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"Evidence" of the Flat Earth conspiracy

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Flat-Earthers have made several incorrect claims that the shape of the Earth is being hidden. This article refutes claims made by flat-Earthers about their crank conspiracy.

"But NASA means "deceive" in Hebrew"[edit]

Why do you need evidence when you can play word games, right!?

...

(*Sigh*) Anyway. Firstly, nasa or nāśā in Modern Hebrew means "to lift, carry or to take."[1][2][3][4][5] Nāšā' does mean "to delude or deceive" but it's pronounce as "naw-shaw"[6] because "is indicated in the transliteration by the diacritic above the s, that's called a caron" as bible scholar Dr. Dan McClellan points out.[7] That's why it's also written as "nâshâ" or "nasha".[6][8] The closest word to "deceive" would be nashar which doesn't even sound like NASA. McClellan also claims this word never appears in the Bible either.[7] And that's not to mention that NASA is an acronym, not a normal word. Keep in mind that this is supposedly a secret Satanic/masonic organization that apparently managed to fool the world's population via very elaborate conspiracies yet leaves obvious clues in its very name as to what its true intentions are. Not to mention... are bible scholars also paid by NASA too? It's also really interesting that flat-earthers found a Hebrew word that sounds vaguely similar to "NASA", and decided that's where the name came from.

"But NASA's secret documents admit the Earth is flat and non-rotating!"[edit]

Flat-earther's cherry-picking.

These cited NASA (apparently NASA is a trustworthy source for flat-earthers now...) "secret" documents (that can easily be found on Google) often are flight dynamics studies and simulations from the 90-80s[9][10] or even the 50s.[11] These papers stated those assumptions to simplify their mathematical calculations (especially since they didn't have fancy computers like today) as a form of an ideal model.

The need for linear models of aircraft for the analysis of vehicle dynamics and control law design is well known. These models are widely used, not only for computer applications but also for quick approximations and desk calculations.[9]

Ideal models are very useful and widespread in science (see for example an ideal gas or an ideal pendulum). Though technically wrong, they are accurate enough for practical purposes at that scale (see again: Relativity of wrong).

For example, some other assumptions are "a rigid aircraft of constant mass" and a "stationary atmosphere",[9][10] which neither exists.[12] The documents might as well have assumed a spherical cow and flat-earthers would believe it too. Ironically, these papers also assume gravity, which, as we have shown in sections above, flatties don't believe...

In any case, there are flight dynamics that assume spherical models too,[13] so there isn't really a point here, just a red herring.

"But there are whistleblowers!"[edit]

In his crank video about whistleblowers Eric Dubay quote mines presents following flat Earth "whistleblowers":

Wernher von Braun[edit]

Flat-eathers have pointed out that nazi NASA aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun mentioned a firmament in his grave, kinda making both a deathbed conversion and etymology argument:

Von Braun's grave citing Psalm 19:1 :
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
King James version

As fun as word games are for christian flat Earth apologetics, they are going to need more than just a tombstone to prove that von Braun meant for "firmament" a "solid dome to separate the primal sea" rather than the "fucking sky" as the rest of the English-speaking world does. At best it shows that von Braun was a deeply religious man. To interpret this in any other way requires several assumptions that you'd never make unless you're starting from the conclusion that the Earth is flat.

Btw, it's not a coincidence flatties use nazi people to support their beliefs...

Robert Simmon[edit]

Robert Simmon's Blue Marble composite images (2002).
The "flat map" that Simmon referred as the "hard part" of all the process to make. We wonder why...

Robert Simmon, the creator of the 2002 Blue Marble image. Dubay claimed Simmon had said that "NASA's Earth images are not photographed, but in fact, photoshopped, and created completely through CGI artistry. My job is mostly taking data sets and making pictures out of them. The Earth is photoshopped, but is has to be". Similarly in another interview, he summarized: "My role is to make imagery from Earth sciences data. I turn data into pictures". The reason this is done was explained over ten years ago in a Quartz article. Briefly, NASA's Earth observing satellites are in low Earth or geostationary orbit, so they can't snap a photo of the entire Earth. Individual frames are combined in an image editor, creating a "flat map" to wrap it around a ball, and the gaps in sea that result from this photo are filled in. So Dubay is lying about the satellite imagery being CGI. Interestingly, Simmon also admitted in the interview that the "hard part" of all of this was making that "flat map" of the entire Earth (we wonder why would that be hard to do on "flat" Earth, or why Dubay cherry-picked that part tho).[14] So... Not a great start, Eric...

Matthew Boylan (AKA Math Powerland)[edit]

Dubay describes Boylan as follows: "A hyper-realist painter, and vocal flat-earther, who claims to be a former NASA Operational Graphics Manager, has also blown the whistle. Saying that NASA's sole reason for existence, is to propagandize the public, and promote the false heliocentric model of the cosmos. He claims to have done various projects, photoshopping images of the Earth, stars, and planets, and has relayed anecdotes about meetings with NASA officials where they openly admitted the entire hoax, and laughed hysterically at the brainwashed zombies who unquestioningly believe their televisions."

Boylan's stand-up routine condemned NASA for creating concept art for its missions. NASA has a long list of images created by artists. Each of those is marked with "(Artist's Concept)". If Boylan thought that was lying to the public, it's on him. Having brought nothing with him as a proof of the conspiracy, leaves us with with Boylan's word. How much is that worth? Boylan seems like someone with the integrity of a man who makes fun of crippled people.

Also, as shown by the documentary Behind the Curve, there's a massive feud between Boylan and Mark Sargent wrt the cult's internal power dynamics. The documentary explains, how Boylan, who titled himself "the originator", larped a pretentious artist who didn't give interviews, and who completely lost his marbles after Sargent took his place as the face of the movement. Boylan started calling Sargent a government shill. To quote Sargent: "Matt wanted to be the king of flat Earth, but he wanted to do it in his own terms." Boylan became a drama queen who rejected invitations to the cult's meetings, and who posted rants that accused Sargent of working for Warner Brothers that "has a deal with pentagon and the CIA". According to the filmmakers, Boylan refused to appear in the film without "receiving $5000, 12% of profits, creative control, a guarantee that he'd be featured in 25-50% of the film, and that Neflix support his unverified claim that Mark Sargent is secretly a Warner Brothers executive using an alias." The filmmakers continued: "We were unable to meet his demands."

This shows Boylan has been more concerned about what's in it for him, and getting back at those who try to outshine him, than collaborating and exposing the "lie". It's almost like he knows it's a grift.

In the film, Boylan claimed he was the one who originally inspired Edward Snowden to blow the whistle. Snowden, who left his girlfriend and upper middle-class life, who actually endangered his life to reveal illegal mass surveillance, who delivered thousands of documents to journalists, and who has shown he doesn't tolerate grifters, might disagree with Boylan's assessment.

Igor Petrovitš Volk[edit]

Dubay: "In a live 2014 television interview with Bulgarian News-7, soviet cosmonaut Igor Petrovitš Volk, awarded the hero of the Soviet Union medal, said outright, that, quote: ‘We have never been to space, and if somebody claims otherwise, it is not true‘."

As can be seen from the full interview (with automatically generated subtitles on), the topic is existence of extraterrestrial life. Both the interviewer and Petrovich clearly show they have a tongue-in-cheek, and the context of what Petrovich said, is clearly "we do not talk about what we see in space and if anyone asks, we deny even having been there". The context was not that humans have never been to space.

Buzz Aldrin[edit]

Dubay: "Buzz Aldrin, visibly inebriated in a 2015 interview with an eight-year-old girl named Zoey, at the National Book Festival in Washington DC, was asked ' Why hasn't nobody been to the moon in such a long time? ' After a pause, he answered, That's not an eight-year-old's question, that's my question. I want to know, but I think I know. Because we didn't go there, and that's the way it happened. And if it didn't happen, it's nice to know why it didn't happen, so in the future, if we want to keep doing something, we need to know why something stopped in the past that we wanted to keep it going."

The quote is accurate, but a) the emphasized word gives already disproves what Dubay is implying, and b) he's quote-mining as usual, and lies by omission. The full answer continues:

"Umm. Money. Is a good thing. If you want to buy new things, new rockets, instead of keep doing the same thing over, then it's going to cost more money, and other things need more money too, so having achieved what the president wanted us to do,[note 1] and then what thousands, millions of people in America, and millions of people around the world" — You know when we toured around the world after we came back, the most fascinating observation as we -- was signs that said "we did it", not just us, not just America, but we, the world, different country, they felt like they were part of what we were able to do and that made us feel very good.

Last but certainly not least, were Aldrin a flat Earth whistleblower, would he have punched a "fellow activist" in the fucking face?

Mirosław Hermaszewski[edit]

Dubay: "Even more recently, in a live 2019 television interview, the first and last Polish astronaut and national hero Mirosław Hermaszewski, 40 years after his flight to space when asked ' you have been there, is the Earth really a sphere hanging in outer space? ', he shockingly replied ' Earth is flat, as some have suspected. I didn't expect this question, but I assure you it is flat. '"

As FlatEarth.ws points out:

"In the interview, he received some ridiculous questions, and he answered them with equally ridiculous answers in a joking tone, including the question at the end of the interview where he was asked if Earth is flat. The General was surprised by the question, but he decided to play along and answered “it is flat” for a hilarious ending. […] Unfortunately, as with many other cases, flat-Earthers are not aware they are being ridiculed in the interview, and take the General’s statement as serious."

As can be seen on the video, the journalist interviewing Hermaszewski asks him if he ever came across a UFO, to which Hermaszewski responds with "I can't tell you everything, especially not on camera", but he fails to keep his straight face. The next question is about the shape of the world, to which Hermaszewski replies: "It's flat."[note 2]

But don't take it from us. Here is an analysis of the interview by Konrad Kopeć, a Polish photographer and film maker:


"So why can't we travel to Antarctica to see the 24h Sun ourselves?"[edit]

Asks Eric Dubay, twice. You can. But when you were offered a free trip to Antarctica, worth over 35,000 USD, you chickened out like a whiny little bitch, Eric.

For more details on the expedition, see The Final Experiment.

Continue reading[edit]

See also[edit]

Empirical evidence for the spherical shape of Earth based on the observations of

Notes[edit]

  1. Basically, there was no funding, as the dick measuring contest between the US and USSR moved to the next thing (space stations like Salyut, Skylab, and Mir), and because there's been very few reasons to go back there, as explained here.
  2. To flerfs: Do you really think he would have wanted to end the interview with anything but the funniest answer possible?

References[edit]

  1. "H5375 - nāśā' - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv)". Blue Letter Bible. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  2. "Nasa' Hebrew Meaning - Old Testament Lexicon (KJV)". biblestudytools.com. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  3. "Hebrew Word of the Week - Nasa'". www.hebrew4christians.com. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  4. "Strongs's #5375: nasa' - Greek/Hebrew Definitions - Bible Tools". www.bibletools.org. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  5. "Strong's Hebrew Search: Nasa". biblehub.net. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  6. Jump up to: 6.0 6.1 "H5377 - nāšā' - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv)". Blue Letter Bible. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  7. Jump up to: 7.0 7.1 Is Satan Using NASA to Deceive Us All? by Dan McClellan (Apr 29, 2023) YouTube.
  8. "What Does NASA Mean In Hebrew? | World Events and the Bible". worldeventsandthebible.com. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  9. Jump up to: 9.0 9.1 9.2 Staff, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (1988). Derivation and Definition of a Linear Aircraft Model (PDF). Independently Published. ISBN 978-1-7309-8974-2.
  10. Jump up to: 10.0 10.1 Antoniewicz, Robert F. (1988). User's Manual for Interactive LINEAR: A FORTRAN Program to Derive Linear Aircraft Models (PDF). National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Scientific and Technical Information Branch.
  11. Administration, United States National Aeronautics and Space (1959). INVESTIGATIONS OF NEW RADAR-DATA-REDUCTION TECHNIQUES USED TO DETERMINE DRAG CHARACTERISTICS OF FREE-FLIGHT VEHICLE. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
  12. Aircrafts do bend a lot, especially on the wings, and consume fuel during flight, so their mass decreases over time. Regarding the "stationary" atmosphere, tornados are a thing, so...
  13. "Flight Dynamics: the Assumption of Flat & Non-Rotating Earth for Simplification". FlatEarth.ws. 2020-08-02. Retrieved 2023-03-31.
  14. Robert Simmon – AKA Mr. Blue Marble