The Voyage

by Douglas Falk

  John slid his finger down the globe and placed it on the city of Manaus in Amazonia, Brazil.

  “We decide to fly due east, in a straight line. Are you telling me that we are not going to end up where we started eventually? We will hit the Antarctic shoreline?”

  “Exactly.” Celeste zoomed in on the AE map. “The fact is that if you fly in any constant direction, you will hit Antarctica. Any direction.”

  “But how?”

  “As you may know, we believe that the North Pole is the magnetic centre of the world. All compasses adjust to True North, and True North being the direction pointed towards the North Pole. Everything we see above in the sky revolves around it and directly above rests the Pole Star, Polaris. Mainstream science places this star at a distance of approximately 433 light years away—we believe it is just a couple of thousand miles up. It makes sense…so much sense. The Earth is all there is, John. Outer space does not exist. But your question was about navigation, not what is going on in the night sky, so let me get back to that.”

  Celeste went to YouTube and used the search engine. “Ah, that’s the one.”

  The video she clicked on depicted a man moving a magnet around on an azimuthal equidistant projection, trying to visually show his audience how it could work.

  “It is true that the sailor and the pilot need to adjust their course if they are to complete a circumnavigation of the world. But the adjustment is so slight that they would barely be able to tell—you probably think that they would have to constantly steer their craft one way or the other lest they end up somewhere completely off course. They would not. Like I said, the compass will always point towards True North, so as the vessel travels in a straight line, the compass will adjust to what is north from where you are. The magnetic field of the Earth just makes far, far more sense on a stationary plane versus a spinning globe. If you fly east of Amazonia, the needle in the compass will swing from its initial position, and you will have to follow that heading if you want to end up where you intended to. However, if you were to ignore the compass and just travel in a straight line if you are so able, you will eventually wind up in the South and run in to Antarctica after a long arduous voyage, no doubt. Same goes for travelling west, naturally. It’s a bit tricky to visualise in your head without the AE map, is it not?”

  “A bit, but I think I get it now.”

  “Also!” William chimed in from behind.

  “Have you ever thought of the fact that an aircraft flying over a sphere, would have to constantly dip their nose downwards to adjust for the curvature drop of the Earth? Sure, the Earth is massive in size and mass, but it is not that huge. There would absolutely be a remarkable curvature drop downwards if you were to fly a jet at a level altitude. If not, you would just eventually fly out to what we were told is outer space, although airplanes cap out at an altitude way below the Karman line, of course, but we’re just talking metaphysical theories here, so bear with me. It would have to dip its nose downwards after at the very least an hour or two. The globers say the reason why pilots don’t have to adjust for curvature is because the magic of gravity keeps the airplane at a level altitude, which is just absolute unproven hogwash.”

  “That is correct, William. John, if you were to hop on a plane from Stockholm down to Sydney, Australia. Do you really think that the aircraft would reach its destination without course correction? You are literally flying from one pole to the other, well…almost, anyway. The curvature drop between Stockholm and Sydney is just gargantuan in terms of numbers.”

  “How do you know that the pilots don’t compensate for curvature?”

  “It’s widely known that they don’t. Pilots use a so-called artificial horizon, a tool specifically designed to help the pilots fly at a level altitude. The artificial horizon is a gyroscope, of sorts, and it is tailor-made for flight over a non-rotating flat surface. I asked the pilot myself when I flew to Gothenburg six months ago, and he confirmed everything I just said.”

  “What brought you to Gothenburg, Celeste?” said William curiously.

  “I went there along with two other colleagues, Dr. Gunell and Dr. Stiernman, to guest speak at a science conference. The only memorable part of Gothenburg was being persuaded into trying mackerel for lunch…woeful.”

  “Yes, yes, Gothenburg is a cesspool, but that is not important right now!” John was eager to continue with the discussion and had no desire of wasting time with unrelated distractions.

  I have an actual astrophysicist here, right in front of me; that does not happen often. Time to fire on all my cylinders and see how they deal with it.

  “I could buy circumnavigation working. But how would the Sun and the Moon work on a plane? Why do we have time zones? If the Sun is small and circles over the Earth, why would it ever set? I mean, the Sun is clearly falling away from us due to the rotation of the Earth, and when it is setting it is blocked by the curvature of the Earth. Even if the Sun is travelling away from you, it would still be visible, and at no point would there be night.”

  “Hang on a minute, you knew that the archaic globe proof of ships going over the horizon is a question of perspective, so how could you not have made the similar connection with something so basic as time zones and sunrise and sunsets?

  “I haven’t had the time to dissect a theory that has been dead and buried for millennia, only now exhumed by stoners and free-thinkers like yourself!” John breathed heavily. “Okay. So how does it work?”

  Celeste opened a new YouTube video that depicted a computer simulation of the celestial bodies over a flat Earth.

  “Your first mistake is making the assumption that the Sun is a gargantuan nuclear star, so massive in size that it is simply incomprehensible for the human mind to process—a million times the size of Earth, and 93 million miles away, which is what they teach our children in school. Ha! In reality, the Sun is something else entirely judging by its properties, and it is much smaller…and closer. We cannot claim to know exactly what the Sun is or how it works down to a tee, but what can be told just from observation alone is that it could not possibly be a flaming ball of fire and plasma as mainstream science claims it is. The heat it radiates is most certainly electromagnetic in nature. Just think about it—we are meant to believe that the huge fluctuations in temperature during the day is caused by our planet being slightly further away from an object 93 million miles away, that a slight axial tilt is the difference between an area being engulfed in smouldering heat and the other area adjacent a frozen tundra…preposterous. It makes so much more sense if the Sun is local and its rays are the most potent when the Sun is at its zenith. There is enough proof in my mind to claim that the entire universe as we know it is electrical rather than gravitational—something that proponents for the Electric Universe Theory, like Wallace Thornhill’s Thunderbolts Project, long have postulated. Even though those people do not subscribe to the flat-Earth theory,” she said.

  John looked outside the window and gazed up to the blue sky. “So many theories out there,” he said wistfully.

  “There are indeed. So many different, alternative theories to the commonly accepted heliocentric model of the universe. They all have varying models and explanations, but it stems from the same uncomfortable well of truth: that the accepted model is so easy to poke holes in, as all houses built upon lies tend to be. The truth will out, one way or the other.”

  “You were going to tell me how the Sun moves over the Earth?”

  “Oh yes. Where was I? Yes, the Sun’s motion. The ancients knew that the Sun and the Moon circled above the Earth in a clockwise spiral pattern, shedding light and warmth over half the world at once, like a spotlight. Imagine, if you can, a large clock in a darkened room. You point your flashlight and move it clockwise, lighting up the world in a circular path. The night portion of the Earth is simply the area where the spotlight we know as the Sun is not presently cruising over.”

  “But why would the Sun set? Even if the Sun is much smaller in diameter and
angular resolution, it would still never truly vanish, right?”

  “No, John! Pay attention!” William was frantic.

  “Easy, William. He’s hardly the first person who is unaware of how perspective, and our eyesight, works.”

  Celeste opened a new tab on Firefox, wrote something on the keyboard, and turned over to John.

  “Take a look at this picture.”

  “As you can see, the parallel lines converge at the vanishing point in this image. Now, picture the same concept, only with our Sun. The Sun rises and sets due to what you have familiarised yourself with already—perspective. When the Sun sets from our point of view, it is not setting due to our Earth falling away from the Sun until our half of the ball is on the dark side of Earth, the non-illuminated half of the globe. The Sun vanishes from our eyes because at a certain point, the Sun is just simply too far away from us to see. Our eyes have very limited field of vision, and when it has cruised very far away, you no longer see it. This piece of information is crucial, John. It is also the reason as to why we cannot see landmasses infinitely far away, as if you would try to see the coast of Portugal from the east coast of the United States. Nor would you be able to lay your eyes on Mount Everest from Sweden, no matter how strong your telescope or high-powered zoom camera may be. While optics can see a lot further than our eyes, there is still too much moisture in the air blocking the view in the case of such extreme distances. Atmospheric distortion, refraction, haze, mist, and so on.”

  This is becoming rather eerie. Her explanations are logical…sensible. It’s terrifying to realise that I knew so very little about the most basic of things. And I always considered myself educated. Could my conviction on some matters truly be misguided? Maybe I am just regurgitating schoolbook nonsense? Because we never really learned any of this in school. Maybe we are in a Matrix after all…a prison for the mind. No! Don’t let them off the hook so quickly. I’ll fire the whole round before caving in to this.

  “I have to concede that your explanation of this was not nearly as cringeworthy as I had expected. So, the Sun and the Moon travel in perfect circles over the Earth, forming a yin and yang sort of symbiosis?”

  “Not quite. The Sun and the Moon move in an elliptical path over the Earth, clockwise. Their speed varies—the Sun is much faster. The Sun’s circles widen exponentially as it travels toward the southern hemisphere, which is the cause of the seasons. And yes, I am aware of the irony of my calling the South a hemisphere, but I will do that since hemisplane as a word is not yet commonly used, so bear with me for simplicity’s sake! Anyway, where were we? Yes, the seasons. The Sun spirals between the two tropics, making wider and wider circles until it reaches the very South, at which point it starts spiralling back towards the North in narrower circles until it reaches the North Pole again—rinse and repeat. During the winter solstice in Sweden, the Sun is positioned above the tropic of Capricorn way down South, and when summer is upon us the Sun is positioned almost right above us in the tropic of Cancer. Pretty self-explanatory once you grasp the mechanics of the system we live in. When the Sun is situated directly over the North Pole, they have sunlight over there twenty-four-seven over a span of a few days.”

  “Are the other celestial bodies spherical or flat? The Moon, the Sun, and stars? Is the Moon a rock as we have been taught?”

  The question was directed at Celeste, but it was William who answered.

  “Who knows?” he said. “Well, someone, or somebody, does know of course. A select few would know the exact layout of the correct world map and what the planets and the stars are. As for the Moon, there is no real consensus in the community, but most dispute the notion that it is a ball of rock. There have been numerous confirmed sightings where people have been able to spot clouds through the Moon—lending further credence that the Moon could not possibly be a physical, massive space rock. It just might be translucent. These reported sightings are numerous, and people have seen stars through the Moon with optics and at times even with the naked eye. Also, the light emanating from the Moon suggests that it could be concave or completely flat.”

  “How so?”

  “Because the Moon shines so bright that it lights up the night sky. If you shine a light on a spherical object, such as a cue ball, it reflects the light nothing like the Moon does. The light propagated through the Moon simply cannot be reproduced in a physical experiment here on Earth…hence the scepticism. Next time you look at the night sky with your gaze fixed on the full Moon, you will understand what I’m saying.”

  Interesting. The Moon always puzzled me, irked me in some ethereal way. It just seemed odd that we would always see the same side of it, no matter what.

  “Most of us believe that we live under a dome, with the stars and the planets revolving over the Earth with the North Star, Polaris, being the axis mundi, but you know that already now. The planets are just like the stars—unidentified circular lights in the sky—the ancients, such as the Mayans, referred to what we now call planets as wandering stars. Unlike what we have been told, the folk of yore were not clueless and ignorant. They could see that the so-called wandering stars behaved differently than the regular stars, following their own path instead of endlessly travelling in circles over the plane. The ancients had excellent tools at their disposal that helped them decipher the heavens above, such as the first ever analogue computer dating back to 100 BC. The Antikythera mechanism, it was called—and the device was designed with a flat, stationary Earth in mind—as was the astrolabe. By the way, did you know that the closest star is 4.3 light years away in the commonly accepted model, the one we’ve been taught? Four point three light years away and a hundred-year-old man with cataracts can still see this object with his naked eye? It’s ridiculous!” said William.

  “Yes, the alleged distances to the stars range from ludicrous at best and unfathomable at worst,” said Celeste. “They tell us that the reason as to why we can see Polaris every night from 434 light years away is because it is so behemothian in size that it dwarfs our own Sun in size by times fifty. Even if Polaris was a million times the size of our Sun, we should not be able to see something that far away because it breaks the inverse-square law by a landslide. If you do the math on the distances to the stars and how far we should be able to see, every single star in the heliocentric model violates the inverse-square law. And the fact that there has been no change in parallax for all these thousands of years, science will tell you that there has been multiple North Stars, but there is absolutely no way of proving that. They claim that in 3,000 BC, the North Star was not Polaris, but a star called Alpha Draconis. It is also claimed that in 13,000 years from now, our North Star Polaris will be replaced by a star called Vega. Is there any way of proving of this, do you think? No. This calculation is a mathematical construct, just like the other branches of the woefully inaccurate heliocentric system that I was taught my whole life, and taught to others along the way. What do you think the odds are for the fact that Earth just happened to end up in this perfect sweet spot, this so-called Goldilocks Zone? What do you think the chances are that a cosmic explosion of nothingness created this perfect planet? What do you think the mathematical probabilities are that our Moon and Sun are near identical in angular size from our vantage point here on Earth as a result from a random accident in the cosmos, billions of years ago? This place is special and designed by intelligent touch. We do not live on a random space rock chasing a fireball in the sky, nor are there more stars than all the grains of sand on Earth.”

  John pondered. “I have never even thought of questioning the distance to the stars, only that they are obviously supposed to be very far away.”

  “Neither did I, for most of my life—despite my profession, I never once looked up into the night sky and asked myself if those numbers are real. There are just so many observations that we have here on Earth that do not comply with the heliocentric model. Another thing is those rare occasions when the selenelion occurs,” she said.

  “Sel
enelion? What’s that?”

  “A selenelion is something that occurs exclusively during a lunar eclipse. When the eclipsed Moon and the Sun are visible at the same time…that’s a selenelion. Since the Moon is supposed to be reflecting the sunlight unlike what we believe, which is that the Moon is its own light source, it is an utter impossibility for this to occur in the globe model. The excuse they give for it is that the selenelion is an atmospheric mirage—the usual getaway when the scientific community stand clueless. A mirage, or a convenient case of refraction. Sometimes they merge the two excuses together, which just makes it even easier to pick apart for someone with half a brain to spare.”

  “I don’t know about the selenelion, but it is glaringly obvious that we can see way too far if we lived on a ball. The long-range sightings that can be seen almost daily, like seeing the Toronto skyline over Lake Michigan from Detroit. How plausible is it that a mirage would occur over the water every single day there? It’s not a mirage, John. They see the city over the water because the city is right there; there’s no mumbo jumbo miraging or illusion or other magical tricks being pulled on us. The city is visible because we live on a plane, and even though the math says that Toronto should be hidden behind miles of curvature, it is not,” said William in a brazen tone of voice.

  “Yeah, but I’ve already heard this argument. You’ve already told me that there is no curvature and that we apparently see too far. Let her finish about the celestial bodies now; that’s what I am interested to hear more about.” John turned to Celeste. “Please continue.”

  “Tycho Brahe, the esteemed Danish astronomer, wholeheartedly rejected the Copernican paradigm, which at the time reigned supreme. Brahe pointed out that in order for the Copernican model of the universe to work, the stars would by necessity have to be so large that it defied all common sense and reason. He refused to embrace the Copernican model. But there was another in his Prague abode who was more than willing to take the reins from the late Copernicus and step up as the next rising star in the field.”