WHAT’S UP. I’m back for the last conspiracy theory of the 2022-2023 school year. And honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t talked about this already.

   You might’ve heard this from some of your friends, your parents, maybe even from some of your favorite celebrities and athletes. It’s a simple one but for sure a classic. The conspiracy theory of the next few hundred words is: the Earth is flat.

     Now, most people think this is a crazy theory and has no validity in any sort of way. A quick google search will lead you to the wikipedia of the Flat Earth theory, which begins with, “Flat Earth is an archaic and scientifically disproven conception of the Earth’s shape as a plane or disk,” which seems a bit odd if you’re asking me but like I guess it’s objective.

   But I think that’s a little too quick to dismiss the theory. Let’s look into why people first started to believe that the Earth is flat.

   Well if we are going all the way back to the first time someone mentioned it, we go all the way back to the early Egyptians who believed the world was a floating disk. 

  But more recently, the theory has picked up attention in the last couple decades, with the last year or so bringing increasing attention to the theory since NBA star, Kyrie Irving, stated his belief of the Earth being flat.

   But during my research, I quickly realized there is not just one type of “Flat Earth-er.” There were some who believed the Earth was a flat disc, some who believed it changed from a non-flat sphere into (what??) and there were even a few people online who thought the world wasn’t a circle or sphere like shape at all, but instead a flat square.

   Now, as I was mentioned earlier, this is no new theory. In fact, it was the only belief across the world before sometime roughly around the 500 B.C. mark when the Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, claimed the Moon was round. And if the Moon is round, the Earth must also be round.  

    I paraphrased a little but that’s basically what he said. I’m sure there’s more science and math and stuff behind his claim, but like it does make sense just saying it. I mean, why wouldn’t we be round if the moon was round?

   But luckily, civilization has come a long way since he said that. And now, not only are there the beliefs of Pythagoras to say the Earth is round, but what many say is “undeniable proof” in images taken by both people and machines sent into space.

   Don’t be too quick to believe what you see though. Just because you can find a few thousand pictures of something on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true!

   But the question does eventually have to be asked. With so much evidence piling up against the Flat Earth theory through the years, what do its believers have to say about it?

  After reading more interviews of flat Earth-er’s than I would’ve liked, the overwhelming response to being asked directly about the evidence against the theory is usually a redirection of the question. 

   However, those that provide a full answer all seem to stem from the same roots. They all  said something along the lines of that they don’t know if the Earth is flat or not, but challenging the idea is a healthy and necessary debate. 

   Doing more research into that idea, we see that it’s not necessarily all that new either, Even the man known as the founding father of the theory, Sam Rowbotham, was accused by his friends and family of not actually believing in the theory, but instead using it as a way to start a debate amongst his peers.  

   He obviously denied these claims, but the reports from not only his friends, but his closest family make it a little hard to believe.

So maybe it is all a hoax. Maybe the entire theory was created just to stir up some drama. Obviously I don’t mean like originally originally like all the way back thousands of years ago. I guess I get why they believed it. 

   But maybe there’s more truth to it than we know today. Maybe we will look back on this article and be like, “wow that kid really didn’t know that the Earth was flat? What a buffoon.” You never know what we think is true that could later be completely debunked. Watch your backs.