Flat as a Pancake

This one is in honor of Columbus Day.  While the majority of this is fact, I’m may have used a bit of artistic license to create a more 3-dimensional feel…

Usually at the expense of some fringe scientist, activist group, religious nut, or Darwin Award Candidate-in-waiting, over the years, Wiggy’s Words of Wisdom has tackled many controversial scientific subjects.  I’ve addressed Global Warming with “The Church of Latter Day Climatologists – The Goremons,” manned space travel -“Intergalactic Maple Syrup” and even left-handed people – “Sinister Maldexterous Canhoto with Two Left Feet.”  But none has been as controversial…or potentially humorous…as the Flat Earth Society.

These spherically-challenged zealots have been around (no pun intended) since the beginning of time.  Their two-dimensional beliefs were the accepted norm up until the European Renaissance of the High Middle Ages around 1070.  But most people around the globe (pun intended) were persuaded by “controversial” scientific evidence the world was not as flat as the patients in a cosmetic surgeon’s waiting room.

To this day, the Flat Earth Society still hangs on to the notion humans live on a disc with the North Pole at its center, which is bounded by a 150-foot high wall made of ice (Antarctica).  According to the society, the sun and the moon are 32 miles in diameter and sit 3,000 miles above the earth.  The rest of the cosmos sits further out, at 3,100 miles.

The Flat Earth Society, thought to have been crippled by the death of its leader Charles K. Johnson in 2001, is still hanging on.  "People are definitely prejudiced against flat-Earthers," Tennessee-based computer scientist and society member John Davis states.  "Many use the term “flat-Earther” as a term of abuse, and with connotations that imply blind faith, ignorance or even anti-intellectualism."  But, Davis and his fellow "anti-globularists" insist, their beliefs are based in scientific fact.

"The Earth is, more or less, a disc," states James McIntyre, a Briton who helps run the Flat Earth Society's Web site. "Obviously it isn't perfectly flat, thanks to geological phenomena like hills and valleys.  It is around 24,900 miles in diameter."

The moon landings…faked, say the flat-Earthers.  Satellite images of the Earth…as fake as a hamburger at a vegan cookout.

So what does the flat Earth look like?  "The North Pole is central, and Antarctica comprises the entire circumference of the Earth," explains McIntyre. "Circumnavigation is a case of traveling in a very broad circle across the surface of the Earth."

The FES has been quietly infiltrating global society and earning the trust and following of lots of people.  Although the steps they’ve taken may seem a little drastic to the outside observer, they feel in the end, the net gain will justify the means. Here are a few of their quiet victories…

Over a period of several months, over half of the workers in the Colorado state prison system were "relocated" and their positions filled by FES associates.  The list of replacements includes 7 guards, 957 cafeteria workers, 3716 Pepsi machine repairmen and 14 members of the clergy.  With their operatives strategically entrenched, like something out of a Siberian sweat-shop, the convicts and felons are being given a healthy dose of "pro-Flat Earth" propaganda while mass-producing Hillary Clinton’s new pants-suit line of congressional active-wear.

And they aren’t without financial means.  After spending over $16 million and using over 48,000 yards of industrial strength strapping tape, FES agents were able to construct an enormously powerful neurotransmitter which can implant suggestions directly into the brains of the nearby non-Flat Earthers.  Having set it up just outside of the Belgian Antarctic global warming research post of Princess Elisabeth Base in Dronning Maud Land, they’re awaiting word all three scientists and 174 penguins have been “converted.”

On an unrelated note, diligent Flat Earth Society members under the employ of Southwest Airlines undertook a project which will no doubt bring countless numbers of motion-sickness prone individuals into the ranks of the organization.  Using only Sharpies and every airsickness bag on planes restricted to California destinations, they were able to neatly outline the Flat Earth Society mission statement on enough receptacles, so as to spread their creed to those of the masses with overly sensitive inner ears.

Above is a computer-generated image of the flat Earth, with Antarctica forming an “ice wall” which prevents people from walking off of the edge.  Alongside of it is the flag of the United Nations.  Coincidence, I think not.

Marc “Wiggy” Kovacs - Spewer of Spherical Spoofs and Spatial Speculation