Scientifically speaking, however, these theories are easily disproved, to the point that they’re more or less ludicrous. Still, particularly in America, the number of people who subscribe to these theories appears to be growing.
That doesn’t mean they’re being taken more seriously in the mainstream though. NBA star Kyrie Irving, who talked about this sort of theory for quite some time, has since more or less admitted that he was trolling the media. A British man determined to profit off of ‘proof’ of the Flat-Earth theory can’t find anyone to take his bet. And renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has specifically spoken out against the theory in various ways, attempting to put the science in the clearest possible terms for believers to understand. Despite all of this though, there appear to remain a lot of those believers. Our assertion – just for fun – is that extreme sports can in some cases disprove Flat-Earth theories in the clearest and most interesting ways.
The clearest instance of anything in extreme sports overlapping with Flat-Earth theories is actually an experiment conducted by a man hoping to prove the conspiracy true by himself. ‘Mad’ Mike Hughes famously built himself a rocket so as to be able to fly over the Earth and see for himself that it is in fact flat. However, he only reached an altitude of roughly 1,875 feet, and failed to get the proof he sought. It’s a ridiculous story – one that seems bound for a Hollywood spoofing – and probably a good reason that the aforementioned British man can’t get an official bet on the Earth’s flatness; the logical follow-up would be how he intends to prove it.
While not technically an extreme sport, building and successfully launching your own rocket is pretty extreme, even if it didn’t fly too high in terms of astrological research. We’ll give Mad Mike a little bit of credit for the attempt. On a saner and more ordinary level, however, there is some truth to the idea that the very act of participating in extreme sports can theoretically disprove Flat-Earth theories. Why? Well, because of gravity.
As has been explained by scientists, gravity is perhaps the most basic scientific sport that indicates Flat-Earthers are misguided. On a theoretical Flat Earth, gravity in the middle would operate much the way it does on… well… actual Earth. But moving out from the center, gravity would begin to pull people outward as well as downward. But if this were the case, action sports athletes all over the world would likely be getting sucked out into space simply by virtue of where they go.
We don’t know, in a hypothetical Flat Earth, where the center would be. But that’s why action sports are the best place to look to disprove the theory on the grounds of gravitational pull. Regardless of where the center is, extreme sports athletes are testing the dimensions of our world far from it. If the center were in Egypt, kitesurfers in Mauii would be floating off the edge through the sheer force of gravity; if the center were in Peru, snowboarders conquering the French Alps would be zipping off past the North Pole. If it were in Washington, D.C., spelunkers in the Philippines would be goners, and if it were in Tokyo people surfing the dunes in the UAE would be caught in the space chute. You get the idea.
Basically, extreme sport athletes test the world’s boundaries more than most anyone else, and reach the places from which one couldn’t come back in Flat Earth gravity. It might not convince all the conspiracy theorists, but if nothing else it actually makes the adventurousness of athletes in our culture feel all the more impressive.
