The Flat Earth Society is Controlled Opposition

The Flat Earth Society is a controlled opposition group that mixes truth with lies and satire to discredit genuine flat Earth research, a job they have been doing for a long time now.  Founded in 1970 by Leo Ferrari, a suspected Freemason and philosophy professor at St. Thomas’ University, Leo spent his life making a mockery of the legitimate subject of our flat Earth.  Though he passed away in 2010, his Flat Earth Society still exists today online as a website/forum which, still true to form, purports several false flat-Earth arguments and treats the entire subject as a dead-pan joke.

In 1956 a genuine truth-seeker and flat-Earth researcher, Samuel Shenton, had started the IFERS (International Flat Earth Research Society) and was making quite an impact with his publications and interviews, revealing the truth of our flat Earth to the masses.  The globalists attempted to ignore the threat posed by Shenton for over a decade before finally creating their competing, farcical controlled opposition FES (Flat Earth Society) which has spent the past 45 years steering all flat-Earth inquiry into the realms of satire and sarcasm. 

To give an idea of how the controlled opposition works, consider the example of Leo Ferrari’s pumpkin-sized rock he would always take during interviews and lectures claiming he brought the stone back from the edge of our flat Earth!  He would say, with a huge smirk on his face, how his boat had fallen over the edge but he was luckily saved by hanging onto this rock.  Clearly, treating our flat Earth in this tongue-in-cheek way discouraged people from taking the matter seriously.

Ferrari’s entire schtick involved approaching the flat Earth subject from every angle EXCEPT the rational and scientific.  For example, he published a series of articles including “The Global Fallacy as a Cause of Racial Prejudice,” arguing that people in countries at the top of the globe felt superior to those at the bottom, when in fact there was no top or bottom to the world, so, “even if one assumed that the world was spherical, the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ have been arbitrarily selected, resulting in racial discrimination against those in the south.  How can the globularists, their hirelings and dupes, seriously claim to believe that all men are created equal when they teach that some men are eternally fated to hang like bats from the bottom of a globe on which other men stand upright?  The only solution is a flat Earth!”  So instead of presenting measurements or experiments, instead of presenting any proofs or evidence, Ferrari would often simply argue the flat Earth as a serendipitous satirical solution to social problems.

In a famous 1971 CBC interview Ferrari was asked, “how do you explain the fact that the Earth appears round in the pictures taken from space by the astronauts?”  Instead of answering and addressing the clear photo-trickery involved, Ferrari replied, “Simple.  No doubt you’re familiar with Einstein’s theory of the curvature of space.  If space is curved – and modern physics is based on that assumption – the Earth, from space, would appear circular.  It’s a simple optical illusion.”  This convoluted, pandering answer really is no answer at all and serves only to make the listener cock their head and raise an eyebrow.   

Around this time, Charles K. Johnson, another genuine flat-Earther, took over the IFERS from the recently deceased Shenton.  He and his wife Marjory, along with being flat-Earthers, were also vegetarians and anti-vivisectionist activists who campaigned for better treatment of our animal friends.  In 1974, when Johnson heard of Ferrari’s budding organization, he decided to contact him and wrote a cordial letter requesting further information about his society, to which Ferrari never replied.  Two years later Johnson wrote another polite letter saying, how he was “delighted by the prospect of a like-minded campaigner,” and said how it was “a very happy day” when he learned of Ferrari’s society.  “I feel sure at the core we can’t be too far apart in aims,” Johnson wrote, “I do try to practice what I preach, to think and seek and search out reasonable ideas and concepts.”  He closed saying that “he could hardly wait” to hear from Ferrari and hoped very much he would please reply.  After six months without a response, Johnson wrote one more time, explaining again his sole purpose to “enlarge his view” and “getting and holding onto the facts,” which would benefit himself, and in time, the rest of the world.  He requested a reply and a copy of Ferrari’s FES magazine.  In conclusion Johnson signed “thanks from the bottom of my heart,” in advance, but warned that if Ferrari insisted on ignoring him once again, “I will then know for sure you are some kind of enemy of the Flat Earth work.”  Eventually Ferrari did reply this time, but not with a message or magazine as requested, he simply enclosed a FES paid-application form.  

Johnson investigated Ferrari’s organization further and found that he was using “the flat earth idea as a gimmick to entertain and promote the atheistic society.”  From then on, Johnson worked hard to expand his IFERS and constantly for the rest of his life exposed Ferrari’s FES, calling him a “false prophet guilty of muddying the waters of truth.”  Near the end of his life, tragically Johnson’s house burned down along with all the flat Earth materials he and Shenton had collected over their lifetimes.  Until his dying day, Johnson claimed the fire to be the result of arson by a NASA agent he had seen snooping around.

Nowadays the IFERS has disappeared and only Ferrari’s FES exists as a website and message board maintained by moderators who, following in the footsteps of Ferrari, make a mockery of the whole thing and turn every thread into a joke deterring any serious flat Earth researcher from pursuing further.  The only redeeming aspect of their website is the library of other people’s flat Earth material they maintain, which is actually quite good.  The current President, Daniel Shenton, (coincidentally NO relation to the genuine flat-Earther and IFERS founder Samuel Shenton) can be heard in the following clip, still “muddying the waters of truth,” with several false flat Earth arguments:

Notice he says he is “not sure about the Sun, Moon and planets, but that they’re probably spheres, but it’s definitely not proven, I think.”  He flip-flops his answers and expertly fumbles his words as if intentionally trying to sound scatter-brained.  Compare and contrast this shill with genuine flat Earth researchers like myself who will tell you unequivocally that the Sun, Moon, stars and “planets” are all merely luminaries, round discs of celestial light, NOT spherical terra firma capable of landing on as the Freemasons at NASA would have you believe.  He then goes on saying “the effects of gravity, I feel, could be simulated by the disc Earth moving upwards, accelerating upwards at 9.8 meters per second, would have the same effects of what people traditionally think of as gravity.”  This ridiculous false flat-Earth argument also appears on Wikipedia and the FES homepage.  It is provably wrong as the “upwards accelerating disc” would smash into all helicopters, planes and hot-air balloons making sustained flight of any kind impossible, but they purposely promote these strawman arguments so flat Earth neophytes will rightly laugh off their dumb explanations, and then following suit, write off the entire subject.

To combat Ferrari’s Flat Earth Society controlled opposition forum, and in memory of Samuel Shenton, Charles Johnson, and other true flat Earth researchers of the past I have now (re)started IFERS, The International Flat Earth Research Society forum!  Please join up and help make this a useful and informative board!  Also help join and share my new Eric Dubay’s Flat Earth Society group on Facebook which already has triple the FES following and growing fast!