The True Congregation of the Flat Earth Society 

People often worry because they have been led to believe that the world is round. Actually, they think that it is spherical which is even more worrying.

"What will happen," they ask themselves "if I should accidentally end up on the bottom and fall off?"
They spend hours at night wondering about Australia and unable to sleep because of their relatives who live there.

Fortunately, they may now set their minds at ease. There is no proof that the world is spherical. It is just a hypothesis like the theory of evolution.

In order to understand how so many people have been hoodwinked into believing that the earth is not flat, we would invite you to perform a small experiment. Half fill a basin of water and place the end of a pencil into it. Tilt it to one side and, if you look carefully, you will notice that the pencil appears to be bent as it enters the water. This is because light travels at different speeds, depending on the medium through which it passes, resulting in a bending of the rays.

 Normally you will not notice this but, over long distances, light rays passing through the atmosphere bend gradually away from the earth and up into the sky, giving the appearance of a 'horizon' beyond which objects are no longer visible. A famous experiment, the BEDFORD LEVELS EXPERIMENT showed that in practice light curves upward at about 6 inches per mile traveled (about 10 cm per Kilometer).

 This optical illusion can be observed more clearly, the higher one flies over the surface of the earth, as rays of light are deflected by the atmosphere. This gives the illusion that the distant parts of the planet - those not directly below the observer - are lower than the rest. At the limit, they drop off like a picture taken by a fish-eye lens to form a spherical image, which has led to the current, widespread misconception of the shape of the world.

Many people are confused by the fact that it is possible to start in Europe, sail to Australia and return while continuing to sail east. This experience is so familiar that it should really require no explanation. Anyone who walks in the country keeping a tall church spire on their left will eventually return to the place they started and this is also the way in which a compass works. By moving at a constant angle to the North Pole (more precisely the central magnetic pole or sixth corner) voyagers eventually travel in a circle and return to their point of departure.

The illusion of sunrise and sunset, too, causes confusion as the sun travels in its orbit over the earth. A paper available (for a nominal fee), includes diagrams (and photographs of notable naturists) to show how the sun becomes visible in different places as its rays curve down through the layers of the atmosphere.

In a radio interview on the Album 'Songs for Swinging Sellers', the chairman of the FLAT EARTH SOCIETY claimed a membership of seven, including one in Hong Kong. Since then much new research has come to light, including field trips by the authors of this article to Lake Garda in Italy and to Stockholm in Sweden, which are shortly to be published on the Internet.

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