Picture: Getty ImagesĪnd it’s getting more traction than some of the other conspiracies out there, like chemtrails (which proposes that a plane’s long-lasting condensation trail is actually made up of chemical or biological agent). A third of Americans polled by YouGov believe the Earth is flat. In fact, a recent YouGov poll found that only around two-thirds of Americans aged between 18 and 24 believe that the Earth is round.Īlthough the idea the Earth is flat has been scientifically discredited, there seems to be a growing belief in the conspiracy theory.

Whether or not the FEIC cruise will rely on GPS or deploy an entirely new flat-Earth-based navigation system for finding the end of the world, remains to be seen.If you type ‘flat Earth’ into Google, you’d be joining a group of people that have helped to triple the search term over the last couple of years. 'But it is not enough, because the Earth is round.' 'Had the Earth been flat, a total of three satellites would have been enough to provide this information to everyone on Earth,' Keijer said. GPS relies on a network of dozens of satellites orbiting thousands of miles above Earth signals from the satellites beam down to the receiver inside of a GPS device, and at least three satellites are required to pinpoint a precise position because of Earth's curvature, Keijer explained. There's just one catch: Navigational charts and systems that guide cruise ships and other vessels around Earth's oceans are all based on the principle of a round Earth, Henk Keijer, a former cruise ship captain with 23 years of experience, told The Guardian.

But in diagrams shared on the FES website, the planet appears as a pancake-like disk with the North Pole smack in the center and an edge 'surrounded on all sides by an ice wall that holds the oceans back.' This ice wall - thought by some flat-Earthers to be Antarctica - is the destination of the promised FEIC cruise.

How many people are flat earthers