As we’ve outlined on the page, The Resurgence of People Who Believe in Flat Earth, more and more people are beginning to believe in this long scientifically-disproven theory because a small group of persuasive people have been prolifically posting YouTube videos that often sound reasonable to people unable or unwilling to fact check these videos filled with unscientific half-truths and hypnotic suggestions.
We hope that you will upvote this article so that scientific debunkings of flat earth, particularly ones showing flat earth is completely impossible, will gain more traction and overwhelm the vast amount of flat earth nonsense being promoted out there to gullible people.
The Flat Earth Lies Told About These Beautiful Phenomenon
In our last article, we debunked the flat earth conception that these sunbeams somehow prove the sun is closer and smaller than we have been taught simply because they often appear as though the sun is directly overhead.
Solar hot spots, or sunbeams, are a related phenomenon that occur when those sunbeams come down directly from the clouds, often making a big round spot most easily seen on the water, but sometimes illuminating small areas of land, such as a single building or a park. These sometimes appear almost magical when a sunbeam lands on a church or a field of flowers, while everything else around it is a drab grey from the cloud cover that almost always accompanies the sunbeams.
In this article, we’ll discuss how crepuscular rays and solar hot spots being present in certain parts of the world would actually be impossible on a flat earth. This became apparent to me on a recent cruise through the Scottish lochs where the grey misty skies created a multitude of solar hot spots and crepuscular rays for us nearly every day.
The Flat Earth Belief About the Sun
In order to explain various factual phenomenon on earth, flat earthers often create incredible ad hoc arguments that do not and cannot fully explain the multitude of phenomenon we see every day. So, in order to explain day and night, seasons, time zones, and various other natural phenomenon they simply cannot deny, they have created an explanation saying that the sun is actually closer to the earth, between 300-500 miles away, and smaller than we have been taught, about 30 miles across.
To explain the seasons, they claim the sun rotates in a circular pattern around an interior circumference of the disk, moving (somehow) from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn. See the image below to see how this purportedly works. However, solar hot spots and crepuscular rays occurring in certain parts of the world disprove this theory entirely, and prove that the sun is much larger and further away than flat earthers claim.
How My Trip to Scotland Disproves Flat Earth
I recently took a lovely cruise on the ship The Blackwatch around the astounding northernmost parts of Scotland, including the Orkney Islands, the Isle of Skye (like in the image below of Portree on the Isle of Skye), and Fort William. Because Scotland is so rainy and cloudy much of the time, there was an excellent array of crepuscular rays and solar hot spots nearly every day that I was fortunate enough to be able to catch with my smartphone, as you'll see in a moment.
According to the flat earth idea, the approximately 30 mile wide sun rotates on a dome approximately 3000-5000 miles above the earth, somewhere on or between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, depending upon the time of year. Because of this, the close and small sun can never be directly overhead north of the Tropic of Cancer. In fact, Fort William, which we were north of when these images were taken, is 2300 miles away from the Tropic of Cancer.
The first image from my Scottish trip is that of a sunspot next to a well-known Scottish Landmark called Castle Duart at 56.4562° N, 5.6552° W.
And here's a closer image of Castle Duart.. as close as I could get using my smartphone on a ship across a channel from the castle.
and here is the Wikipedia entry for Castle Duart for more positive identification of the Castle.
Then, I've included another video of a sunspot in the city of Portree on the Isle of Skye in Scotland at 57.4125° N, 6.1960° W. What a beautiful trip. Crepuscular rays and sunbeams all over over the place in the cloudy weather. There were more of these sunbeams, but these were the only ones that were caught next to provable landmarks in Scotland so that the flat earthers cannot claim I'm simply lying and deny that these easily provable phenomenon exist in Scotland.
Sorry that the video is all over the place, it was hard to see where the sun was exactly on my smartphone, so I just pointed the viewfinder in the general direction of the sun to show you that it APPEARS to be in the clouds directly overhead, and that there was also a sunbeam on the water. The Isle of Skye was beautiful.
Science of Sunbeams and Crepuscular Rays
As we explain on the page entitled Crepuscular Rays Do Not Indicate the Earth is Flat, a solar hot spot in Scotland would be impossible, according to flat earther's own theories, since they claim the sun is directly over the location of the sunbeam in order to cast a beam of light at the 90 degree angle it appears to be casting on the earth.
That is why flat earthers argue we should triangulate crepuscular rays to find the source that is at the 90 degree angle to the earth. Solar hot spots are even easier, as it's easy for them to believe that they are coming down at a 90 degree angle to the earth without any triangulation needed.
This Means the Sun is at Least 2300 Miles Wide
What flat earthers didn't bargain for with their argument about crepuscular rays showing a close and small sun is that their own argument disproves that the earth is flat! So, lets put this all together.
Flat earth theory states that during a North American summer (the time of year is irrelevant because if it were winter, the sun is even further away from Scotland), sunbeams are hitting the earth at a 90 degree angle on the Tropic of Cancer because the sun is directly overhead.
They claim that sunbeams must ALSO be hitting the earth at a 90 degree angle 2300 miles away at the same time
Therefore, according to their OWN THEORY, the sun must be at least 2300 miles across to have the sun be directly overhead in both northern Scotland and the Tropic of Cancer at the same time.
What a 2300 Mile Wide Sun Would Look Like on Flat Earth
A 2300 mile wide sun would be simply impossible on a flat earth with the reality that we see every day. Since flat earthers say that the sun is no more than 5000 miles away from us, we'd have to imagine that the sun would be half the size ACROSS as it would be away from you in the sky. A 2300 mile wide sun would be approximately the width of the entire United States. It would look absolutely enormous, dominating the sky at all times, and likely lighting up the entire earth at the same time.
If it were not lighting up the sky at all times, it would easily be seen a night. From the ground, we can see the lights from satellites with the naked eye that orbit the earth at approximately 20 miles away from us. And even the Largest Commercial Satellite is Only 106 Feet. If we can see the light from a 100 foot long satellite at 20 miles away, the light from even their stated 30 mile across sun should be able to be seen as a giant star even at night. But a 2300 MILE across sun would never stop being seen even if were not illuminating us all the time by some feat of magic (their 30 mile across sun that is only 2000-5000 miles above the earth should always be seen at night as well, but that is another argument).
There is also plenty of evidence that sunbeams hit the South American continent even in a North American summer as well, which would extend the size of the sun many more thousands of miles, making the flat earth sun more and more ridiculously large. But even with just this simple phenomenon, easily provable by anyone, it's easy to prove that a flat earth is simply impossible, even with their own arguments.
Along with dozens of other verifiable phenomenon that would be impossible on a flat earth, that will be added to this series later, it's utterly irrational to believe in this failed model of earth. It's baffling as to why this impossible belief has somehow began to become popular when some simple fact checking and observations can easily disprove this ridiculous belief system.
Please upvote and resteem to help those of us bringing science and reason to the flat earth debate gain some traction to overcome the overwhelming amount of nonsense flat earthers are posting all over the internet to lure in gullible people.