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Flat-Earther's experiment to prove Earth is flat accidentally proves Earth is round
Home>Technology>Space
Published 18:03 23 Feb 2024 GMT

Flat-Earther's experiment to prove Earth is flat accidentally proves Earth is round

Bob Knodel's experiment didn't go to plan

Olivia Burke

Olivia Burke

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Featured Image Credit: Netflix

Topics: Conspiracy Theories, World News, Netflix, Space, Weird, Documentaries, Science

Olivia Burke
Olivia Burke

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Flat Earthers will do anything to convince people of their beliefs - including conducting an experiment which ended up drastically backfiring.

One believer who refused to subscribe to the fact that the globe is spherical managed to have this exact thing happen.

Take a look at this:

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Bob Knodel decided to put his money where his mouth is while he was in the middle of filming a Netflix documentary that was aptly named Behind the Curve, which was released back in 2018.

The YouTuber was offering his two pence to the conversation regarding the flat earth conspiracy theory which has consumed a lot of his life.

The synopsis for Behind the Curve reads: "The internet has revived the conspiracy theory that the earth is flat, and America's Flat Earth movement appears to be growing despite hundreds of years' of scientific evidence disproving the idea."

Prominent Flat Earthers such as Mark Sargent and Patricia Steere appeared in the film, as well as astrophysicists and other experts.

Knodel decided to use his screen time to try and prove he was right about his beliefs all along, so he ended up setting up an extravagant experiment to confirm the Earth is, in fact, flat.

Oh, and it set him back a hefty $20,000.

But Knodel ended up showing the exact opposite. Oops.

Bob Knodel's $20,000 experiment really backfired.
Netflix

Seeking to disprove the bounty of research led by experts at NASA, Bob explained the ins and outs of the DIY experiment using a laser gyroscope.

The ordeal involved using a camera to film through two holes with a person standing on the other side shinning a torch back at the camera.

Knodel claimed that if the light can be seen with the camera, the holes in the fence and the torch all at the same difference above the ground, then he could confidently draw a conclusion that the Earth is flat.

However, no light was able to be seen and the Flat Earther was left quietly muttering 'interesting' as cameras pointed at him throughout the painfully awkward blunder.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, Knodel opened up a little more about the experiment and what it meant for flat Earthers all over the globe.

"What we found is, is when we turned on that gyroscope we found that we were picking up a drift. A 15 degree per hour drift," he explained. "Now, obviously we were taken aback by that."

The outcome was exactly the opposite of what he intended.
Netflix

He said that the results were 'kind of a problem' - which is putting it mildly, let's be honest.

"We obviously were not willing to accept that, and so we started looking for ways to disprove it was actually registering the motion of the Earth," Knodel added.

Social media users couldn't believe how much money he had splashed on his pricey experiment, only for it to fail while documentary makers were there to capture the whole thing.

One person said: "Probably still didn’t change his mind."

Another echoed the comment, adding: "I bet he still won’t accept it."

A third admitted: "Something oddly satisfying about watching a simple opinion dissolve in the face of non-rigorous methods lol."

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