'Flat Earth' Billboard Turning Heads On The Schuylkill
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A billboard on the Schuylkill Expressway eastbound is turning drivers' heads. Sandwiched between two insurance ads, the billboard reads "Research Flat Earth."
"We believe this is something that needs to be talked about," Math Powerland, who purchased the billboard, said.
Powerland lives in New Mexico and is one of the founders of the Flat Plane Society, a group which believes the earth is flat. Powerland says NASA pictures and videos of the curved earth are faked.
"We believe it's all faked. All of it is in front of CGI, augmented reality, the space walks are most part done in desalinated water tanks," Powerland said.
"What many of us have come to believe is that what we're shown as a globe is not a map of reality but it just shows a region of what we're allowed to inhabit on what all intents and purposes may be a flat plane that extends far beyond what is Antarctica," he continued.
The Franklin Institute's Chief Astronomer Derrick Pitts says it's fine to have different theories and opinions, but some research, like that proving the earth is round has been studied for centuries.
"If you go back as far as 330BC the Greek mathematicians found out the earth was round simply by looking at the angle of shadows and placement on different places on the surface of the planet. That was in 330BC and it wasn't the Greeks who said this, it was the mathematics that told them it was the case," explained Pitts.
Pitts says there is easy visual proof the earth is round, and it doesn't require mathematics.
"The other way we know the earth is round is we've been able to observe lunar eclipses from earth," he said.
"The only way you can make a curved shadow is if you have a curved object that blocks the light," he continued.
Powerland plans to run the billboard for the next week at a cost of $900. He says he chose Philadelphia for the first billboard because of the cost, and hopes to place other billboards in cities like Phoenix and Denver.
