[Tom Bishop]

And Mr. Bishop tells me that experiment should only be done in controlled laboratory settings. No suggestion on how to make it better or solve my strange result or understand what is happening, just basically tell me I shouldn't be doing it at home.

Back in the day when I was a university student, I did perform the Cavendish experiment with lead balls in a controlled environment. So, I'll confirm your result that indeed there is a force between two masses of lead. Look at that, now we have two separate experiments made, in different settings, by different operators... almost like real science. 

(Oh, by the way, it also matched/confirmed the gravitational constant.)

See the Cavendish Experiment page in the General Physics section of the Wiki. The laboratories are getting inconsistent results when trying to measure gravity and admit that there are many effects that need to be accounted for, such as the electrostatic force.

If an experiment is not consistent, and you need to imagine a bunch of explanations that are modifying the experiment from your ideal result then it is a bad experiment. Whatever you are imaging is modifying the results from your ideal can also be creating those results altogether. For a valid test of gravity the results need to be accurate and consistent. "Lots of things are modifying the results, but gravity is in there somewhere" is not a sufficient answer.

https://wiki.tfes.org/Cavendish_Experiment

The website doesn't just create death records for everyone. Feel free to search for yourself.

I just looked my self up in the "Death Records" search. I was the first result. Should I be nervous?

How'd that empirical Zetetic inquiry work out for you? Conspiracy much for the sake of conspiracy?

According to what you posted I tried it and saw that it didn't create death records for everyone, Stash said that he found himself, and you took his word for it without trying it, when you easily could have. Goes to show what your standards of evidence are. You post anything you see without investigation. The website does not make death records for everyone. Embarrassing on your end.

"There is clearly a conspiracy afoot" - actually that's called humor.

Like this dude did?

Quote
When the first photographs of the earth were published early in the early years of spaceflight, Shenton dismissed them as an optical illusion caused by a wide-angle lens which made the earth seem curved when it was not
https://wiki.tfes.org/Samuel_Shenton

You linked me to a sentence. Did you investigate his claims or materials? If no evidence can be found on that topic then it should be rejected until evidence can be found on the matter of wide angle lenses at high altitudes.

And this page

https://wiki.tfes.org/Magnification_of_the_Sun_at_Sunset

Is basically one big "it's an illusion"

The Magnification of the Sun page gives numerous pieces of evidence for how light behaves with the atmosphere and in other areas. It doesn't baselessly claim illusion. Evidence is provided.

Again, we see that you have a hard time determining what evidence is and is not.

Now show me where Lorentz and Einstein provide pieces of evidence for how bodies shrink to explain the results of the MM experiment.

[AATW]

You linked me to a sentence. Did you investigated his claims or materials? If no evidence can be found on that topic then it should be rejected until evidence can be found on the matter of wide angle lenses at high altitudes.

Agreed, his claim about wide angle lenses should be rejected until evidence can be shown. You present none on your Wiki so I'm guessing he didn't have any, but feel free to present it if he did.
Otherwise it's just him screaming "illusion" - I see that as a failing argument.

The Magnification of the Sun page gives numerous pieces of evidence for how light behaves with the atmosphere and in other areas. It doesn't baselessly claim illusion.

Your examples are are a terrible, low quality still from some traffic camera and then some photos clearly showing glare. Filtered images do not show this effect - and no, not just polarised lenses, they may help reduce glare but they don't eliminate it. This has been explained to you.

I note you continue to ignore the evidence provided about celestial bodies changing angular size as their orbits and ours take them close and further away, and you continue to require a very different level of proof depending on whether the claim confirms to your world-view or not.

[TomFoolery]

See the Cavendish Experiment page in the General Physics section of the Wiki. The laboratories are getting inconsistent results when trying to measure gravity and admit that there are many effects that need to be accounted for, such as the electrostatic force.

Mr. Bishop:

Are you saying then that there *is* an attraction between terrestrial weights that is *nearly* equal to gravity, but because two laboratory tests showed a reading that was more than 0.045 percent different from eachother?

Just how closely would they have to match for you to consider them valid? 0.0045%? 0.000045%? or would they have to have absolutely zero difference to a thousand decimal places?

And why did someone tell me this:

... all you have to do is to show that terrestrial gravity cannot be attractive: ...

[skeptik]

Now show me where Lorentz and Einstein provide pieces of evidence for how bodies shrink to explain the results of the MM experiment.

I would like to refer you to your own wiki: https://wiki.tfes.org/Logical_Fallacy

And I quote:

Straw man- where an argument which distorts the opponent's argument. For example, in a debate between a creationist and an evolutionist a straw man would be the creationist arguing against atheism instead of evolution.

You are arguing against the theory of relativity, not against the existence of a round or rotating planet. Again, MM only supports an earth that doesn't rotate in the event that aether exists. This is a misconception which has been abandoned by science since the beginning of the 20th century. And even if it proved that the earth doesn't rotate (again, predicated on the existence of a fictitious medium), it would provide absolutely zero evidence as to the actual shape of the planet. It would simply lend credence to a geo-centric model of the solar system.

[iamcpc]

See the problem is there seems to be a cherry picking of evidence when it comes to what you choose to acknowledge or not.

It's called conformation bias. It is something that takes place for people who believe the earth is round in addition to those who believe that the earth is flat.  I agree there is evidence that supports the round earth model. There is also much evidence which refutes the round earth model.

In addition I've seen evidence which is claimed to support the round earth model has been demonstrated to possibly not support the round earth model.



A bit of advice I can give you which helped me a lot is this: Don't think of it as evidence/theories that PROVES the earth is flat. There is so much conformation bias in that statement. Think of it as evidence/theories which weakens or contradicts the round earth model. There is real evidence. It really does exist and i would be happy to show some to you without conformation bias.

Flat Earth is a better model because it doesn't need most of these illusions. "Things shrink when they move and it's only an illusion that the earth seems still when light moves horizontally" is unneeded. It's not just relativity. It is many other things as well.

Tom,

This really depends on which flat earth model. There are many models which require illusions just like the round earth models do. I've discussed some of them. Like the flat disk model requires illusions in regards to shipping/travel times, full moons, etc.

The mapquest repeating plane models need illusions to explain the motion of the sun and the moon.

There are other people who believe the earth is infinite which, in itself, is an illusion. How can you prove something is infinite? Measure 2983579387 miles and it might end in 100 more miles thus be finite.

[ChrisTP]

See the problem is there seems to be a cherry picking of evidence when it comes to what you choose to acknowledge or not.

It's called conformation bias. It is something that takes place for people who believe the earth is round in addition to those who believe that the earth is flat.  I agree there is evidence that supports the round earth model. There is also much evidence which refutes the round earth model.

In addition I've seen evidence which is claimed to support the round earth model has been demonstrated to possibly not support the round earth model.

oh cool. I look forward to seeing all of this evidence that demonstratably doesn’t support a spheroid earth. ‘Round earthers’ would happily accept that the earth is flat because it makes no difference to us if it is flat. There is no confirmation bias needed. Why do flat earthers clinge to the idea that it’s flat in the face of so much evidence against it though? It seems no flat earthers is willing to accept the possibility that they were wrong about the shape of the earth. It’s quite bizarre. That even after a documentary recently showing flat earthers proving the globe that TFES would want to put out a statement that they had nothing to do with that so it didn’t happen. Well I say TFES but really it seems to be Tom.

Let’s face it though Tom seems to be somehow highly regarded by flat earthers on this forum for his research but in the wiki there are ridiculous assumptions plucked out of nowhere, like showing the sun is more intense in the middle from our view therefore it must be a projection... well dayum I didn’t realise Chinese lanterns were also just projections too, by that same logic.

[iamcpc]

I look forward to seeing all of this evidence that demonstratably doesn’t support round a spheroid earth.

Chris,

Not all of the evidence weakens the round earth model. Some of it supports an alternate model while have no claims about the round earth model. Here is some evidence for you:



Not all 200 of these i would consider real "evidence" (some suffer from conformation bias) but there are several in this video:






The "sinking ship effect" has long been claimed to be evidence which strongly supports the sphere earth model.
This video presents evidence which suggest that things being perceived as behind the horizon could instead be due to optical variables instead of curvature.
discussed here: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=11059














Here's an experiment people did. It either supports a flat earth model or weakens any sort of mathematical formulas calculating the curve of the round earth model.

Now THIS is interesting.



I watched without sound so I don't know if there are other details narrated, but this is what 13+ miles across a shorter section of Monterey Bay looks like under magnification, and you can't see details on the distant beach.

But, they did what I want to do and use a mirror to reflect sunlight, and check the results! Unless they fudged their images and didn't really collect video with the camera and mirror where they showed them to be, this convincingly shows light traveling between two points that would be expected to be obscured on a globe.

The video claims "max refraction" which isn't true. He misinterprets standard refraction as maximum, but still. Credit for even acknowledging that refraction must be considered.

I checked the tide tables and also judging by where they've set up from the water level, the estimates of height above water are low, but even when I bump it up to 6-8', that still leaves mirror in the "shadow" of curvature by about 40-45 feet WITH standard atmospheric refraction.  To get the mirror flash visible, according to an earth curvature calculator, I had to bump the refractive index up to k=0.77, which is considered "severe." Another sighting on another day under different conditions might provide indication whether or not the structures/stacks in the background look that way normally or if looming/towering conditions were evident which could indicate strong super-refraction. But my gut tells me k=.77 is ridiculously extreme.

When I can reschedule this excursion, I'll add this sighting and see if I can duplicate it. It validates the signal mirror idea, which I think is a more convincing method of detection than trying to identify features at the shoreline of a distant shore. If this is what 13 miles across the bay looks like, 23 miles will be even worse.

Oh, and I know already that my kids have bought a Meade Infinity 90mm refractor for my birthday. (I discovered it accidentally and now I have to act surprised on the day; I suck at feigning.) It's not the one I would have chosen, but I'm tickled they thought to do that. Little do they know my main interest is terrestrial "digiscoping", and looking at the reviews it looks like it will be more than adequate for that purpose even if a little cumbersome.

Bobby even admits that this is evidence is not consistent with a globe.

@bobby It sounds like you are saying the observation of the signal mirror in the video you posted is not consistent with a globe. Did I understand correctly?

You did; and yes that's what I'm saying. Unlike other video demos claiming they are showing a flat earth that I feel I can refute, this one I can't.

Here's a video. In this demo a "spotlight" sun shining through a refractive element can be many different shapes confined to a specific area. Supporting the "spotlight sun" aspect of some of the flat disk models. This video does not weaken the round earth model but supports a possible alternate theory.






The round earth model involves laws of motion and gravity to keep the earth in orbit around the sun. The problem we have is that, while these laws do very well explaining how the earth orbits the sun it is unable to explain how the moon orbits the earth while also orbiting the sun. Why are these laws of physics mathematical calculation unable to explain these orbits? Is it possible that, because these laws are unable to accurately calculate these complex orbits, they have a flaw in them?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem

https://www.quora.com/Why-has-the-three-body-problem-not-been-solved-What-are-the-technical-obstacles-in-solving-the-three-body-problem-Are-these-difficulties-theoretical-or-not

in the wiki there are ridiculous assumptions plucked out of nowhere

Chris,

the Wiki is designed to bottle neck flat earth thinking into one specific flat disk model with an ice wall. You need to understand that there are many models. Not just a flat disk subset of all of the models.

[TomFoolery]

Not all 200 of these i would consider real "evidence" (some suffer from conformation bias) but there are several in this video:

That's pretty interesting. What would you consider some of the best ones out of the 200?

[ChrisTP]

Not all 200 of these i would consider real "evidence" (some suffer from conformation bias) but there are several in this video:

That's pretty interesting. What would you consider some of the best ones out of the 200?

None. Here is a rebuttal for 200 proofs.

https://flatearth.ws/eric-dubay

Also iamcpc, the sinking ship thing is tiresome and I've said before a few times on here that mirages don't proof a flat earth and don't disprove that ships are going over a curve either. I can't really say I know for sure that the sinking ship effect is a proof of either flat or round. What I will say though is that 100% of the time ships do sink bottom first, mirage or not. never has anyone seen a ship just slowly get smaller and smaller into the distance, which is what you'd need to see for proof of a flat earth.

The mirror on the beach experiment is cool though, certainly interesting. But as we know light bends a lot close to the sea (as per mirages) it's possible that's what is causing it too. Again though it's not proof that world isn't a globe and it's not proof that the world is flat either, it just proves you can see hints of light from far. 

Again though, these experiments do sphere or flat earth no justice. They don't prove much. Can you say that those experiments 100% prove flat or sphere?

With regards to the three body problem, have a play with this simulation below, you can see earth sun and moon in orbit, you can even edit their trajectories in real time and see how the simulation plays out. If it's absolutely not possible for the moon the orbit the earth and the earth to orbit the sun then why is it possible with this simulation? Tom may run by and call it a cartoon or whatever but it's using the right maths.

https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/gravity-and-orbits/latest/gravity-and-orbits_en.html

[iamcpc]

Also iamcpc, the sinking ship thing is tiresome and I've said before a few times on here that mirages don't proof a flat earth and don't disprove that ships are going over a curve either. I can't really say I know for sure that the sinking ship effect is a proof of either flat or round. What I will say though is that 100% of the time ships do sink bottom first, mirage or not. never has anyone seen a ship just slowly get smaller and smaller into the distance, which is what you'd need to see for proof of a flat earth.

If evidence that supports a flat earth model or weakens specific aspects of the round earth model is tiresome then you, my good friend, are in the wrong place. I never claimed this was a proof of a flat earth. This evidence has suggested that a ship disappearing from the bottom up could be predicted by a flat earth model under refractive conditions present in the time lapse video.

This video also shows that you can have something disappear from the bottom up over a relatively flat area or surface.

The mirror on the beach experiment is cool though, certainly interesting. But as we know light bends a lot close to the sea (as per mirages) it's possible that's what is causing it too. Again though it's not proof that world isn't a globe and it's not proof that the world is flat either, it just proves you can see hints of light from far. 

Again though, these experiments do sphere or flat earth no justice. They don't prove much. Can you say that those experiments 100% prove flat or sphere?

no. Again you are thinking in terms of conformation bias. I'm not talking about PROOF. I'm talking about EVIDENCE. I claimed that the results of that experiment present evidence weakened predictions made by curve calculators presented in the round earth model.

With regards to the three body problem, have a play with this simulation below, you can see earth sun and moon in orbit, you can even edit their trajectories in real time and see how the simulation plays out. If it's absolutely not possible for the moon the orbit the earth and the earth to orbit the sun then why is it possible with this simulation? Tom may run by and call it a cartoon or whatever but it's using the right maths.

https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/gravity-and-orbits/latest/gravity-and-orbits_en.html

I don't know the math behind that simulation or if that simulation even uses the physical laws claimed to exist in our universe.

[AATW]

Bobby even admits that this is evidence is not consistent with a globe.

He does, but he did then go on to attempt to repeat the experiment and couldn't reproduce the result.
He documented all this in a thread before he left.
So what do we do now? We have one result which is hard to explain on a globe and one which is hard to explain on a flat earth.

[Tom Bishop]

Also iamcpc, the sinking ship thing is tiresome and I've said before a few times on here that mirages don't proof a flat earth and don't disprove that ships are going over a curve either. I can't really say I know for sure that the sinking ship effect is a proof of either flat or round. What I will say though is that 100% of the time ships do sink bottom first, mirage or not. never has anyone seen a ship just slowly get smaller and smaller into the distance, which is what you'd need to see for proof of a flat earth.

If evidence that supports a flat earth model or weakens specific aspects of the round earth model is tiresome then you, my good friend, are in the wrong place. I never claimed this was a proof of a flat earth. This evidence has suggested that a ship disappearing from the bottom up could be predicted by a flat earth model under refractive conditions present in the time lapse video.

This video also shows that you can have something disappear from the bottom up over a relatively flat area or surface.

Also, there are multiple timelapses of that peninsula on that YouTube  channel and the effect happens in all of them throughout the day.

[stack]

Also iamcpc, the sinking ship thing is tiresome and I've said before a few times on here that mirages don't proof a flat earth and don't disprove that ships are going over a curve either. I can't really say I know for sure that the sinking ship effect is a proof of either flat or round. What I will say though is that 100% of the time ships do sink bottom first, mirage or not. never has anyone seen a ship just slowly get smaller and smaller into the distance, which is what you'd need to see for proof of a flat earth.

If evidence that supports a flat earth model or weakens specific aspects of the round earth model is tiresome then you, my good friend, are in the wrong place. I never claimed this was a proof of a flat earth. This evidence has suggested that a ship disappearing from the bottom up could be predicted by a flat earth model under refractive conditions present in the time lapse video.

This video also shows that you can have something disappear from the bottom up over a relatively flat area or surface.

I'm not sure the evidence suggests anything 'predictive'. The miraging that is shown in timelapses and elsewhere just shows evidence of, well, miraging. For it to weaken RE and strengthen FE it would have to be a constant. As in for every sunrise and every sunset witnessed by any one of the 8 billion of us from every vantage point around the world, there would have to be some consistent ever present mirage effect that sinks or raises the sun. Always, everywhere at the exact predicted times. That is just not something witnessed by humanity.  Again, it's the consistency and predictive factor. We can predict exactly when the sun sets or rises, bottom up or top down, every time whether a mirage effect is present or not.

The mirror on the beach experiment is cool though, certainly interesting. But as we know light bends a lot close to the sea (as per mirages) it's possible that's what is causing it too. Again though it's not proof that world isn't a globe and it's not proof that the world is flat either, it just proves you can see hints of light from far. 

Again though, these experiments do sphere or flat earth no justice. They don't prove much. Can you say that those experiments 100% prove flat or sphere?

no. Again you are thinking in terms of conformation bias. I'm not talking about PROOF. I'm talking about EVIDENCE. I claimed that the results of that experiment present evidence weakened predictions made by curve calculators presented in the round earth model.

As AATW pointed out, Shafto repeated the experiment several times and couldn't reproduce the original results. And most of us know Bobby is a straight up experimenter and very thorough.

With regards to the three body problem, have a play with this simulation below, you can see earth sun and moon in orbit, you can even edit their trajectories in real time and see how the simulation plays out. If it's absolutely not possible for the moon the orbit the earth and the earth to orbit the sun then why is it possible with this simulation? Tom may run by and call it a cartoon or whatever but it's using the right maths.

https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/gravity-and-orbits/latest/gravity-and-orbits_en.html

I don't know the math behind that simulation or if that simulation even uses the physical laws claimed to exist in our universe.

The N-Body problem usually comes via Tom Bishop whenever we're talking about eclipse prediction, the predicative elements of modern astronomy, etc. It's a red herring and a solution for, or the elusiveness thereof, doesn't undermine RE at all. The fact of the matter is that RE can predict all elements of an eclipse. What FE can't do is predict for any point on the planet exactly when and what you can see. RE can and does for 100's years into the future. N-body solution not required.

[Tom Bishop]

As AATW pointed out, Shafto repeated the experiment several times and couldn't reproduce the original results. And most of us know Bobby is a straight up experimenter and very thorough.

Shafto was getting different and changing results every day he made an observation. He was doing the experiment in neither a bay, inlet, lake or canal. He doing it over the open ocean along the California coast. The sea is where the effect most often occurs.

https://wiki.tfes.org/Sinking_Ship_Effect_Caused_By_Refraction

From "Physics of the Air" by Dr. William Jackson Humphreys:



The sea observations were also reported by Rowbotham, and so Bobby's observations act as verification and validation of Earth Not a Globe.

If he had read the material, he would have seen that this is exactly what Rowbothm studied, and what Flat Earth Theory expects to see on that environment. One needs to read the material in order to know what is and is not being claimed before conducting an investigation of the matter.

If I had the time, I would collect those images as examples of what one would see on the ocean, and put them right next to Rowbotham's quotes about his observations on the sea.

[stack]

As AATW pointed out, Shafto repeated the experiment several times and couldn't reproduce the original results. And most of us know Bobby is a straight up experimenter and very thorough.

Shafto was getting different and changing results every day he made an observation. He was doing the experiment in neither a bay, inlet, lake or canal. He doing it over the open ocean along the California coast. The sea is where the effect most often occurs.

https://wiki.tfes.org/Sinking_Ship_Effect_Caused_By_Refraction

From "Physics of the Air" by Dr. William Jackson Humphreys:



The sea observations were also reported by Rowbotham, and so Bobby's observations act as verification and validation of Earth Not a Globe.

There is also Looming, Towering, & Stooping referenced by your source, all presenting various differing visual effects. Yet you curiously only present 'Sinking'. Bobby’s experiments encountered several of these phenomena. And then some not at all and still couldn't reproduce the results. In essence what you’re saying is that every instance of anything going below the horizon is due to refractive ’Sinking’? Let’s take the sun for example, somehow it magically, right at sunrise everyday, like clockwork, ’Sinking’ turns into ‘Looming’ and the sun rises. Everywhere, everyday, on earth? Interesting.

If he had read the material, he would have seen that this is exactly what Rowbothm studied, and what Flat Earth Theory expects to see on that environment. One needs to read the material in order to know what is and is not being claimed before conducting an investigation of the matter.

You might want to to take the time to read the material yourself. From the reference you cite, "Physics of the Air" by Dr. William Jackson Humphreys, he makes many references to the effects that the rotation of the earth, as an oblate spheroid, has on the physics of air in the southern and northern hemispheres. Apparently your reference is a dyed-in-the-wool Glober.

[AATW]

It's good, confirmation bias.
As ever the FE beliefs in this are are a mass of contradictions.
It's claimed that we know the earth is flat because ships don't really sink below the horizon, they can be "restored" with magnification.
Except when magnification clearly shows a ship or building sunken behind the horizon in which case it's waves, or perspective.
FE always wants to have its cake and eat it, there are lots of "heads we win, tails you lose" arguments and this is one.

Ships don't really sink below the horizon, they can be restored with optical zoom is one claim.
Now, sometimes a speck out at sea can be hard to see clearly, and maybe a dark hull may be harder to distinguish from the sea than a light top of the ship.
In that case yes, optical zoom will "restore" the ship but I used the word advisedly, all it will do is make things clearer. So now you can distinguish the dark hull from the sea. But it hasn't magically made anything appear from behind the horizon which was previously occluded, it was never behind the horizon in the first place.
But if the ship is going away from you then it will sink below the horizon just like the sun will always set.
Yes, there may be atmospheric effects which mean this doesn't happen exactly as a model with a perfect sphere and no atmosphere predicts, atmospheric effects can be complicated.
But the ship does always sink, the sun does always set. That is the consistent thing and one of the things which proves we live on a globe.
You don't get a ship going further and further away and you can keep on restoring it with optical zoom, it always sinks behind the horizon, not behind imaginary perspective lines which are a feature of art, not physics.

[yuRgs]

One of the founding tenets of FE seems to be that it would be a massive revelation that would embarrass scientists, so they're all part of the cover-up or believe that the earth is round dogmatically. But major revelations that disprove existing theories happen all the time in science. Scientists aren't embarrassed that they were wrong, they revel in new discovery, in learning something new about the universe. So, to discover that the earth is flat, and that there are unexplored reaches beyond the ring of ice surrounding our planet, would have the scientific community foaming at the mouth to learn what was outside that wall. Instead, the FE theory requires its proponents to believe that scientists are all either lying to protect the reputation of science, or somehow being deceived by a controlling element?

From what I gather FE theory seems to suggest that the earth as we know it is a very good simulation of a round earth. So any experiments you do here on the ground will confirm that the earth is round, because it was constructed to appear that way. Right? Why else would the position of the earth relative to the sun appear to change with the seasons? Why would we appear to be orbiting the sun, and have a moon orbiting us, and have a sky full of celestial bodies which are round, if not to lead you to the idea that the earth is round. The evidence seems to point that way.

So scientists could be very smart and well meaning people, whose own aptitude for logic and experimentation has been used against them. Because who would ever guess something like that? It’s such a complex scheme. Occam’s razor would cut it right out, you’re correct. However they could still be right. You can’t prove that the earth is round and not a very good simulation of something round can you?

[manicminer]

I have posed question several times now about what aspects of what we see and experience on a day to day basis can not be explained simply and easily by assuming a spherical Earth of the modern accepted size. In other words why should we favour FET over RET?  So far I have never received any replies.

[AATW]

I have posed question several times now about what aspects of what we see and experience on a day to day basis can not be explained simply and easily by assuming a spherical Earth of the modern accepted size. In other words why should we favour FET over RET?  So far I have never received any replies.

A lot of the things I've seen in this area are "The earth can't be a globe because if it were then ...", but the "..." is almost always based on ignorance or misunderstanding.
But then when that misunderstanding is corrected the person sticks to their guns and round and round we go.

[manicminer]

According to Tom science apparently 'proved' that the Earth is flat long ago. I must have missed that one.

You cannot reason with anyone who simply dismisses any evidence that counters their belief with 'faked, conspiracy' or whatever.  The obvious evidence  to prove the truth is there for all to see but I guess people see what they want to see don't they.