his abusive language. Feeling he had been wronged in theBedford experiment, he buried Wallace in a blizzard of vitriolic pamphlets and letters to the editor. Heeven resorted to abusing by letter, as this letter to Mrs. Wallace shows. Madam If your infernal thief of a husband is brought home some day on a hurdle, with every bone in his head smashed to a pulp, you will know the reason. Do you tell him from me he is a lying infernal thief, and as sure as his name is Wallace he never dies in his bed. You must be a miserable wretch to be obliged to live with a convicted felon. Do not think or let him think I have done with him. John HampdenHampden thought the sun only 600 miles away, and 32 miles in diameter. These numbers derivedfrom Rowotham, and added nothing new to flat earth theory.After Rowbotham's death in 1884 his followers carried on the crusade. The Universal Zetetic Society(UZS) was founded in 1890, publishing a journal titled The Earth Not a Globe Review which had1000 subscribers. The UZS remained active well into the early 20th century, but slowly declined afterWorld War I.Other flat-earthers were active at this time. William Carpenter emigrated to Baltimore and wrote OneHundred Proofs that the Earth is not a Globe in 1885. Lady Blount, wife of Sir Walter de SodringtonBlount, promoted flat earth ideas. She founded and edited a journal Earth from 1900 to 1904.Scotsman John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907) studied at Edinburgh University, then established apastorate near Sydney Australia, and included flat earth dogma in his theology.A digression on measurements.In the last decades of the 19th century diverse models of the earth and heavens were activelypromoted. Isaac Newton Vail proposed an annular theory to account for the formation of the earthand planets, but assumed a convex earth. The Gillespian theory put the earth and sun in fixedpositions, allowing the earth to rotate. A \"conic\" theory modeled the shape of the earth as somethinglike a cone, its base being the North polar region, and its apex at the South pole. There was even asmall publication titled The Square World promoting an earth shaped as an inverted soup bowl, the converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

Northern hemisphere being about as we know it, but with the Southern Hemisphere flaring out to alarger rim. It's a mystery why the author describes it as \"square\", but it has something to do with theBiblical reference to \"the four corners of the earth\".The New Bedford canal experiment inspired others to measure the flatness of water surfaces.Alexander Gleason, a civil engineer from Buffalo, NY, tested the flatness of the surface of lake Erie.He published Is the Bible from Heaven (1890) and Is the Earth a Globe? (1893).But not everyone who measured water's flatness got the same result. In 1896 Ulysses G. Morrowmade such a test on the Old Illinois Drainage Canal, He found the water surface concaveupwards.Morrow considered this \"the most unmistakable evidence of the water's non-convexity.\" But he wasn'tsurprised, for he was already leaning to the view of Cyrus Reed Teed that the earth was hollow, andwe lived on its inside surface, with the entire universe also inside.Morrow made similar sightings in 1896 from the shore of Lake Michigan at the World's Fair Grounds.Seven other sightings were made from Roby, Illinois in 1896, with similar results. These experimentsof both flat and hollow-earth advocates were easily dismissed by critics as simply due to atmosphericrefraction. Morrow sought a more convincing method for measuring water surfaces, one that wouldnot use light. In 1897 he did the famous Naples experiment in Florida, measuring a nearly 4 mile N-Swater surface using a method that did not depend on light. He concluded that the earth was concave,with a radius of a bit over 4000 miles.During the last decades of the 19th century the flat-earthers and hollow earthers paid close attention toeach other's experiments, read their opponent's publications, and even corresponded, through theletters sections of their newsletters.The earth was flat in Zion.In 1888 Scotsman John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907) brought these ideas to America, where hefounded the Christian Catholic Church in Chicago. Dowie was a faith healer, and the journal Leavesof Healing was the official publication of the church. The church grew rapidly, and Dowie realized hisdream of founding a christian community in 1901, the Zion community located on the Lake Michiganshore, 40 miles north of Chicago.Alexander Dowie. Alexander Dowie drawing by Champe.As the community grew and prospered, Dowie moved away from the simple life he had earlieradvocated. He resided in a 25 room mansion, and designed for himself magnificent ecclesiasticalrobes, modeled after those worn by Aaron, the High priest, described in Leviticus. Communitymembers thought he was putting on too much 'style' and his wife was criticized as too extravagant. In1906, after suffering a stroke, Dowie was forced to resign his position. converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

Dowie is rebuked.Wilbur Glenn Voliva (1870-1942) took overleadership of the Church, which became theChristian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion.Voliva kept tight control on his 6000 followers,which made up the community. The church schoolstaught the flat earth doctrine. His 100,000 watt radiostation broadcast his diatribes against round earthastronomy, and the evils of evolution.In its early years, Zion was a one-religioncommunity. A Scottish lace industry and a bakerywere established. Zion brand fig bar cookies andWhite Dove chocolates originated there.In the town of Zion a strict code of morality wasimposed, by law, on all persons who set foot insidecity limits. Irving Wallace, in his book The SquarePegs, tells of his childhood memories of Zion. Thereit was unlawful for women to wear short dresses,high heels, bathing suits or lipstick. Ham, bacon,oysters, liquor and tobacco were banned, as weredrugstores, medical buildings and movie theaters. Aten o'clock curfew was rigidly enforced. You could Wilbur Glenn Voliva.be arrested for whistling on Sunday. These lawswere enforced by Voliva's police force, called thePraetorian Guard, whose helmets carried the word 'PAT IENCE' and whose sleeves bore images ofdoves. Policemen wore Bibles and clubs on their belts.Irving Wallace interviewed Voliva in 1932. Voliva declared that the Bible was his entire scientificlibrary. Astronomers were 'ignorant fools'. The sun, he said, was only three thousand miles away, andonly thirty-two miles in diameter. When asked why he thought the sun so near the earth, he said,\"God made the sun to light the earth, and therefore must have placed it close to the task it wasdesigned to do. What would you think of a man who built a house in Zion and put a lamp to light it inKenosha, Wisconsin?\" converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

The Zion communal industries were mostly ruined in the depression. Rival churches made specialefforts to send missionaries to Zion to break Voliva's religious monopoly. His political control of thetown of Zion was finally broken as well. Voliva died in 1942, and Zion now has pork, lipstick,pharmacies and physicians, and you can safely whistle on Sunday. Voliva's flat earth map. Modern Mechanics and Invention, October, 1931.The church's power declined in the 40s and 50s, partly due to financial scandals. But the church itselfstill exists, a pale shadow of its former glory.The White Dove, symbol of Patience. Seal of Zion.Zion today.I visited Zion in the summer of 1992. It's a small lake shore community of middle class homes andpleasant parks and beaches. One immediately recognizes the town's history and heritage in the streetsigns, for the north-south streets are named for people and places from the Bible: Gideon, Jethro,Galilee, Gilead, Gilboa, Gabriel, Ezra, Ezekiel, Enoch. When I was there the police cars still carriedthe town seal, an emblem of the Zion church. A lawsuit had been brought against the town because ofthis inappropriate use of a religious symbol. Several residents and church members I talked to werevery indignant about this attempt to separate church and state.The original Zion church, a wooden structure, burned in 1937, and has been replaced by a churchwith modern architectural design. Also gone is the Elijah Hospice, built in 1901. It was considered tobe the largest wood frame building in the world, with 350 rooms, dining rooms and parlors. It becamethe Zion retirement hotel and nursing home. Despite efforts to save it as a historical site, it was torndown in the late 1980s and replaced with a modern brick hospital. Zion now has over one hundredchurches of an astonishing variety, including many one-of-a-kind churches. There's even a nuclear converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

power plant adjoining city limits.Shiloh House, a 25 roommansion built as the residence of John Alexander Dowie. The roof tiles have a zig-zag pattern in yellowgreen and brown, symbolizing the power of God. [Photo by Donald Simanek.]Shiloh House, the home of Alexander Dowie and later of Wilbur Voliva, still stands. It may be visitedonly on weekends, when the local historical society gives public tours.The flat earth in the late 20thcentury.Back in England, in 1956, Samuel Shenton,a sign painter and a Fellow of the RoyalAstronomical Society and the RoyalGeographic Society, revived the UZS,changing its name to The InternationalFlat Earth Society.A brochure from the IFS forthrightly statesits position.The International Flat Earth Socieyhas been established to prove bysound reasoning and factualevidence that the present acceptedtheory that the Earth is a globespinning on its axis every 24 hoursand at the same time describing anorbit round the Sun at a speed of66,000 m.p.h, is contrary to allexperience and to sound common-sense.In ancient times the Earh was Flat Earth Society brochure.regarded as plane, and this isexpressed in all literature up to a fewhundred of years ago. The theory hasfallen into disfavour, owing mainly tothe dogmatism of modern science andpopular education in schools, whichleads to prejudice in favour of theglobular theory from the start. converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

It is always a pity to allow false theories to pass unchallenged, and it is hoped that the Flat Earth Society will do much to undo the harm that has been caused. Remember that the truth of the plane figure of the Earth can be shown by irrefutable evidence, and anyone who is interested in becoming a member is asked to contact the President or the Organising Secretary. In future it is hoped to hold regular meetings of the Society. December 20th, 1956.The society received quite a bit of publicity when Shenton was shown photos of the 'round' earthtaken from space. At first he wasn't impressed, saying \"It's easy to see how such a picture could foolthe untrained eye.\" [Indeed, a \"bug-eye\" wide-angle camera lens can produce a similar effect.] Later,some reports said he admitted that the Flat Earth Society might have to \"reassess its position.\" But,after a brief period of uncertainty, he concluded that the space photos and the entire space programwas faked by scientists desperately trying to save face by concealing the true nature of the shape ofthe earth.Shenton died in March 1971. His wife helped choose a successor. The most enthusiastic potentialleader within the organization seemed to be Charles K. Johnson of Lancaster, California. Samuel Shenton, illustrating earth's flatness.So Johnson became president of the Flat Earth Society in 1971 and 'inherited' a large portion ofShenton's valuable library of books on flat earth history. Johnson put out a newspaper called TheInternational Flat Earth News. Its masthead declares its purpose: 'Restoring the World to Sanity.' converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

Johnson used Biblical authority to assert that theearth is a flat disk with the North pole at the centerand a wall of ice in the Antarctic regions, surroundingthe whole perimeter of the earth disk. In his universethe sun and moon were about 32 miles in diameterand only 3000 miles away. They, too are flat disks.The stars are a mere 4000 miles away.Where did Johnson get these figures? You won't findthe calculations in his newspaper. They may haveoriginated with Carpenter and Robotham in England,and are accepted without question as authoritative byflat-earthers today.Rethinking Eratosthenes.One can reconstruct the origin of these numbers bydoing a little geometry, starting from a flat earthhypothesis. Remember the experiment ofEratosthenes, who measured the angular elevation ofthe sun at two latitudes in Egypt? He assumed that Charles Johnson.the sun was effectively infinitely far away (or at leastso far compared to the earth's size that the actualdistance didn't matter). Then he calculated thediameter of the earth using a second assumption: that the earth was spherical.But suppose you abandon Eratosthenes' two assumptions, and adopt instead the assumption that theearth is flat. Then, triangulation from the same data gives the distance to the sun: 3000 miles! See howa simple change of assumptions can drastically alter the entire cosmos? However, the round earth wasmore than an arbitary assumption for Eratosthenes, for he and his contemporaries, had other verygood reasons for knowing the earth was round. [Textbooks sometimes mislead by suggesting that hisexperiment was designed to prove the earth was a sphere. It was not, it was only intended to measurethe size of the sphere.] Distance of sun froma flat earth, using Eratosthenes' method.Finally, the angular size of the sun is 0.5°. Using this fact with a distance to the sun of 3000 miles,gives the sun's diameter: 32 miles. It therefore appears that the flat-earther's figures are based on sunelevation data at just two particular latitudes, perhaps even Eratosthenes' values. I speculate that flatearthers may have picked these out of some book, and when the calculation was finished, they lookedno further. For if they had done the calculation with a variety of latitudes, including large latitudedifferences, conflicting results would have been obtained.The left diagram below shows that for two towns having latitudes within about 30° of each other,reasonably consistent results are obtained. But when larger baselines are used, the triangulation gives amuch smaller distance to the sun. For a 70° latitude difference the distance to the sun comes out lessthan half that for a 10° difference. converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

Still, one could save the hypothesisby assuming that light refracts in apeculiar way. Modern flat-earthersdo indeed assume that refraction isat work. They attribute thedisappearance of the ships over thehorizon to a refraction effect, andeven point out that with someatmospheric conditions, ships,icebergs, and distant mountains havebeen observed to rise above thehorizon, and even turn upsidedown!The diagram at the right shows how Howlight refracts near the earth.this works. The angle that the rays Left: conventional physics. Right: flat-earther's physics.strike the earth's surface is correct,matching the left diagram.To complete their path from the sun to the earth the rays must curve to strike the earth at the correct(observed) angle. The curvature of the rays for latitude differences of less than 50° hardly shows onthe diagram. Of course this result can be obtained in various ways. The curvature could be confined tothe region near the earth, even within the atmosphere. The diagram shows circular arcs, but othershapes might be used as well.Answers to other objections to the flat earth idea.And what about airliners going around the earth?What about earth satellites? They are merely travelingin loop orbits. What makes them do this? Johnsondoesn't say. Flat-earthers shun any form ofgravitational force. They consider gravity to be amystical or occult idea. Things fall, they say, simplybecause they are heavy—no other explanation isneeded.What about the moon flights and the pictures fromspace showing a round earth? Johnson wasn't aboutto be taken in by such nonsense. It's all a hoax, heproclaimed, an elaborate movie production written byArthur C. Clarke, filmed on Hollywood sound stagesand the Mohave desert. \"Neil Armstrong stepped on apaper moon,\" Johnson asserted. Howairplanes and earth satellitesJohnson says his mission is to restore sanity to the orbit around a flat earth.world. He was proud that the United Nations acceptshis idea, for they put a map of his flat earth on their flag. He rejected mystical forces like gravity,accepting the Aristotelian notion that things fall naturally downward—no explanation is needed. Whocould be perverse enough to deny one's senses by doubting it?Johnson also cited the testimony of his wife Marjory, who came from Australia. \"She's sworn out anaffidavit that she never hung by her feet in Australia. She sailed a ship over here, and she did not geton it upside down and she did not sail straight up. She sailed right straight across the ocean. Weconsider that a very important proof that the world is flat,\" Johnson says. converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

Johnson claimed his flat earth society had 1600 membersworldwide, but admits some haven't kept up their dues. Thesociety was always struggling financially. There wereprobably less than 100 hard core members.By now you may be thinking that this is an elaborate joke.Not so. Read a few issues of his newspaper, and you will seethat he is deadly serious. He put out the newspaper at afinancial loss, and lived with his wife in isolation and povertyat the edge of the Mohave desert. He was quite sincere, andindignant at those who would make a joke of the flat earthidea.A rival theory. United Nations Flag. A flat world order.Johnson was infuriated at any mention of the Canadian, LeoFerrari, head of an organization simply called The Flat EarthSociety. Ferrari taught in the philosophy department of St.Thomas University. I'll give you a few gems from hispromotional brochure:We believe in terra firma, and the more firmer the lessterror.All science, like all philosophy and all religion isultimately metaphorical and...reality is essentiallymystical and poetical.Our aim is to restore man's faith in Common Sense... Seeing is believing. ...Man has beenblinded by metaphysics, brainwashed by popular fallacies and bullied into denying the evidenceof his very own eyes!The cover of his brochure says \"We're on the level.\" He once said, in an interview, that he hadtraveled to the edge of the earth, which he defines as the edge of what he can see: Fogo Island, off thecoast of Newfoundland. There he gazed over the edge into the 'abysmal chasm'. \"It was a horror,\" hesaid. \"I managed to grasp a stone for support.\" He carried that stone back with him, which he calls'The Sacred Stone'. converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

I do not know to what extent Ferrari's effortswere parody. But since the internet has made itso easy for people to reach a worldwideaudience, several websites of flat earthorganizations have appeard, almost certainlyintended as satire.PostscriptsMarch 2006.Much has changed since I wrote the above Flyer of The Flat Earth Society.account. Bob Shadewald brought me up to date, Leo Ferrari, Canada.by supplying the following information. In lateSeptember 1995, the Johnsons' home caught fire.Charles managed to pull Marjory, by then asemi-invalid on supplemental oxygen, to safety,but everything else in the house was destroyed—their personal possessions, the Flat Earth Societylibrary and archives, the membership list,everything. Having no fire insurance, theJohnsons were unable to rebuild. A dilapidatedold house trailer, bought as a storage shed,survived the fire, and they took refuge there. Afew months later, Marjory fell and broke a hip.She survived hip replacement surgery but neverrecovered her strength. On May 16, 1996, shedied.Charles Johnson immersed himself in rebuildingthe membership roster. Publication of the FlatEarth News, in hiatus since 1994, was to resumewith the December 1996 issue. But I have noconfirmation that it did.Charles Johnson died in 2001. I hear rumors thatsome efforts have been made to find a newleader to revive the organization, but I've seen noevidence that it has happened.June 2015.Eric Dubay seems to have revived theInternational Flat Earth Research Society. Hiswebsite recycles the classic arguments for anunmoving flat earth, and \"refutes\" arguments fora spherical, rotating earth. He rejects gravity, andis clearly of the opinion that the round earth is avast conspiracy to delude everyone, promoted byFreemasons and NASA. He gives no convincinganswer to the question \"Why would anyone go tothat much trouble to promote any particular viewof the cosmos?\" He admits he has nounderstanding of the mathematical arguments ofconventional physics. He relies instead on\"common sense\" analogies. Read his ebooks,web postings, and watch his videos as fineexaples of \"arguments from ignorance.\"I still would like to see a debate between hollowearthers and flat earthers on the subject of theshape of the earth. It would, I think, demonstratehow alike they are in the methods they use tosupport their belief, and how they can use misinterpreted data and flawed arguments to arrive at converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

mutually contradictory conclusions.Sources: Cohen, Daniel. \"Is the earth flat or hollow?\" Science Digest, Nov. 1972, p. 62-66. Cook, Philip. John Alexander Dowie's Theocracy. Zion Historical Society publication, Series 2. 1970. (pamphlet) Darms, Rev. Anton. Life and Work of John Alexander Dowie. (pamphlet) Davenport, Walter. \"They call me a Flathead\". Collier's, May 11, 1927. DeFord, Charles S.A reparation: universal gravitation a universal fake. Fairfield, Wash., Ye Galleon Press [1992] 62 p. illus., port. QB283.D44 1992 Reprint of the 3d ed. (New York, Fortean Society, 1931), with a new introduction by Robert J. Schadewald. Fiske, John. A Century of Science and Other Essays. Houghton, Mifflin, 1899. XIV. \"Some Cranks and their Crotchets.\" This essay also appears in Atlantic Monthly, March 1899, p. 292- 310. It discusses, among other things, the history of flat and hollow earth theories. Flat Earth News. International Flat Earth Research Society. Gardner, Martin. \"Flat and hollow.\" In his Fads and fallacies in the name of science. [Rev. and expanded ed.] New York, Dover Publications [1957] p. 16–27. Q173.G35 1957. Includes Voliva and the Christian Apostolic Church in Zion, Ill. Garwood, Christine. Flat Earth, The History of an Infamous Idea. Macmillian, 2007. Gates, David, with Jennifer Smith. \"Keeping the Flat-Earth Faith.\" Newsweek, July 2, 1984. Gleason, Alex. Is the Bible from heaven? Is the earth a globe? 2d ed., rev. and enl. Buffalo, N.Y., Buffalo Electrotype and Engraving Co. [1893] xix, 402 p. illus., map, col. plates, portraits. QB638.G56 Kneitel, Tom. \"WCBD, The 'Flat Earth' Radio Station\". Popular Communications, June 1986. Johnson, William J. \"Flat Earth Society.\" SR (date?) Leaves of Healing. (periodical, 1888- ) Moore, Patrick. \"Better and flatter earths.\" In hisCan you speak Venusian? A guide to the independent thinkers. [Newton Abbot, David & Charles, 1972] p. 16–29. illus. QB52.M66 1972. Pfarr, Jerry. \"Utopia was 40 miles north of Chicago.\" Chicago News-Sun, Sat/Sun, July 15016, 1989, sec. 1. Reinders, Robert C. \"Training for a Prophet: The West Coast Missions of John Alexander Dowie, 1888-1890.\" The Pacific Historian, Spring 1986. XXX, 1, p. 3. [Rowbotham, Samuel B.] Zetetic astronomy. Earth not a globe. An experimental inquiry into the true figure of the earth, proving it a plane, without orbital or axial motion, and the only known material world; its true position in the universe, comparatively recent formation, present chemical condition, and approaching destruction by fire, &c., &c. By \"Parallax\" [pseud.] The illus. by George Davey. 3d ed., rev. and enl. London, Day, 1881. 430 p. illus. CaBViP; CtY; ICJ Schadewald, Robert. \"He knew Earth is round, but his proof fell flat.\" Smithsonian, April 1978. p. 101-113. An account of the 1870 'Old Bedford Canal' challenge in which naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and flat-earther John Hampden measured the flatness of the water surface. Schadewald, Robert. \"The Flat-out Truth: Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A fraud! Says This Prophet. Science Digest, July 1980, p. 58-63. Web copy. Schadewald, Robert. \"Is the World in Curious Shape?\" (Asimov's science fiction magazine?) Schadewald, Robert. \"Some Like it Flat.\" InFringes of Reason by Ted Schultz, ed. New York: Harmony Books, 1989, 86-88. Taylor, Jabez. Wilbur Glenn Voliva. Zion Historical Society, Continuing History of Zion, 1901- 1961, Series 7. (pamphlet, no date) Taylor, Jabez. A Visit to Zion's Historical Shiloh House. Zion Historical Society, Shiloh House. (pamphlet, no date) Wacker, Grant. \"Marching to Zion.\" A/G Heritage. Part 1, Summer? 1986. Part 2. Fall, 1986. Wallace, Irving. The Square Pegs. Alfred A. Knopf, 1957. Chapter 1. In Defense of the Square Peg. Williams, Marjorie I. \"From Realism to Reality: the Followers of Dr. John Alexander Dowie.\" M.A. Thesis, Rosary College, July 1963. [Winship, Thomas] Zetetic cosmogony; or, Conclusive evidence that the world is not a rotating-revolving-globe, but a stationary plane circle. By Rectangle [pseud.] 2d ed., enl. Durban, Natal, T. L. Cullingworth, 1899. 192 p. QB638.W77 First published in 1897 (46 p. QB638.W769).Disclaimer. converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com

This document is a work in progress. Consider it a first or rough draft. Later versions will have morespecific references and footnotes.Additional reading. The Flat Earth Bible by Robert J. Schadewald. The Flat-out Truth: Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophetby Robert J. Schadewald. A profile of Charles Johnson. Flat Earth in the Bible? by Joseph Francis Alward. The Scriptural Basis for a Geocentric Cosmology by Glenn Elert. The Flat Earth and its Advocates: A List of References, Library of Congress. Hollow Earth Bibliography (plus Flat Earth too!) by Michael Rogero Brown.Note to Students.I use the quotation mark style common in philosophy and linguistics. Words and phrases underdiscussion are enclosed in single quotes, and other punctuation is not included within the quotes.Quoted material from attributed sources is enclosed in double quotes. Lengthy quoted passages are setoff by indentation, and retain the punctuation style of the original source. This may not be the styleother professors wish you to use. Consult A Manual of Style (University of Chicago Press) to find outabout acceptable styles. For work submitted in my courses, you may use whatever consistent styleyou feel appropriate to the purpose.This document ©2006 by Donald E. Simanek. Input andsuggestions are welcome. Please use the URL to the right.When responding, please indicate the specific document of interest.Return to Myths and Mysteries of Science.Check out an alaternative theory, The Hollow Earth.Return to Donald Simanek's front page. converted by W eb2PDFConvert.com