Flat Earth Society

The Flat Earth Society was an organization based in Lancaster, California that advocated the belief that the Earth is not a sphere but is flat (see flat Earth). No other modern religious fundamentalists have published support for this belief, and scientists universally reject it. This exposed the society to much outside ridicule and made it a popular metaphor for dogmatic thinking and pseudoscience or bad science.

Flat Earth from Space

In 1956, Samuel Shenton renamed the American UZS to International Flat Earth Society. With the advent of the space program, the Society found itself confronted with pictures of Earth made by orbiting satellites and, eventually, by astronauts who had landed on the moon. When confronted with first NASA photographs of earth from deep space, Shenton reportedly remarked: "It's easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye". The society took the position that the Apollo Moon landings were a hoax, staged by Hollywood and based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke, a position also held by some others not connected to the Flat Earth society (see Apollo moon landing hoax accusations).

Related Topics:
1956 - Samuel Shenton - Moon - NASA - Arthur C. Clarke - Apollo moon landing hoax accusations

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