What Shape Is Our Earth?

In this article, I am calling for an open-minded look at a world-weary topic: not whether the Earth is flat or a globe, but how we treat one another when we disagree.

Few subjects invite ridicule as quickly as questioning the shape of the Earth. “Flat-earther” has become a term of derision, while those questioning the globe can be dismissive of people who support what is perceived as the “scientific model”.

What happens if, instead of beginning with the assumption that the globe has already been proved beyond question, we temporarily treat it as a hypothesis to be challenged? What observations appear to support a stationary or flat Earth? What evidence supports a spherical Earth? How was that evidence obtained, and what can ordinary people establish without relying upon governments, space agencies or photographs from space?

This is an invitation to examine arguments that are often dismissed before being heard and to ask a deceptively simple question: How do we actually know?

If we relied solely upon everyday experience, a stationary, flat or disc-shaped Earth — sometimes compared with a “pizza-shaped” world beneath a dome and associated with some interpretations of ancient biblical cosmology — might seem intuitive. The sea appears level, the horizon looks straight, we don’t feel Earth moving and the Sun appears to travel across the sky.

Biblical passages describing a firmament, with waters above and below, have been interpreted by some as reflecting an ancient flat-Earth cosmology.

Centuries later, Samuel Birley Rowbotham, author of Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe, argued that direct observation should take precedence over assumptions about Earth’s shape. William Carpenter, in One Hundred Proofs That the Earth Is Not a Globe, developed similar arguments, while Eric Dubay’s 200 Proofs Earth Is Not a Spinning Ball has brought many of these challenges to a modern audience.

If Earth is approximately 40,000 km in circumference, flat-Earth proponents ask why its curvature isn’t more readily apparent across large expanses of land and water. Oceans and lakes look level, distant horizons appear straight and photographs sometimes show objects at distances where proponents argue that globe curvature should have obscured more of them.

Rowbotham’s nineteenth-century Bedford Level experiments addressed this question. Observing markers along a long, straight drainage canal in Cambridgeshire, he concluded that their visibility was inconsistent with the expected curvature of a globe.

Conventional science disputes that. Observer height and target height must be considered, while atmospheric refraction can bend light considerably, particularly over water. This can make distant objects appear higher, lower or distorted.

Rather than simply choosing one explanation, this provides an experiment. Establish beforehand what a flat surface predicts and what a globe predicts, accurately record the heights, distances and atmospheric conditions, and see which prediction best matches the observation.

The statement that “water finds its level” lies at the heart of many flat-Earth arguments. Oceans cover most of the planet, yet to ordinary observation surfaces appear horizontal rather than convex.

Modern geodesy argues that “level” doesn’t mean an infinitely extended straight plane. Water follows an equipotential surface determined by gravity and can therefore be locally level while following Earth’s overall curvature. Earth is described as an oblate spheroid, with its more detailed gravity-defined surface called the geoid.

What can actually be measured? If enormous bodies of water curve, sufficiently accurate observations over long distances should be capable of detecting that geometry.

The accepted model has Earth rotating every 24 hours while orbiting the Sun at approximately 30 km per second. Yet our everyday experience is of stationary ground beneath a moving sky.

Conventional physics explains that we don’t readily sense constant velocity, just as passengers don’t continuously feel the forward speed of a smoothly travelling aircraft. Rotation though should produce detectable effects.

The Foucault pendulum, demonstrated in 1851, is interpreted as terrestrial evidence of Earth’s rotation because its plane of oscillation changes at a rate dependent upon latitude. Modern gyroscopes also detect rotational effects. Anyone proposing a stationary Earth therefore needs to examine and account for these observations rather than relying solely upon the fact that we don’t feel movement.

The spherical-Earth model predates modern technology by more than two thousand years. Aristotle, in the fourth century BCE, discussed observations such as Earth’s curved shadow during lunar eclipses and changes in visible stars with latitude. Eratosthenes, around the third century BCE, used solar angles and geographical distance to estimate Earth’s circumference.

His equipment was remarkably simple: shadows, distance measurements, angles and geometry. Flat-Earth proponents point out that different shadow angles could occur with a smaller, nearby Sun above a plane. The stronger experiment involves simultaneous measurements from multiple widely separated locations and determining which geometry can accommodate them all.

The telescope arrived in Europe around 1608, and Galileo began astronomical observations shortly afterwards. By around 300 years ago, scientists possessed telescopes, pendulum clocks and increasingly sophisticated surveying and angular instruments. Newton had already predicted that a rotating Earth should bulge slightly at its equator, and eighteenth-century geodetic expeditions produced measurements interpreted as supporting this oblate shape.

Satellites and spaceflight came much later. Sputnik entered orbit in 1957 and Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth in 1961. Space photographs didn’t originate the globe model; they provided a new category of evidence for an idea already in existence.

Those questioning the globe ask whether governments, wealthy individuals and corporations, universities, research funding and established scientific institutions could reinforce an accepted worldview — particularly where enormous financial interests are involved.

History is littered with examples of governments withholding information, commercial interests influencing research and scientific ideas being revised. Scientists aren’t immune to financial incentives, confirmation bias or professional pressures. Careers and research programmes depend upon grants, publication and continued institutional support.

When enormous sums are invested in space programmes, aerospace, defence, telecommunications, satellites and associated research, it is reasonable to scrutinise funding, conflicts of interest and institutional incentives.

This is where John Hamer’s The Falsification of Science: Our Distorted Reality becomes relevant. Hamer challenges the assumption that accepted scientific narratives are necessarily impartial, arguing that political expediency, financial interests and institutional power may influence scientific “truth”. He extends his criticism to conventional cosmology, including heliocentrism, gravity, Earth’s curvature and rotation.

Hamer, Rowbotham, Carpenter and Dubay sit outside conventional scientific consensus yet being outside mainstream means their arguments are still open to discussion. If part of the question concerns whether mainstream institutions can become self-reinforcing, dismissing alternative evidence merely because it isn’t endorsed by those institutions risks becoming circular.

So rather than peer review or institutional approval being the sole gatekeeper of enquiry, perhaps one could examine these claims. Can observation be reproduced? Does the conclusion necessarily follow? Is there another explanation? Most importantly, can independent observers obtain the same result?

One way of dealing with concerns about institutional trust is simply to remove it from the experiment. Forget NASA, other space agencies, satellite photographs and images of Earth from space. What can ordinary people investigate independently?

Polaris’ apparent elevation changes as an observer travels north or south, corresponding closely with latitude. The Southern Hemisphere presents another challenge: observers in Australia, South America and southern Africa see stars unavailable from Britain and apparent stellar rotation around a southern celestial pole.

Then there is geography. Popular flat-Earth maps generally place the North Pole at the centre and Antarctica around the perimeter. This increases predicted Southern Hemisphere distances, so actual distances between Australia, South America and southern Africa provide an important test of the model.

Lunar eclipses offer another observation. Earth’s shadow across the Moon appears curved. A disc can produce a circular shadow from certain orientations, whereas a sphere produces a circular silhouette from every orientation. Any alternative model needs to explain repeated observations.

These questions don’t require us to trust NASA. They require geometry, observation and measurement.

Finding one observation inconsistent with globe calculations wouldn’t automatically establish a flat Earth. A serious alternative model needs to explain the world as a whole: geographical distances, sunrise and sunset, seasons, eclipses, horizon behaviour, Polaris, northern and southern star movements and the physical effects attributed to Earth’s rotation.

Likewise, the globe shouldn’t be accepted simply because “scientists say so”. It should make predictions that can be tested independently.

This is why alternative writers are worth reading alongside conventional sources. Rowbotham challenges curvature through terrestrial observations; Carpenter raises questions about water, perspective, surveying and motion; Dubay assembles modern arguments against the spinning-globe model; and Hamer asks whether the scientific establishment itself should be treated as an entirely neutral arbiter.

Their arguments represent challenges to assumptions most people have never personally investigated. The appropriate response to such challenges is surely to test them rather than ridicule them.

There is nothing anti-scientific about asking “How do you know?” Indeed, science depends upon questioning established explanations.

“Scientists say so, therefore it must be true” is insufficient. Equally, “the establishment says so, therefore it must be false” doesn’t prove an alternative.

There should be room to challenge the globe model without ridicule and room to challenge flat-Earth explanations without contempt. The objective should be to understand what we can actually establish for ourselves.

Question the accepted explanation. Question the alternative. Then follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Carpenter, William (1885). One Hundred Proofs That the Earth Is Not a Globe. Historical arguments challenging curvature, surveying, perspective, astronomy and Earth’s movement.

Dubay, Eric. 200 Proofs Earth Is Not a Spinning Ball. A contemporary collection of arguments challenging the conventional rotating-globe model.

Hamer, John (2021). The Falsification of Science: Our Distorted Reality. A critique of institutional science and accepted scientific paradigms, including challenges to conventional cosmology.

Rowbotham, Samuel Birley (“Parallax”) (1881). Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe. The principal nineteenth-century exposition of the Zetetic flat-Earth model, including the Bedford Level observations.

Garwood, Christine (2007). Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea. Macmillan. A history of flat-Earth movements and their arguments.

Aristotle. On the Heavens, Book II. Early arguments concerning a spherical Earth.

Newton, Isaac (1687). Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Gravitation, planetary motion and the prediction of Earth’s oblate shape.

Foucault, Léon (1851). Pendulum experiments interpreted as terrestrial evidence of Earth’s rotation.

National Geodetic Survey (NOAA). Resources explaining conventional geodesy, Earth’s reference ellipsoid, gravity and the geoid.

Royal Museums Greenwich. Historical resources on astronomy, navigation and the development of precision measuring instruments.