A final question about “space” that needs to be addressed is the ISS. For context, the ISS has been around since 1998 and is said to be roughly 260 miles above Earth. This places the ISS within the thermosphere but below the Van Allen Radiation Belts. Claims that still images or footage from the ISS prove that Earth is a sphere would need to be evaluated for the same reasons discussed earlier. Is photoshopping being used? What kind of lens are they using? Is the “curve” that they show consistent with the specific amount—and type—of spherical curvature that should be there, based on the Globe’s radius value, at the ISS’s altitude? Does imagery or continuous footage of the entire Earth exist, or are we continually shown snippets of little parts of Earth?
But even beyond all that, careful investigation of the ISS’s footage reveals repeated anomalies, according to NASA skeptics. For instance, in April 2023, activist and public speaker Justin Harvey brought forth evidence of what he calls “potential fraud of an enormous scale” to a Brevard County, Florida County Commission Board meeting. He urged the panel to investigate this, since NASA has a significant presence in that county. His recorded public comments went viral because he concisely synthesized the anomalies that are causing a growing number of people to question whether the official story about the ISS is truthful.98 (Note: Harvey’s comments also went viral in May of 2024 after he presented anomalies to the Brevard County commission related to the Challenger explosion in 1986.99)
With modern technology, it’s always difficult to know whether background scenery in a video is legitimate or if it’s computer generated. Even on simple Zoom (video) conference calls, this technology is employed, whereby people can look as if they’re in a totally foreign setting. One can only wonder what kind of sophisticated technologies government agencies have. In fact, the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory included a 2012 episode with a fake ISS scene, in which the actor is floating around in a realistic ISS-looking set.100 Also, in 2018, a Tesla vehicle was allegedly sent into space and was shown floating above Earth. As Elon Musk said in a press conference, “You can tell it’s real because it looks so fake.”101
In one ISS video, a female astronaut is shown floating inside of the ISS, and says into the microphone, “I want people…to understand why the science on the ISS helps us out, here on Earth.” She said “here on Earth” when allegedly in the thermosphere.102 As Austin Whitsitt critically remarks, “I thought you were in space.” This raises questions about whether she was simply in a studio simulation on Earth but accidentally “slipped” with her words. However, if one wanted to be generous, one might conclude that she included the thermosphere as part of Earth.
The next ISS anomaly is harder to explain away, though. As an astronaut is shown floating on the ISS with two other astronauts, he told a story that concluded with: “And all of that happened in a little town called York, Maine, across the United States from where we’re talking to you right now.”103 Were the astronauts actually in, say, Houston, while pretending to be on the ISS? [emphasis added]
In another ISS video, it can be clearly seen that an astronaut is being held up by a harness as he swings around a corner in the background.104 The implication is that the “floating” we see in videos might not always be due to “low gravity.” Instead, apparent “floating” might be induced by physical harnesses that are used in a normal environment. And there are many video examples that skeptics feel are suggestive of harness use.105 In fact, there is a paper coauthored by a NASA employee titled “Practical Applications of Cables and Ropes in the ISS Countermeasures System.” Thus, it’s clear that such technology is used in at least some circumstances.106
There are also cases in which things inexplicably fall while in an allegedly “low gravity” environment on the ISS. In one video, the astronaut explicitly addresses the issue. As he’s floating, he mentions, “Sometimes you find a pocket of gravity.” He keeps one hand next to a hammer that’s floating in the air, and simultaneously he lets go of a playing card in his other hand. The card falls straight down while the hammer is still floating. Austin Whitsitt analyzed the tape and asks a good question: “If you found a pocket of gravity, aren’t you currently moving 17,500 miles per hour—so how could you determine beforehand that you were going to actually be within that pocket of gravity?”107 The astronaut would have needed to know that this tiny pocket was specifically located where it was, and he would have also needed to know that the floating hammer by his other hand was not in that pocket of gravity.
But in most video anomalies, the astronauts don’t provide a “gravity pocket” caveat. And objects fall anyway, even though they “should be” floating. In one such video, the astronaut was signing papers, and he dropped the clipboard, which fell straight down.108 When he dropped it, he looked around as if to make sure no one saw what had happened. It was a clear look of guilt. Similarly, in another video, an astronaut unscrewed something on the wall, and the screw fell to the ground.109 There are many other similar examples as well.110
One such case is more subtle but very telling. An astronaut is shown floating while his microphone is floating too. On the wall, several feet away from him, is a plastic bag. In that bag an object can be seen to start slowly falling down. So it’s falling down while the astronaut and microphone are floating. Whitsitt speculates that the astronaut might be on a parabolic flight that had unavoidable turbulence, which caused the mishap on the wall.111 Parabolic flights can be used to bring about “zero gravity” environments.
There is also a video of an astronaut floating while brushing his teeth. The video footage is fast-forwarded so that viewers don’t need to watch him brush his teeth for such a long time. However, as this is happening, there is a bag floating nearby that doesn’t change its speed. If the whole video were fast-forwarded, then the entire scene should have moved at the same rate. But that’s not what happened. Perhaps this suggests that part of the visual “background” was not really where the astronaut was being filmed. This has led to speculation that augmented reality technology is sometimes employed and visually deceives viewers.112 NASA did in fact publish an article in 2021 titled “Nine Ways We Use AR [Augmented Reality] and VR [Virtual Reality] on the International Space Station.”113In one seemingly egregious mistake, an astronaut magically appears in an empty ISS room. The background has continuity all the while, which suggests that this was the product of video imagery. In fact, his body can be seen to fade in, which suggests that it’s a visual effect. In other words, there could be a “green screen” with CGI layering technology that makes the astronaut look like he’s part of the scene.114
There are also videos in which potential “bubbles” can be seen floating in space while the astronaut is filmed allegedly working on something in space.115 Skeptics speculate that such instances were faked space scenes that were really filmed under water—because NASA astronauts admittedly train in the “Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory” underwater.116 Adding fuel to the skeptics’ fire, astronauts have had helmet “leaks” during “spacewalks” on the ISS. A 2022 New York Post article reads: “Panicked NASA cancels spacewalks after ISS astronaut’s helmet ‘fills with water,’”117 and a 2022 CNN article reads: “NASA review underway after water leaks into astronaut’s helmet.”118The video “Bloopers From Space—Top 25 All Time Favorites” on the YouTube channel Flat Earth and Coffee shows some of the examples discussed here. Beyond that, researchers have compiled an extensive body of documentation of similar cases.119 In any video or image analysis, there’s always the possibility of a technical glitch that’s misinterpreted as fraud. But when there are so many anomalies, skeptics contend that it’s hard to “explain away” all of them.
Any single example of fraud naturally puts everything into question. As the saying goes in US law: “Fraud vitiates everything it touches.”120 [emphasis added]
98Censored Important Videos, “April 2023: Justin Harvey calls out NASA at Brevard County,” https://rumble.com/v2kkkmu-calling-out-nasa-april-2023.html.
99Paul Davis UnCancelled, “Are the astronauts from the Challenger disaster still alive? Justin Harvey has the evidence,” https://rumble.com/v52mvyw-are-the-astronauts-from-the-challenger-disaster-still-alive-justin-harvey-h.html.
100Pearlman, “How did CBS’ Big Bang Theory send Howard Wolowitz to space?” https://www.space.com/17891-big-bang-theory-space-set-design.html.
101Witsit Gets It, “NASA Fraud,” https://www.youtube.com/live/CJnwl5aiBSk, 2:59:30.
102Ibid., 2:32:00.
103Flat Earth Dave Archive, “Houston, We Have Got a HUGE Problem! ISS HOAX,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la6ec1ay0II.
104Witsit Gets It, “NASA Fraud,” https://www.youtube.com/live/CJnwl5aiBSk, 2:47:00-2:48:00.
105A few examples shown in Witsit Gets It, “NASA Fraud,” https://www.youtube.com/live/CJnwl5aiBSk, 2:47:00-2:53:00.
106Moore et al., “Practical Applications of Cables and Ropes in the ISS Countermeasures System” https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20160012382/downloads/20160012382.pdf.
107Witsit Gets It, “NASA Fraud,” https://www.youtube.com/live/CJnwl5aiBSk, 2:29:00–2:30:00.
108Ibid., 3:15:20.
109Witsit Gets It, “NASA Fraud – Episode 3,” https://www.youtube.com/live/_gpM5lmRVW8, 2:13:00–2:16:00.
110Additional bloopers shown at Witsit Gets It, “NASA Fraud,” https://www.youtube.com/live/CJnwl5aiBSk, 3:19:00.
111Witsit Gets It, “NASA Fraud–Episode 3,” https://www.youtube.com/live/_gpM5lmRVW8.
112Witsit Gets It, “NASA Fraud,” https://www.youtube.com/live/CJnwl5aiBSk, 3:21:50.
113NASA, “Nine Ways We Use AR and VR on the International Space Station,” https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/nine-ways-we-use-ar-and-vr-on-the-international-space-station/.
114Witsit Gets It, “NASA Fraud,” https://www.youtube.com/live/CJnwl5aiBSk, 3:36:50.
115See the YouTube channel “Flat Earth and Coffee,” https://www.youtube.com/@FlatEarthAndCoffee/videos.
116NASA, “Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory,” https://www.nasa.gov/johnson/neutral-buoyancy-laboratory/.
117Pettit, “Panicked NASA cancels spacewalks after ISS astronaut’s helmet ‘fills with water,’” https://nypost.com/2022/05/19/panicked-nasa-cancels-spacewalks-after-iss-astronauts-helmet-fills-with-water/.
118Erin Burnett Out Front, “NASA review underway after water leaks into astronaut’s helmet,” https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2022/08/06/nasa-halts-spacewalks-spacesuit-problems-water-leak-astronaut-helmet-iss-fisher-pkg-ebof-vpx.cnn.
119Also available on Rumble at the channel Don’t Obey, “Bloopers From Space – Top 25 All Time Favorites,” https://rumble.com/v28x1v0-bloopers-from-space-top-25-all-time-favorites.html.
120Liverman v. McMurray, US Supreme Court, https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-5808/176392/20210422160651080_20210422-160534-95753440-00001842.pdf, 2.
An End to the Upside Down Cosmos
Rethinking the BigBang, Heliocentrism,
the Lights in the Sky…
and Where We Live
Mark Gober
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