Earth is flat and sits on the back of a giant turtle that is flying through space. Yep, that is one of them.
Did you know there are people that still believe Earth is flat, and that the images coming from NASA of our bulbous Earth are all fake? They can’t be serious, right? As it turns out, they honestly really do believe it, and this may surprise you, a flat Earth is not the craziest theory out there. Take a look at these other ones.
Flat Earth Theory
This is by far the most common wacky theory about Earth. Even though it has been proven to be untrue, the Flat Earth Society formed in 1956 by Samuel Shenton still exists today — and their membership numbers keep growing.
Despite the enormous amount of evidence to the contrary, according to LiveScience, members of the society believe that the Earth is a flat disk, with the Arctic in the middle and at the edges of the disk are large mountains of snow and ice holding in our oceans, known to us as Antarctica, which is guarded by NASA. They believe we can fall off this disk if we climb over these mountains.
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Gravity is in fact not gravity at all, and this force we feel is due to the disk accelerating upward in space at 9.8 meters per second or 21.9 miles per hour. According the the society, the sun and moon are also much smaller than NASA claims, approximately 51 kilometers (32 miles) across, and they both move in circles 4820 kilometers (3,000 miles) above the plane of Earth. They also believe there has to be an invisible “anti-moon” that obscures the moon during lunar eclipses. Yep, makes complete sense.
Geoterrapinism Theory
According to some, Earth is flat and it is situated on the back of a giant turtle that is flying through space. This theory dates back to the 17th century after a man named Jasper Danckaerts learned about it from a Native American. It is a very common belief in Chinese, Indian, and Native American cultures. I am okay with Earth being flat in this theory, but only because I love turtles.
Contracting Earth Theory
The Contracting Earth Theory, also known as geophysical global cooling, states that the Earth is actually getting smaller and smaller over time, and this shrinking is what results in natural disasters and mountain ranges.
The idea behind the theory is that since Earth consists of molten rock, as the interior of the Earth cools and contracts, so will the surface. This contraction leads to mountains, and often volcanoes, since the extra molten rock needs to go somewhere, right?
Expanding Earth Theory
Now which is it, is the Earth expanding or contracting? This theory states that the Earth is continuously expanding, just like our universe. Believe it or not, since 2005, J. Marvin Herndon has been advocating for what he calls “whole-Earth decompression dynamics”, which he claims is a unified theory combining elements of plate tectonics and Earth’s expansion.
Hollow Earth Theory
According to the Hollow Earth theory, when we look up into the sky, what we are actually looking into is the center of the Earth. People still believe this today. This theory was developed by John Symmes, a former captain in the US Army, who believed that Earth had a shell 1280 kilometers (800 miles) thick, with openings at both poles, and several inner shells making up a series of concentric spheres where people and animals live.
Fixed Earth Theory
The Fixed Earth Theory states that Earth is located at the center of the universe, and everything else revolves around it. Although this theory was challenged by both Copernicus and Kepler, there are some people who refuse to let go of the idea. How anthropocentric of them.
So what do you think, has NASA been lying to us this whole time? I am going to go with a resounding, no.
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