Charles K. Johnson

"The whole point of the Copernican theory is to get rid of Jesus by saying there is no up and no down... the spinning ball thing just makes the whole Bible a big joke."

Charles K. Johnson was (now, don't laugh because he took it seriously) president of the International Flat Earth Society. This organisation seriously contends that the earth is a flat disk centered at the North Pole and surrounded by an ice wall at the South Pole. Under Charlie's enthusiastic period as President, membership of the IFES grew from "a handful" to around three thousand, which only goes to show that there are people out there who will believe anything. Johnson based his belief in a flat earth in his Biblical hyper-literalism: according to him, Jesus's ascent up into Heaven proves that the Earth is flat, since there could be no "up"/"down" if the Earth is round.

He died on March 19, 2001 at age 76, having never won his struggle to "Replace the science religion… with sanity!" It is unknown if his family buried him or simply threw him over the edge.

The IFES's main target was NASA who, they contended, had staged the moon landings as part of an elaborate hoax scripted by Arthur C. Clarke.