Wilbur Glenn Voliva was an early 20th century flat-earth advocate. Consider several of his arguments:
Ships don’t disappear in the distance at all. You can see a ship twenty-five miles out at sea if you look through field glasses. According to scientists, the curvature of the earth for those twenty-five miles, allowing for refraction, should be three hundred and fifty-eight feet. If the earth is round, how can you see your ship over a hump of water three hundred and fifty-eight feet high? . . . As for that round shadow on the moon, the flat earth would still cast a round shadow. A saucer is round, isn’t it? . . . Of course, Magellan sailed round the world and came back to where he started. He went round the flat earth exactly as a needle goes around a gramophone record. Millions of men have sailed round the world from east to west, and west to east. It can be done on a saucer, too. But do you know of anyone who has ever sailed round the world from north to south? Of course not. Those who tried fell off. That’s why so many explorers have disappeared.
(Quoted from page 212 of Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea, by Christine Garwood. Thomas Dunne Books, 2007.)
For a brief biography of Wilbur Glenn Voliva, click here. For an interview and biographical information of Christine Garwood, click here.
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