Observing the perfectly flat horizon from shore to shore I shook my head, "no."
"Of course not," grandpa smiled, "you will never see a curved horizon or curved water. It's called the 'horizon' for good reason, because it's always perfectly 'horizon'tal, and it's called 'sea-level,' because bodies of water at rest are always perfectly level. Whether it's in a beaker, a bottle, a bathtub, a pond, a lake or an ocean, the natural physics of water and other liquids is to find and remain level. 70% of the world is covered in level water, so how could Earth not be flat? The idea that our level oceans are somehow curved around and stuck to the underside of a spinning space-ball is the greatest deception in the history of mankind!"
School started the next morning with the bell ringing and Mr. Tyson dropping his microphone. "Why did the microphone fall to the floor? Anyone?" he asked, looking around the room. When satisfied no one would answer, he continued, "It fell because of 'gravity,' a force created by large masses that causes other smaller masses to stick to them like a magnet. Because the Earth is so massive, it creates a gravitational pull which sucked the microphone down to the floor. This gravity is what keeps people, buildings, oceans and everything else stuck to our globe. Has anyone ever heard of Australia being called, 'the land down under?'"
A few students raised their hands as Mr. Tyson picked the globe off his desk and pointed underneath it.
"As you can see, Australia is literally a 'land down under' the globe, and 'gravity' is what keeps Australians from falling off the bottom of Earth!"
The class erupted in laughter as I sat quietly pondering the absurdity of Australians all upside-down being constantly sucked to the center of a globe so they wouldn't fall off. How could gravity be so strong that it keeps people, buildings and entire oceans stuck to the underside of a spinning globe, yet weak enough that smoke and steam, tiny birds and bugs can escape its grasp, and rise or fly with ease? How could gravity be so strong that it curves and holds the oceans onto a ball, yet weak enough that it doesn't cause even a lily-pad or floating leaf to sink?
Mr. Tyson drew a large, medium and small circle on the blackboard to represent the Sun, Earth and Moon, then continued his explanation.
"The Sun is the most massive object in our solar system so it creates the biggest gravitational pull. The Earth is smaller than the Sun, but larger than the Moon, so gravity causes the Earth to orbit around the Sun, while causing the Moon to orbit the Earth."
"Wait a minute!" I quickly raised my hand and interrupted. "Before you said gravity caused smaller masses to stick to larger masses. Now you're saying it causes smaller masses to orbit around larger masses! Which one is it, Mr. Tyson? And how does gravity decide when to spin things in circles and when to suck things like a magnet!?"
"It just does, you pesky boy!"
When I got home from school and told grandpa all about "gravity" he insisted it was time for us to take another field-trip. After grabbing a big bucket and globe from his shed, we headed out to the city center, stopping just out front the United Nations building where there stood a large stone fountain shaped like a map of the world. In the very middle positioned at the North Pole was a flag pole flying the UN flag.
"Sometimes the truth is most easily hidden in plain sight," grandpa said. "This here flag and fountain show a more true map and model of Earth than anything they're teaching you in school, my boy. The fountain water representing the oceans at sea-level is fully contained and lays perfectly flat. Meanwhile the continents protrude up from sea-level giving us a practical, tactile, working model of Earth's land and water."
"Now compare that with this," grandpa said holding his globe in one hand and a bucket full of fountain water in the other. He then poured the water over the globe and we watched as every last drop fell back to the fountain below.
"Water must be contained like in this bucket or in this fountain, and will stay within and conform to the interior shape of its container. However, water will never stick to or conform to the exterior of shapes like this globe. No matter how big the globe is, water will always fall off and people will be unable to stand anywhere but on top. Even Spaceship Earth at Disney's Epcot Center, 18 stories tall and 16 million pounds, the largest geodesic sphere ever constructed, cannot create one iota of its own 'gravity,' or cause even a golf ball to stick to or orbit around it. You see, this theoretical force that sucks everything towards the center of large masses was needed to explain how water could bend around a ball-Earth and keep people from falling off the bottom. The problem is, for a theory to be proven, it must be observable, measurable, repeatable, and scalable. Yet, after 400 years since Newton's theory, bendy water nor this magical sucking force is anywhere observable, measurable or repeatable, and even the largest-scale sphere ever constructed fails to behave as they claim their spherical Earth does. It's quite convenient to claim the natural physics of water somehow changes at a scale too large to recreate, but it's not science."
"Long before the theory of gravity was a glimmer in Newton's imagination, the natural physics of density and buoyancy already perfectly explained why apples fall down. Quite simply, objects fall or rise based on their relative density to the medium surrounding them. Apples fall because they are denser than the air, while helium balloons rise because they are lighter - no 'gravity' necessary. This is why raindrops fall down through the air and air-bubbles rise up through water! Everything seeks its relative density and rises or falls until settling accordingly. This is why a tiny pebble sinks to the bottom of the ocean, but gigantic cruise-ships and aircraft carriers stay afloat on the surface, because even though a pebble is so small, its mass relative to its volume (its density) is more than water, so it sinks, and even though a cruise-ship is so large, its mass relative to its volume is less than water, so it floats.
If Newton's apple had landed in a puddle instead of on his head, he would have seen the apple only fell through the air because it was denser than the air, but then floated on top of the water because it was less dense than water. Have you ever noticed how it’s easier to stay afloat with your lungs full of air than it is when they're empty? Submarines float on the surface when their ballast tanks are filled with air, but when the vents are opened and seawater floods in, they begin to sink as the submarine's density becomes greater than water. Depending what depth they wish to dive, sailors simply adjust the ratio of air/water in the tanks, and when ready to re-surface they blow compressed air into the tanks forcing the seawater out, lowering the density, and thus causing them to rise back to the surface.
We can also prove this fact of relative density by filling a balloon with approximately half helium and half air. Since helium is lighter than the oxygen, nitrogen and other gases that compose the air around us, filling a balloon with just the right amount of helium to compensate for and balance out the density of the plastic results in a 'gravity-defying' levitating balloon at equilibrium that neither rises nor falls!"
"Come on down, my boy!" grandpa said, waving me toward the docks. "Not only do submarines prove gravity doesn't exist, they prove the oceans are flat too!" Grandpa saluted a naval officer and led me aboard the largest submarine I had ever seen. We entered the control room and grandpa pointed out several maps and charts laying on the table. "Ship captains in navigating great distances at sea never need to factor the supposed curvature of the Earth into their calculations. Both Plane Sailing and Great Circle Sailing, the most popular navigation methods, use plane, not spherical trigonometry, making all mathematical calculations on the assumption that the oceans are completely flat. If the Earth were in fact a sphere, such an errant assumption would lead to constant glaring inaccuracies, but in fact plane navigation methods have worked perfectly in theory and practice for thousands of years."
"Have a look through these," grandpa said excitedly pulling down two periscopes. "Regular observational periscopes are able to see ships about 7 or 8 miles away, while special targeting periscopes equipped with high-tech zoom capability can see ships twice or thrice as far where they should be invisible blocked beneath hundreds of feet of Earth's alleged curvature. Submarines set their depth below sea-level then travel for distances of hundreds or thousands of miles without changing their inclination whatsoever. If the Earth were truly a sphere, however, submarines would have to periodically dip their noses downward every few miles to maintain the same depth, otherwise they would always be accidentally re-surfacing due to the ocean's curvature!" Grandpa grabbed my hand and led me through the torpedo and sonar rooms. "Subs are equipped with long-range torpedoes such as the Blackshark and F21 which can hit straight-line targets over 30 miles away, but if the Earth were truly a globe of given proportions, these torpedo targets would be hidden behind a 600 foot wall of curved Earth. Modern Navy rail guns now have the ability to bulls-eye straight-line targets 120 miles away! Yet on a globe-Earth of given proportions, such targets would be blocked by 9600 feet, or over a mile and a half of curvature. Last but not least, sonar arrays on the bow, stern, port and starboard send and receive radar signals in all directions, active sonar to about 30 miles and passive sonar up to an incredible 1000 miles! On a globe-Earth of given proportions, these sonar signals should be undetectable hidden by over 100 miles of supposed curvature."
Back at school the next day, my brain reeling from the week's revelations, Mr. Tyson wheeled in a television for us to watch a cosmos documentary showing beautiful pictures and videos of the Earth, Sun, Moon, stars and planets all shaped like multi-colored billiard balls spinning around, satellites, telescopes, space stations, and astronauts free-floating in outer-space, remote-controlled rovers on Mars, even men walking, jumping, go-karting and golfing on the Moon. While the other students sat mesmerized cooing "oohs" and "ahhs" at every new image, I kept thinking about something my grandpa once said about pink unicorns:
"If I told you I had pink unicorns in my shed, would you believe me?" he asked. I shook my head. "You wouldn't and shouldn't believe me because people can lie. If I showed you pictures of some pink unicorns in my shed, would you believe me then?" I shook my head again. "You still wouldn't and shouldn't believe me because pictures can be faked. What if I showed you high-definition videos of pink unicorns in my shed, then would you believe?" I shook my head once again. "You still wouldn't and shouldn't believe me because videos too can be faked!"
Grandpa's point was we shouldn't just believe second-hand information and should confirm and experience everything for ourselves first-hand. Then we know the truth rather than just believe, and as grandpa always said, "belief is just a substitute for knowing." With his words echoing through my head, I began noticing how fake the beautiful pictures of Earth were, how they were clearly computer-generated images and not actual photographs. The color, size and shape of the land and water masses differed so drastically between pictures that they couldn't possibly be real. The more critically I examined the supposed pictures of Earth from space, the more they reminded me of grandpa's pink unicorns.
"Have a look at this, my boy!" Grandpa called me into the study and pointed to his computer screen. The same footage I had seen at school of men on the Moon was playing, only this time with the speed doubled. My jaw slowly dropped as it became clear the astronauts were actually walking, jumping, go-karting and golfing on Earth, but edited at half-speed to give a "low-gravity" illusion!
"Now watch this," grandpa said clicking forward to several short scenes where we could clearly see overhead wires attached to the astronaut's backpacks! "They even used the same backdrops over and over," grandpa said showing me video and photo overlays of the exact same hills, dunes and craters appearing at supposedly different locations on the "Moon." There were also clear dividing lines on the floor between the foreground and backdrops, lens flares and diverging shadows from multiple light sources, even overhead spotlights reflecting off astronaut's visors, all proving the footage was filmed in a studio.
"We can expose their photo-trickery now using Photoshop," grandpa said opening several of NASA's official photographs of Earth taken from the Moon. "Just adjust the brightness and contrast levels a bit and look what happens!" As grandpa increased the brightness and lowered the contrast, rectangular artifacts suddenly appeared around the "Earth" proving them to be doctored images cut and pasted into place. Other pictures we adjusted showed shadows being cast onto the blackness of "space," again proving they were in a room with black walls/ceilings, and not actually on the Moon.
"Now look at these cloud patterns," grandpa said pointing to NASA's Blue Marble Earth picture, "what do you notice?" At first nothing, but then it became all I could see: the same cloud patterns were at several places all over the Earth! Not similar cloud patterns, but the exact same clouds copied and pasted into place! "I'll tell you what my boy," grandpa said tapping his temple, "the only thing NASA ever sent to space is our imagination."
Grandpa pointed out the office window to the afternoon waxing gibbous Moon. "Notice how you can see the blue sky right through it? That's because the Moon is not a solid, opaque, dirt-ball capable of stepping foot on; it is merely a translucent luminary, a light. For centuries confused establishment astronomers have written about seeing stars and planets clearly shining right through the dark body of waxing and waning Moons. In fact, a star occulting the crescent Moon has long been a popular symbol of Islam and is found on national flags from Algeria and Pakistan to Singapore, Tunisia, and Turkey. These same confused astronomical experts tell us the Moon has no light of its own and simply reflects the Sun's light, but this is also provably incorrect as the two lights have altogether different and opposing properties. For example, the Sun’s light is golden, warm, drying, preservative, antiseptic, decreases fire combustion, and prevents plant and animal substances from decomposition, while the Moon’s light is silver, cool, damp, putrefying, septic, increases fire combustion and causes plant and animal substances to decay. These two very different and opposing effects cannot be the result of mere reflection, however, and prove that the Sun and Moon both shine with their own unique lights."
Later that evening grandpa and I set-up an experiment to test if moon-light really was cold. We placed a glass of water in direct moon-light and another in the moon-shade, then used digital thermometers to record both the air and water temperatures in moon-light vs. moon-shade. For the entire night both the moon-light air and water remained between one and two full degrees colder than the air and water in moon-shade. "If done during a full-moon the results are greater," grandpa said, "but this should suffice to prove the Moon produces its own cool light. Astronomers claim the Moon is a solid spherical body that reflects sun-light, but the fact is reflectors must be flat or concave for light rays to have any angle of incidence; If the reflector's surface is convex then every ray of light points in a direct line with the radius perpendicular to the surface resulting in no reflection. So, in other words, it's impossible that man has ever or could ever set foot on the Moon because it's not terra firma like Earth, but rather a luminary, like the Sun, shining with its own unique light."
The next morning marked the start of a long weekend and grandpa woke me early from a sound sleep saying, "We're going on an epic adventure, my boy!" Grandma had my bags already packed in the truck with breakfast-to-go and waved goodbye as we sped off towards the airport. Upon arrival, grandpa was greeted with warm smiles, salutes, and good mornings from all the pilots we walked past. "Today, we're going to see for ourselves and prove the Earth plane with my Earth Plane!" grandpa exclaimed proudly pointing to the tail of his single-engine open-cockpit plane. "I named her 'The Earth Plane' for the double-meaning," he said grinning. "Why do you think they're called air-'planes' and not air-planets or air-globes? Because they're not flying over a 'planet' or a 'globe,' they're flying over a plane!"
We climbed in the cockpit, geared-up, strapped in, and prepared for take-off. As we picked up speed, grandpa yelled for me to pay attention to the horizon and not take my eyes off it. We lifted from the runway and watched the horizon slowly rising up with us and extending outwards further and further the higher we went. "Keep watching!" grandpa yelled as he pulled back the yoke and we continued to climb higher and higher. The horizon kept rising right along with us remaining perfectly flat and level 360 degrees around. "We're almost at maximum height now," grandpa said still pulling back the yoke when suddenly the engine stalled, everything went silent, and the plane started to nose-dive! "Uh oh!" grandpa said fumbling at the controls. Just as I began to panic, I saw a thin smile cross grandpa's lips, then he restarted the engine, leveled the plane again, turned to me and winked.
When we landed grandpa explained, "if the horizon was actually the curvature of a globe, no matter how large, it would remain at a fixed height, and we would have to gradually tilt our heads down more the higher we ascended to view it. In reality, however, no matter how high you go, the horizon rises right with your eyes and remains flat. In fact, amateur balloons with cameras have been sent 10 times higher than we just went, over 120,000 feet or 20 miles up, and the flat horizon rises all the way up. The only time you'll ever see a curved horizon is through fish-eyed lenses or curved commercial airplane windows."
After finishing our hot chocolate, grandpa handed me a small spirit-level and we headed back to the Earth Plane for another experiment. Pointing at the instrument panel, he said, "this is called an attitude indicator or an artificial horizon; it uses a gyroscope to track the pilot's orientation relative to Earth's horizon. So when we lift-off and start gaining altitude, the indicator will pitch up and the bubble in your spirit-level will rise forward away from you. Once we reach cruising altitude, I will level the plane, and both the artificial horizon and your spirit-level will confirm this. We will continue to fly perfectly straight and level due south all night long, then tomorrow morning I will decrease altitude, the indicator will pitch down and the bubble in your spirit-level will fall backward towards you until landing then level off again. If we were really flying over a globe and not a level plane Earth I would have to regularly dip the nose decreasing altitude to compensate for the globe's curvature or else would find myself regularly gaining altitude simply by flying level! This is absurd, as no pilot in history has ever experienced gaining altitude by simply flying level, but this is what must happen if we lived on a globe!"
Grandpa grabbed a pen and paper to help explain. First he drew a big circle to represent the globe, then he made a straight line tangent to it to represent the path of a plane flying level, and lastly put several straight dotted vertical lines perpendicular to the tangent showing the exponential gain in altitude that should occur if we were really flying over a globe. "If Earth is a ball 25,000 miles in circumference, and we fly over it level at 200mph, in 30 minutes Earth should curve downwards over a mile; and in an hour, we should find ourselves nearly 5 miles higher altitude than we started simply by flying perfectly level! Let's see what really happens."
Grandpa fastened the spirit-level next to my seat, patted me on the head and jumped into the cockpit. As we took off, the bubble in my spirit-level rose forward and the gyro-horizon pitched up, just like grandpa said. Then we reached cruising altitude and grandpa leveled off the plane bringing the bubble, real and artificial horizons all back to the center where they remained for hours until I finally fell asleep. The next morning when I woke up, after traveling thousands of miles, we were still flying level and at the exact same altitude proving Earth couldn't possibly be a globe curving downwards away from us.
"Can you imagine landing if that runway was really moving 1000 miles per hour!?" Grandpa chuckled lowering the landing gear. "If the Earth was really constantly spinning Eastward 1000 miles every hour, it would be impossible for airplanes to land on runways facing all manner of directions North, South, East, West and every way in between." Grandpa touched-down gently and parked the plane for re-fueling.
"Back in the 18th century, when the hot-air balloon was invented, people asked why, if the Earth was constantly spinning, couldn't they simply hover in place and wait for their Eastward destinations to arrive under them? The pseudo-scientists of their time claimed this was impossible because the magical force of gravity somehow pulled the entire atmosphere and their balloons perfectly along with the Earth! This was and is completely against any science, logic or common sense mind you, but when men of presumed authority make presumptuous authoritative statements, they are rarely questioned. If the Earth and atmosphere were constantly spinning 1000mph Eastwards, this should somewhere somehow be seen, heard, felt or measurable by someone, yet no one in history has ever done so; meanwhile, however, we can hear, feel and experimentally measure even the slightest 1mph Westward breeze. Such non-sensical theories are debunked by clouds, wind, weather patterns, rain, fireworks, birds, bugs, smoke, planes and projectiles all of which would behave very differently if Earth and its atmosphere were constantly spinning faster than the speed of sound! Seriously, my boy, can you imagine sideways rain falling at the equator, or upside-down planes landing in Australia!?" Grandpa and I laughed at such a ridiculous thought.
"Around the turn of the 20th century, the ball-Earth pseudo-scientists were conclusively proven wrong upon the invention of the airplane. You see, if the Earth were constantly spinning Eastwards 1000mph at the equator then airplane flight durations Eastwards vs. Westwards would be significantly different. Since the average commercial airliner travels 500mph, it follows that Westbound equatorial flights should reach their destination approximately three times faster than their Eastbound return flights! In reality, however, the differences in East/Westbound flight durations usually amount to a matter of minutes, and nothing near what would occur on a 1000mph spinning ball Earth. For example, commercial flights from Quito, Ecuador traveling Eastwards 2000 miles to Macapa, Brazil, at 500mph, take an average of 4 hours, so the return flights Westward going against the alleged 1000mph spin of the Earth should be significantly shorter, but in reality take the exact same 4 hours, just as expected on a stationary Earth."
That evening we set-up camp in the woods near the airfield, pitched a tent, unrolled our sleeping bags, and roasted marshmallows on a bon-fire. Grandpa was teaching me how to make them golden brown without burning them, when suddenly he went silent and smiled to himself. With a glint in his eye and a s'more in his mouth, grandpa told me about the last time he taught someone the fine art of marshmallow roasting. "It was your grandmother and I's honeymoon to the Arctic, which we've always called our 'honeysun' because we stayed up all night to watch the never-setting Midnight Sun."
"What is the Midnight Sun?" I asked, as my marshmallow caught on fire.
Grandpa swiftly snagged my stick and blew out my blackened failure. "The Midnight Sun is what you can see in Northern regions above the Arctic circle during and around the Summer Solstice. For several days or even weeks (depending where you are) you can watch the Sun travel 360 degrees around you slowly rising and falling every 12 hours, but never fully setting below the horizon! This is because at the Summer Solstice the Sun reaches its inner-most circuit directly over the Tropic of Cancer, allowing observers situated centrally in the Arctic circle to see the Sun make its complete 24 hour circuit without ever leaving the sky. Your grandmother and I witnessed 3 days without darkness, 72 hours of daylight, which would be impossible on a tilting, wobbling, spinning globe Earth. To see the Sun for an entire revolution on a spinning ball at any point other than the poles, you would have to be looking through miles and miles of land and sea for part of the revolution! Anyone below the poles could never witness the Sun for 72 hours, 3 whole revolutions, straight because to do so would mean you are somehow seeing “through the globe” and to the Sun on the other side! The ball-Earth pseudo-scientists have tried to claim 24 hour sunlight also happens in Antarctica during the Winter Solstice to help bolster their wobbling ball model, but their only supposed evidence is a couple of clearly fake edited videos which have been thoroughly debunked. There is, in fact, never 24 hour sunlight anywhere in Antarctica because even when the Sun reaches its outer-most circuit over the Tropic of Capricorn, the entirety of the Antarctic circumference cannot be reached by its light at any one time, and so it will still set every day. The Royal Belgian Geographical Society even recorded that during the most severe part of the Antarctic winter, from 71 degrees South latitude onwards, the sun sets on May 17th and is not seen above the horizon again until July 21st. This would be impossible on a spinning space-ball wobbling around the Sun, and is yet another proof we live on a motionless level plane with the Sun, Moon and stars all revolving over and around us, just as we experience every day."
After almost another full day of flying, it was getting increasingly colder, and we made our final re-fueling stop at a lonely place called the Desolation Islands. As we walked along the sparse coast-line, grandpa unfolded a huge, detailed map called "Hammond's Air Age Map of the World," and pointed to our location. "Here at 49 degrees Southern latitude, we're nearing the coldest, harshest, most desolate climate on Earth: Antarctica."
Grandpa traced his finger in a circle around the circumference of the map, then traced two more smaller concentric circles showing the path of the Sun throughout the year. "During its annual spiral journey over and around the Earth, the Sun slowly speeds up and widens its circular path for 6 months until reaching the Tropic of Capricorn at 23.5 degrees South latitude. Then for the next 6 months, the Sun slows down and narrows its path until reaching the Tropic of Cancer at 23.5 degrees North latitude. This is why equatorial and tropical regions experience almost year-round summer and heat while higher latitudes North and especially South experience more distinct seasons with harsh winters. Here on the Desolation Islands there are only 18 species of native plants and a handful of animals that can survive the cold, hostile climate, compared to somewhere of equal 49 degrees Northern latitude, like the country of France, which has a very hospitable climate and is home to hundreds of native animals and thousands of native plants. The stark contrast between places of equal latitudes North and South is a direct result of the Sun's influence (or lack of influence) over them. In the North dawn and dusk are usually drawn-out beautiful scenes lasting over an hour each, whereas in the deep South dawn and dusk pass by in an instant, becoming bright as day or too dark to see in a matter of minutes. The Northern Arctic region enjoys moderately warm summers and manageable winters due to the Sun's slower, tighter circles in the North, whereas the Southern Antarctic region never even warms enough to melt the perpetual snow and ice due to the Sun's swifter, wider circles it makes over the South. This results in Antarctica being by far the coldest place on Earth with an average annual temperature of -57 degrees Fahrenheit in contrast to the average at the North Pole, a comparatively warm 4 degrees."
"So we're going to Antarctica?" I asked pulling my jacket hood over my sweatshirt hoodie over my ear-muffs over my hat.
"We're going beyond Antarctica, my boy!" Grandpa exclaimed pointing past the edge of the map.
Early the next morning, after flying all night over rough, dark seas, dawn arrived behind us and illuminated in front of us a huge 200-foot-high plateau of Antarctic ice extending outwards and onward as far as the eye could see. We continued flying south over Antarctica until lunch-time when Grandpa brought us down on a flat patch of ice near the South Pole.
"Why aren't we landing on the air-strip over there?" I asked pointing off in the distance.
"I'm afraid we don't have clearance to touch down over there, my boy. In fact, the Antarctic Treaty, a law signed by 53 countries and enforced by military, prohibits independent exploration of Antarctica, so if they catch us we'll be in trouble!" Grandpa winked and handed me a magnetic compass as we walked toward a tall red and white barber-shop pole sticking out of the ice.
"They say this here is the South Pole, but then contradict themselves by saying the true South Pole is actually constantly moving around somewhere in this vicinity. This is just a convenient and necessary excuse to maintain their lie. Because if Earth was really a big ball and we're standing on the bottom of that ball right now at the southern-most point, you should be able to walk in a circle with your back to the Pole and have the compass show North being in front of you in every direction." I walked a large circle with my back to the South Pole and North remained fixed in the direction we flew from no matter where I went.
"Think about it, if we're on the bottom of a ball right now, how could the compass point North!? North would be the top of the ball, so the needle would have to point down to your feet! North-facing compass needles at the South Pole must be pointing into outer-space!" Grandpa laughed. "The truth is they've just placed this red and white barber-shop pole at an arbitrary location here in Antarctica so rich people on their government-approved penguin-tours can get their pictures taken and claim they've been to the 'bottom of the world.' But as you can see from your compass reading, there's plenty more land South of the South Pole that doesn't exist anywhere on the globe!" We gazed southwards from the South Pole at the massive expanse of mountainous ice ahead of us. "This land doesn't exist on any known map. It could go on forever for all we know. Perhaps there are other Earth-ponds beyond, or maybe there is some solid barrier like a dome that contains us. I have been wondering and wanting to know what exists South of the South Pole for my whole life. Let's go find out!"
As we climbed back into the Earth Plane preparing for take-off, an emergency message came over the radio accusing us of unauthorized landing in Antarctica, and warning that our craft would be shot down if we didn't turn back immediately! Grandpa sat still for a second, shut his radio off, turned to me and said, "We'll only get one chance at this, my boy, and we've come too far to go back without any answers!" Grandpa fired the engine up and we lifted-off heading South at top-speed. Within minutes a group of military jets began tailing us closely and the look on his face changed from nervous excitement to frustrated despair. Our plane's top speed was no match. The jets closed in and began firing warning shots in our direction. Grandpa quickly attempted an evasive maneuver in hopes of losing them but it was useless. Another warning shot came close enough that we could hear it whizzing by our heads, and that was the last straw. With watery eyes grandpa banked 180 degrees and began heading back. The military escort directed us toward the air-strip I'd seen earlier, forced us to land, then arrested grandpa and led him away into a locked windowless room for hours. When he finally came back out, grandpa said since he had also served in the military, they only gave him a slap on the wrist, but could have been penalized with fines and jail-time for what we did.
That evening before beginning our long flight back home, grandpa told me something that would change my entire life from that moment forward. Sitting on a couple crates by the tarmac and sharing a meal of rice and beans on paper plates, he turned to me with sad eyes, an upside-down frown, and said, "you're old enough to know the truth now, my boy. Remember your grandma and I told you how your father was a great pilot and your mother a daring explorer?" My ears perked up at the rare mention of my parents. "And how when you were very little, their plane was lost during an expedition?" I nodded my head. "I never told you, but I was with them, and the expedition was right here. I was flying solo in the Earth Plane, and your parents were together in your father's identical Earth Plane 2. We all shared a passion for truth and wanted to explore the lands South of the South Pole so we decided to go for it. Just like today, military crafts began tailing us shortly after passing the pole, sending emergency messages over the radio, and firing warning shots. Knowing your father was the better pilot, I drew their fire and led them off due west while your father and mother continued speeding South. Two jets followed me, but another three stayed tailing your parent's plane, and that was when I lost track of them. The last thing I heard was your father's brave voice crackling over the radio adamantly saying, "we have the right to full exploration of Earth and you have no right to stop us!"
Nobody ever heard from my parents again. There were no news reports, no obituaries, no death certificates, and all official inquiries into the incident were met with denial. Grandpa and I held hope that they succeeded in escaping to undiscovered lands, but it seemed more and more unlikely every year that passed, since if they did survive, surely they would come back home.
It has been thirty years since my grandpa took me on that fateful flight. I decided then and there to make it my life's mission to discover the truth, and I wouldn't repeat the same mistakes of my parents and grandparents. A grand conspiracy spanning five centuries, brainwashing the entirety of humanity, and protected by advanced military technology, could not be defeated by a single man. Only if a critical mass became awakened and active in exposing the deception could the truth be known and full exploration achieved. So I set out to make the biggest noise I could about our Earth Plane. I talked about it to everyone I met. I made posters, stickers, signs and stamps, created websites, blogs, documentaries, and articles, posted pictures, videos, memes and maps on forums and social medias. Slowly more and more people began questioning reality, thinking critically, and realizing the lies. I began writing books, doing podcasts, radio interviews, and making music all about our Earth Plane. I even wrote a children's book called, "The Earth Plane," to help our poor youngsters understand how they are being lied to. Finally, I went to school to become a pilot like my father and grandfather, and when I could afford it, bought my very own Earth Plane 3. Now, tens of millions have awakened to the reality of our Earth Plane and they are hard at work spreading the word even further! Humanity is ready for the truth and today we will discover it! Myself and hundreds more pilots and sailors have organized an entire fleet of "Earth Planes" and "Earth Ships" simultaneously heading South from all longitudes to fully explore Antarctica and beyond! They cannot stop us all, and many members of the military are on our side. They have even promised to give stand-down orders to allow us through undisturbed. Today, is the culmination of my family's brave efforts to free humanity. Today pseudo-science and its minions like Mr. Tyson will fall and the truth will be known to all!
Eric Dubay
The Earth Plane- children book
