541

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 08, 2018, 01:59:23 PM »

The article points out the problem with a global satellite system.  Commonly used INMARSAT satellites are over the equator.  We used them daily, along with another companies 'birds' to communicate.  The biggest problem with those is that they only work to about 70 degrees North or South latitude.  This is due to the curvature of the global earth.  A flat earth with a dome above it would be a good idea and would be easier for every seaman to communicate, even near the poles.  Alas, this is not what a seaman actually experiences with his own two eyes.  All our charts are based on a global earth.  We navigate, daily, with these charts.  What we see outside our windows matches what is seen on the charts.  If it were not so, we would run aground, loose cargo, and get fired from our job.  How could we not believe in a global earth?   

542

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 08, 2018, 05:11:52 AM »

Just who put up the dome over the earth?  How long has it been there?  Was it a government project?  Who does the maintenance?  Where is the mounts on the Earth?  I presume that it's somewhere around Antarctica.  Somehow I was never given these answers in school.  Perhaps a change in the educational system will be required.

543

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Shooting stars

« on: October 08, 2018, 04:48:04 AM »

Maybe sometimes we get space junk that breaks thru the dome.  I remember when I was a kid, a long time ago, living in a far away place, we were outside sitting in the grass watching an outdoor movie.  You did that kind of thing in the 1950's.  Suddenly we saw a 'shooting start'  It actually hit the ground very close to me and I remember seeing it bounce after hitting the ground.  A lot of people ran up to where the 'object' was on the ground.  My mother kept me from getting too close.  That probably was a good thing because it was still glowing red hot.  Any object like that had to come either thru the dome or was part of it.  In either case the dome would require plenty of maintenance due to the constant damage that occurs to it.  Just who is responsible for doing that?  Maybe a government contractor.  It would be a good job opportunity if I ever need a job again.   

544

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 08, 2018, 04:38:04 AM »

If the earth is flat and there's a dome above it that will reflect my data signals back to the earth then I wouldn't have to switch to a different 'satellite' while on the trip to Asia.  I should be able to lock onto a single spot on the dome and that spot should be visible to my satellite dish's signal anywhere on the flat earth.  That scenario would really make my job easier.  Additionally a dome over the flat earth would require a very good mount.  I'm sure such a mount would require maintenance like any other mechanical device.  Who is doing the maintenance ?   They probably require plenty of engineers and would be a good job if my pension fund goes bankrupt in a couple of years.

545

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 08, 2018, 02:29:42 AM »

Don't believe that the GPS system is ground based.  While at sea you could be 1000 miles from the nearest land.  The GPS antennas are directional and we always point the antennas straight up when mounting them on the ship.  When doing this we are able to receive the signals from 3 or 4 of the many GPS satellites that are in orbit above the earth.  If the earth were flat, we could always see the same satellites on our whole trip, but this isn't the case.  Satellites come up over the horizon, provide us with our position data, and then go down into the horizon while another satellite takes it's place.  There is a whole satellite constellation out there for us.  If it were not the case, we would then have to resort to the old technology of the sextant, which we still carry aboard ship.  Even while using the sextant you have to believe in the spherical earth, or that system wouldn't work either.  All this comes from my every day work experience, not something that I read in a book, or saw on the internet.  If someone believes this is a hoax, please tell me.  I still have many friends at sea trying to make a living for themselves and their families.  They might need to know what the true facts are so to protect them from any potential danger.  I'm just a retired Merchant Marine officer and I sit at home now collecting a pension.

546

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Cruising the round earth?

« on: October 08, 2018, 02:12:09 AM »

I was a Merchant Marine officer and went to sea for a living before I retired this year.  You wouldn't expect the horizon to be curved even on a spherical earth.  As a simple experiment, take a small stick and a string and put it on a globe, or even on something like a basketball.  Using the string and the stick, draw a circle on the sphere at a constant distance from a constant height above the surface.  You come up with a circle at a constant distance above the known point.  This is what you are seeing while standing at the rail of a ship.  I have been on a ship where you can see in a 360 degree circle.  The limits of your sight are the edge of the spherical earth and, because it's a sphere, the distances are the same in any direction you look while you are at sea.  What proves that the earth is a sphere is the ship's radar.  I know for a fact that one of our radars has a range of 35 to 40 miles.  We know this because while going by Mt. Fuji, in Japan, we can see the image of that mountain and it's at a known location.  With that kind of known range you should be able to see another large container ship on the radar at 20 to 25 miles out, but you can't.  That's because the ship is below the horizon due to the curvature of the earth. We know that the ship is there because of other tracking equipment we have aboard but we just can't see it until it's about 15 to 18 miles away.  The taller the ship, the farther out you can see it both with your own eyes and with the radar.  Since Mt Fuji is so tall, you can see it out at sea for quite a distance.  As you get further and further away, the mountain appears to sink into the ocean.  That kind of visual clue would only occur with a spherical earth.  You see the same kind of thing while approaching the coast near a big city.  The tall buildings will always been seen first but only the tops.  Slowly the city appears to rise out of the sea until as you get really close you can then see the docks where you are going.
 

547

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Flight Paths

« on: October 07, 2018, 10:23:36 PM »

It doesn't have to be a flight path.  Any path of a longer length will bring out the curved nature of the path around a globe.  Before I retired, I worked on ships that made the transit between China and the US.  The shortest distance between the two ports is known as a great circle route.  The airlines fly those paths as well, again because they are the shortest distance.  I've made countless long trips over the earth's oceans both on airplanes and on ships.  When you are burning fuel, which costs a bunch of money, you must take the shortest routes possible.  Just try to plot out a long course on a flat earth map.  You will quickly see that your path course and distance won't match what is actually needed to make the transit between point A and point B. Navigators know down to a 'gnat's ass' just how far it is between two ports.  Additionally they plot our position, hourly, on the chart. The accumulated time and distance is also noted.  If something doesn't match then it's looked into.  On a route that's a regular run, it would be hard to fool anyone. Both the airlines and shipping companies use charts that were drawn using a representation of the global earth.  There is no getting around the fact that they 'just work'.  I've seen it for myself, first hand.  All my old 'shipping buddies' would tell you the same thing. 

548

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 07, 2018, 09:57:46 PM »

I only believe what I see for myself.  The equipment I ran could lock on and track a signal from a another piece of equipment somewhere above the ship.  I could see the azimuth and elevation of our antenna relative to the horizon.  You could tell how far away it was by the time it took for the signal to go from the ship to the satellite and back to the ground again.  The main issue of this post is not what kind of vehicle carries the electronic equipment that we were using, but the fact that the the only way the basic geometry would work was if the earth was round.  If the earth was flat, I wouldn't loose the signal below the horizon.  I could track and use a single 'balloon' on the whole trip between Shanghai, China and Long Beach, CA.  Unfortunately, on each trip I was forced to switch the equipment over and lock onto another signal that had coverage over Asia.  Our ship wouldn't have to navigate on a great circle route.  This would make it easier for the navigator.  We wouldn't have a 'top of the world' party though.  That would be bad.

549

Flat Earth Community / Re: Is it irrational to believe Flat Earth?

« on: October 07, 2018, 01:53:58 AM »

You can believe anything you want.  In my case I believe that the earth is a sphere.  This is the only thing that makes sense.  Before I retired, I was a Merchant Marine officer.  I worked on ships 6 months of each year.  My job was providing communications and technical help.  On the last ship I was on I was 'riding herd' on 4 different satellite systems.  Each day I would take a look to see where the antenna was pointing.  I would also note the position of the ship in the world.  We would use many different satellite systems and mostly they were in geosynchronous orbit above the earth's equator.  This meant that the satellites would be about 25000 miles up.  It is well known that you can't get a satellite signal much above 70 North latitude.  This is because you would have to point the dish below the horizon and the earth and/or sea would block the signal.  If the earth was flat this wouldn't be necessary and my job would have been a lot easier.

550

Flat Earth Theory / Re: FE Map project: observations

« on: October 06, 2018, 07:25:36 PM »

I can definitely say that the earth is spherical based on my personal observations.  Before I retired I had a career in the Merchant Marine.  I've made countless trips all over the world.  In the last 4 years those trips were mostly between the US and China. Every trip we made I had to change our satellite communications equipment to a different satellite because the other one would go below the horizon and I would loose the signal.  Our radars would only work out to about 20 miles because even other huge ships would go below the horizon.  We still knew they were there because of the other tracking equipment we had.  Thousands of times, you could see a large ship, that you knew was coming, appear slowly over the horizon.  Sometimes we would have to communicate so we didn't collide. I know for sure how many miles we traveled between Shanghai, China and Long Beach, Ca.  Those miles were based upon a great circle route.  We even had a 'top of the world' party when we stopped going North and started going towards the South on our return trip to home.  A flat earth would have been a whole lot easier, but it was not to be. People say that going to sea is the worlds second oldest profession so maybe everything I've said could be considered a 'Sea Story'.

551

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: satellite hoax

« on: October 06, 2018, 04:59:21 PM »

I believe that satellites are real.  This evidence comes not from what a see or read for others, but what I have seen myself.  Before I retired, I worked on ships.  Each day I would monitor many different satellites and use them for communications and navigation.  Each year I would be at sea about 6 months.  That's 180 days of depending on satellites for our safety and for making a living.  I could see the actual position of the satellites using instruments to measure both azimuth and elevation above the horizon.  The ONLY way any of my day to day measurements made any sense is if there were satellites above a spherical earth.  I could also give plenty of evidence regarding our radars that could only work in the observed ways if the earth were a sphere.  Again this evidence is first hand in nature and is unbiased by anything that I've read on the internet.  Of course I may also be a very ignorant engineer.