In mid-December, a group of flat earthers and a group of globe earthers will travel together to Antarctica to perform one final experiment to determine the shape of the earth: looking at the sky for a 24-hour sun.
Background
At the forefront of the flat vs. globe earth debate are two models. For the globe earth, the model is an earth rotating about an axis while simultaneously orbiting the sun. For the flat earth, the model is a flat, pizza-shaped earth with a sun following a circular path right above it to create day and night. In the pizza earth model, Antarctica is a giant ice wall around the edges of a flat, disk-like earth (the crust of the pizza, if you will).
Here is where the primary dispute happens: in the globe earth model, there will be 24 hours of sunlight in the south pole during the winter solstice due to the tilt of the earth’s rotational axis. In the flat earth model, daylight should be consistently uniform, meaning there will not be 24 hours of sunlight; the sun will rise and set as usual.
In early 2024, American pastor Will Duffy proposed a final experiment to end the flat earth debate once and for all. Because the most falsifiable contradiction between the flat earth and globe earth model seemed to be the 24-hour sunlight phenomenon in Antarctica, Duffy proposed to send one flat earther and one globe earther to Antarctica to observe the sky together. Duffy believes that too much time is wasted on the flat earth debate, and hopes that The Final Experiment will end the debate and allow people to spend more time on endeavors that benefit humanity.
Flat Earther Reactions
Duffy, the man who created The Final Experiment, is a globe earther. Globe earthers have largely reacted enthusiastically to The Final Experiment, with many eagerly crowdfunding prominent globe earthers onto the TFE team. What is more newsworthy is the flat earth reactions thus far:
- “We can’t go to Antarctica!”
No flat earther has even tried to go to Antarctica on their own. They claim that it is “impossible to go to Antarctica independently” if you are not under government supervision. In reaction to The Final Experiment, which is not funded, supervised, or endorsed by the government, flat earthers claim that they can’t go to Antarctica because it is too costly.
Believe it or not, the idea of going to Antarctica to prove the shape of the earth was originally a flat earther idea. Prominent flat earthers such as Jeran Campanella, Dave Weiss, Austin Whitsitt, and Eric Dubay have been on record in videos and interviews stating that there will not be 24 hour sunlight in Antarctica if the earth is flat, with Dave Weiss even expressing a desire to travel to Antarctica to prove it.
Duffy (TFE founder) offered to pay all expenses for the trip for two flat earthers. This includes food, transport, shelter, and even warm clothes to wear in the South Pole. Flat earther Dave Weiss declined upon personally receiving this offer. Flat earthers Eric Dubay, Mark Sargent, Nathan Oakley, and Dean Odle also declined. Many of these individuals previously expressed an enthusiastic desire to travel to Antarctica to prove the shape of the earth.
- “We don’t need to prove it, we already know!”
Some flat earthers have expressed that traveling to Antarctica to prove the shape of the earth is pointless, since they “already know that the earth is flat.” This is strange since the goal of flat earthers is not simply to ‘know’ that the earth is flat, it is to prove it. This is evidenced by the amount of interviews and debates flat earthers actively attend in order to spread their ideas.
- Fake NASA CGI
Both NASA and ESA have built solar simulators to create consistent illumination close to natural sunlight in laboratory environments. Some flat earthers have pointed at the existence of solar simulators to claim that NASA will create a fake sun in the sky during TFE (The Final Experiment), giving the illusion of 24-hour sunlight. Solar simulators are typically confined to a small area for scientific research and do not have enough power to project anything visible onto the sky.
- “Flat earth TFE participants are globist shills”
Despite intense denial there are still 3 flat earth participants who agreed to participate in The Final Experiment. One of these participants is Jeran Campanella, known online as “Jeranism.” Campanella expressed that the flat earthers who are against The Final Experiment are in bad faith and are not truth seekers. In response, the flat earth community claimed that Jeranism and other flat earthers set to participate in The Final Experiment are secretly globists who will falsely report to have seen a 24-hour sun.
- “You can’t prove our model wrong if we don’t have a model”
In response to The Final Experiment, flat earther Dave Weiss has said (verbatim) that “if the sun sets in Antarctica, the earth is not a globe. If the sun doesn’t set, flat earthers can go ‘we don’t know what the h*ll the sky is.’ That’s it. It doesn’t disprove flat earth, it just disproves our understanding of the sky.” He elaborates: “It doesn’t seem fair, but that’s the way it is. Because we don’t have a set model like [globers] do.”
Other flat earthers have called The Final Experiment fraudulent. Some describe its supporters as “shilly globe earthers,” stating that they “[conflate] celestial observation with terrestrial foundation.” These big words simply mean that they don’t believe things in the sky say anything about the shape of the earth.
Does It Even Matter?
Will Duffy claims that he wants to end the flat earth debate because he hopes for people to spend their time on endeavors that better benefit humanity. The issue with this is that flat earthers, reaching for any and every ad hoc hypothesis that benefits their theory, don’t seem to comply with The Final Experiment.
Something worth noting is that flat earthers tend not to write books or articles or concise videos, and instead opt for long livestreams. Livestreams often make more money due to real-time donations. This has led some globe earthers to theorize that many prominent flat earthers don’t really believe in flat earth, and that they only publicly claim to believe it for monetary gain. This means that even if TFE confirms the 24-hour sun, since the goal of these flat earthers is to profit and not to find truth, they will not comply with the results.
Even setting aside those who gain money off of flat earth theory, it seems almost inevitable that some people will not agree with the globe earth theory. The percentage of flat earthers around the world is incredibly small. It is hard to find anything that absolutely everyone in the world agrees with, relative to other polarizing topics of today’s day, the consensus for the earth’s shape is unanimous.
With the current flat earth response to TFE’s proposal, it seems like TFE will not end the flat earth debate. And if TFE doesn’t complete the task it was set out to complete, does it really matter?