Another Flat Earther learns the truth a few centuries too late
A prominent Flat Earther has admitted he was wrong about a key part of the conspiracy theory after having a revelation in Antarctica.
Jeran Campanella, who is a vocal supporter of the bizarre Flat Earth theory and a critic of NASA, recently travelled to the South Pole for a video on the YouTube channel, The Final Experiment.
His $35,000 trip was paid for by round-Earth advocate Will Dufy, who invited Campanella to witness the polar region’s midnight sun. This is a phenomenon that occurs during Antarctica’s summer, where the sun is visible for 24 hours.
Crucially, Flat Earther’s would have you believe that this would no be possible if the Earth was flat.
So, when the Sun was indeed visible at midnight, even a staunch Flat Earth believer like Campanella was forced to admit he was wrong.
He said in the video: “Alright guys, sometimes you are wrong in life. I thought that there was no 24-hour sun, in fact I was pretty sure of it.”
Speaking about Duffy’s invite, Campanella continued: “He said, ‘You want to go, I’ll take you,’ and brought me here. And it’s a fact — the sun does circle you in the south.”
The conspiracy theorist stopped short of telling fellow Flat Earthers they were all wrong though, instead urging viewers to draw their own conclusions from the video.
He said: “Don’t listen to my beliefs or my opinion — it shouldn’t matter to you. But at least you should be able to accept that the sun does exactly what these guys said, as far as circles the southern continent.”
The idea the Earth is flat might be the oldest conspiracy theory in history. A number of ancient cultures believed the Earth to be flat, before Ancient Greeks philosophers like Plato and Aristotle came along and worked out that we actually live on a sphere.
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But the concept of the Earth being a plane or disk has persisted on the fringes of a number of cultures ever since. The invention of the internet in the 21st century allowed conspiracy theories to spread much more easily, and as a result there’s been somewhat of a resurgence of Flat Earthers in the last 15 years or so, despite the vast mountains of indisputable scientific evidence to prove otherwise.
A YouGov poll in 2019 found that 3 per cent of Brits think the theory the Earth is flat is “probably” or “definitely” true. This equates to about two million people.
So if you ever have a day when you feel a bit stupid or daft, just remember there are a couple of million people in the UK who reckon the Earth is probably flat.
