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Tales Of A Flat Earth

Football club changes name to ‘Flat Earth’ in support of conspiracy theory

Ruptly in English

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Known before as Mostoles Balompie, the Spanish third division football club changed its name to "Flat Earth FC" to support the conspiracy theory that believes the planet Earth is flat.
The club President, Javi Proves, said the decision to rename the team was a mixture of two passions, however, added that the members of the club are not obliged to believe in the theory.
The Flat Earth FC recently got the promotion to Third Division this season from the Preferential Madrid.
 
Fran Blanche finds some flat earth propaganda in her NASA lunchbox:
I can't believe they're going to such lengths.
 
That guy, Mad Mike Hughes, who built his own rocket to launch so he could take a picture of the flat earth - he was what I think you mean by a "wind-up merchant". He knew he could get money and publicity by banking on the flat-earthers. Ulterior motives abound, for sure. ...

It hasn't ended ... "Mad Mike" is still at it ...

Flat-Earther 'Mad' Mike Hughes Is Being Sponsored by a Dating App to Nearly Get Himself Killed

'Mad' Mike Hughes — a self-taught rocket scientist and avowed flat-Earth conspiracy theorist — is launching himself into the sky again. ...

The stunt, which is being sponsored by a "commitment-free dating app" and filmed as part of an upcoming Discovery Channel series featuring Hughes, gives the 63-year-old rocketeer a chance to outdo himself following a successful-yet-bumpy DIY launch he completed in March 2018.

Despite multiple setbacks and dust-ups with the Bureau of Land Management, Hughes rode his homemade rocket some 1,875 feet (572 m) into the air over Amboy, California, on March 24, 2018 ... Hughes had to deploy two parachutes to save himself from smashing into the desert nose-first, finally walking away with just a sore back.

This Sunday's launch looks to be a bit riskier, with Hughes aiming to blast himself more than twice as high into the sky before dropping back to Earth at around 400 mph (643 km/h) ... As with last year's launch, Hughes reportedly made his new steam-powered rocket at home in his garage — however, he will get some help this time in the form of a portable launchpad, instead of having to jury-rig a mobile home into a ramp (as he did last year). ...

Will Hughes be able to see the curvature of the Earth from his mile-high vantage point, thus crushing his stated belief that our planet is "shaped like a Frisbee?" Not unless his steam-powered contraption exceeds its reach by about seven-fold, carrying him 35,000 feet (10,700 m) up instead.

But proving or disproving the Earth's 100% verifiable roundness is not the goal of this stunt, anyway. As Hughes has said before, he will need to soar past the Kármán line — that contested boundary where the sky ends and space begins, roughly 62 miles (100 kilometers) over Earth — to personally see our apparently latke-shaped planet from space with his own eyes. ...

SOURCE: https://www.livescience.com/flat-earther-mad-mike-hughes-rocket-launch.html
 
"Mad" Mike Hughes' latest rocket launch has been delayed - supposedly owing to a problem with a hot water heater he bought off CraigsList to serve as part of his launch equipment.

Perhaps more interestingly ... He's admitted he's strictly a daredevil, and his rocket launches actually have nothing to do with proving a flat earth theory.

'Mad' Flat-Earther's Steam Rocket Launch Grounded by Bad Water Heater Bought on Craigslist

Flat-Earth proponent, former limo driver and amateur rocketeer "Mad" Mike Hughes planned to launch 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) into the air above the community of Amboy in California's Mojave Desert Monday (Aug. 12). But his homemade, steam-powered rocket never got off the ground, thanks to a faulty water heater that he bought off of Craigslist.

The launch is currently postponed until possibly Saturday, Aug. 17.

According to Hughes' publicist Darren Shuster, the faulty heater that Hughes bought for $325 off of Craigslist wasn't able to heat the water to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius), the temperature required to create the steam to propel the rocket. Hughes paid $50 for the nose cone of the rocket, which he plans to launch off the back of a semi truck he was gifted. Shuster added that no one knows where the nose cone came from or what its original intent was, but Hughes modified it for its current purpose on the rocket. The launch is sponsored by hud, a casual dating app.

"I appreciate the support, love and excitement from everybody, and a delay will not stop my mission — the rocket is in place and needs a leak plugged up, so weekend is a go," Hughes told Space.com. ...

In media coverage of his 2018 launch, a number of publications stated that Hughes was launching to see Earth's curvature for himself (it is not visible at the altitude that Hughes aims to reach this month). However, Hughes told Space.com that he was launching to this higher altitude because, simply, he is a daredevil.

"I believe the Earth is flat," Hughes said. But "this flat Earth has nothing to do with the steam rocket launches," he added. "It never did. It never will. I'm a daredevil!"
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/mad-mike-rocket-launch-delay.html
 
Those early guys were just dicking about with the ochre and they invented cave painting. Give this guy a proper rocket and see what he comes up with.
Or down to.
 
Perhaps we should start a "Send flat earthers to Antarctica" fund while we're at it? Of course we leave them there...
 
I am at a loss to think why they think the government would lie about it, what is the gain?
 
For those not following (which I imagine is everyone here), after coming in second two years in a row, Anthony Riley, aka Sleeping Warrior, has won DFOTY 2019. That's Dumb Feck (not actually, but I don't swear) Of The Year, an award given by the debunking YouTube community, organised by Reds Rhetoric. Most nominees, including Riley, are flat earthers. I voted for another flat earther called Nathan Thompson, who came in fourth (I think, I was having a drink and laughing my head off listening). Anyway, the link to the vid is here. NSFW due to potty mouths.

 
For those not following (which I imagine is everyone here), after coming in second two years in a row, Anthony Riley, aka Sleeping Warrior, has won DFOTY 2019.
Is that an image of him subsisting on a diet of faceplant?
 
He's gone from "nearly killing himself" to "killing himself".
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/22/us/science-channel-mike-hughes-dead/index.html

This LA Times item gives more details on this still-unfolding story ...
Daredevil “Mad Mike” Hughes killed in rocket crash outside Barstow

Mike Hughes, the self-made engineer who billed himself as the “world’s greatest daredevil,” was killed Saturday outside Barstow during a launch of a homemade rocket gone wrong, his publicist confirmed.

Hughes, who went by the nickname “Mad Mike,” was captured on video as he rode a rocket into the sky, failed to activate a parachute and then plummeted to his death, said Darren Shuster, his public relations representative.

The daredevil had been hoping to use Saturday’s launch to reach a height of 5,000 feet, according to a post on Space.com. Instead, dozens of people watched in horror as he fell to earth, said Justin Chapman, a freelancer writer who told The Times that he attended the launch.

“Eveyone was stunned. They didn’t know what to do,” said Chapman, who had been working on a profile of Hughes. “He landed about a half a mile away from the launch pad.” ...

AAn official with the San Bernardino County coroner’s office said she expected there would be a “lengthy” investigation into the incident. “We have no facts at this point,” she said.

Saturday’s launch was supposed to be featured in “Homemade Astronauts,” a series on the Science Channel, according to Discovery.com. The series followed people looking to “explore the final frontier on limited budgets,” the company said.

Chapman said he believes the daredevil had been knocked unconscious during the launch, which took place in the desert south of Barstow, off of Highway 247. “The parachute ripped off at launch,” he said. “So the rocket went straight up in an arch and came straight down.”

None of Hughes’ backup parachutes activated, either, Chapman said. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-22/daredevil-mad-mike-hughes-killed-in-stunt
 
Just for the record ... Here's what Darren Shuster (Hughes' PR representative) had to say about the connection to the flat earth movement.

...Hughes told the Associated Press that he believed Earth is flat, or, in his words, “shaped like a Frisbee” — and that he wanted to fly into space to make sure.

Shuster, who did not attend Saturday’s launch, said the flat Earth argument helped drum up publicity and sponsors for Hughes, who made his rockets at his home in Apple Valley.

“I don’t think he believed it,” Shuster said. “He did have some governmental conspiracy theories. But don’t confuse it with that flat Earth thing. That was a PR stunt we dreamed up.” ...

SOURCE: (Same As Cited Above)
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-22/daredevil-mad-mike-hughes-killed-in-stunt
 
Hope he had a good look before he went down.

The fatal flight was a test launch that was only planned to get him up to around 5,000 feet - nowhere near high enough to have a chance of seeing the horizon's curvature.
 
So the flat Earth theory claims a life, doesn't seem so funny now. At least the video of his death will get millions of views. It's what he would have wanted.
 
Is this the first time - at least the first time since all those sailors of yore went off the edge? :thought:

There was a cartoon in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction of a memorial stone to "All Those Sailors who sailed off the edge of the world before it was discovered that it was a globe".
Can't find it.
 
I must admit it's not the sort of thing I would normally watch. I assumed, (wrongly I now realise) from the twitter tag, that it was simply a 'text post' as it were. (I don't 'do' twitter).

Really wish I hadn't now, anyway.
 
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