Top Twelve Flat Earth Claims to Hold Faulkner's Feet to the Fire

Keeping "Falling Flat" accountable to its book cover claims

This post is number two in a series reviewing Danny Faulkner’s Falling Flat: A Refutation of Flat Earth Claims.

The first installment looked at the cover. Faulkner made some audacious claims that science and church history disproves flat earth fallacies over and over again.

We also saw that the subtitle promised to refute Flat Earth claims, insinuating that they fall flat.

You can read that inaugural post here.

"Falling Flat" by Danny Faulkner: A Cover-to-Cover Review

I have yet to crack open Falling Flat, thinking it wise to share some of the best Flat Earth claims to see if Faulkner cherry-picks which FE claims to refute. Since Faulkner is a professing Christian, we would expect him to refute the strongest arguments in the Flat Earth camp. Yet, in the first installment, Faulkner begins on the wrong foot, using a straw man image of the Flat Earth. Why would he do that? Check the footnotes for my speculations. ¹

Thanks to one of my favorite podcasts, The Flat Earth Files, I’ve heard hundreds of flat earthers share their six best arguments (silver bullets) for Flat Earth.

I was a guest on Episode 49, which you can listen to here:

Flat Earth Files Episode 49 w/ George Hobbs

Ironically, I never shared my six silver bullets. However, I did share my #1 proof or claim for why I believe the earth is flat. I will rely on the best arguments for Flat Earth, including mine, to see if or how Faulkner answers or refutes them in his book.

12 Silver Bullets for Flat Earth

If Faulkner were interested in refuting the claims of flat earthers, these 12 silver bullets are necessary to answer. In future posts, I will evaluate if Falling Flat delivers on the cover’s promise by answering any of these claims. I’ll start with my #1 claim (and it is all we need to prove the earth is flat).

1. We Can See Too Far

Faulkner must address this topic in Falling Flat because it is pertinent to the Bedford Level Wager, which he addresses in Chapter Two. I accidentally discovered that when reviewing the cover and researching the publisher. You can read about that in my previous Cover to Cover Review.

If Faulkner discusses the Bedford Level without addressing globe math and distances, that’s a real problem for him. But here’s the irony. I never remember any flat earther claim that the Bedford Level led them to Flat Earth. Maybe it has. IDK.

Because modern science provides the alleged size of the globe, we have a simple formula to determine curvature, which anyone can test. I’ve met with a globe-believing engineer (and, ironically, a pastor) who validated that the following formulas are correct based on the current understanding of the globe. Please test them yourself. When dealing with pseudoscience, it takes a hard investigation to separate fact from fiction. 

Most people in the FE Camp use the formula 8 inches per mile squared to determine the earth’s curvature. It turns out this formula is for a parabola, not a sphere. Yet, it is also accurate up to 1,000 miles.²

Here’s how the formula works out. ³

At ten miles, the earth should drop 66.69 feet. At 100 miles, the earth should curve 1.26 miles. Over a distance of 1000 miles, the earth should drop 126 miles, rounding up. This drop would cause objects in the distance to be hidden beyond the curve.

For math geeks, science lovers, and engineers: Here is the official formula, which works for any distance. 

Yet, when truth seekers test these numbers with zoom lenses, infrared filters, and telescopes, they can see way too far. Those things which should be hidden, zoom right back into view.

I claim this happens repeatedly, admitting that conditions must be proper. Too much “atmos” can interfere. For example, on a foggy day, you may not be able to see across the street. Additionally, a close-up object can act as a barrier and impede how far you can see distant objects due to perspective. 

These distance “anomalies” are testable and repeatable. You can find one such test here: 

How to Prove We Live on a Flat Earth

I’m not trying to prove anything here per se (and I need to remind myself of that). Instead, I want to see if Faulkner addresses these critical and most important topics, which brings us to the next silver bullet.

2. There Is No Curvature

Not only do we claim there is no curvature, but we cannot see any curvature anywhere except alleged space videos, airline windows, Go Pro cameras, and wide-angle lenses.

Some have testified that they have seen curvature when flying in airplanes or jets. Yet, could there be another explanation for what they think they saw? Others, even pilots, claim that the earth is flat, with no curvature.

The average commercial airplane cruises at an altitude of 35,000 feet (approximately 6.6 miles); some planes can reach a maximum safe altitude of up to 43,100 feet (8.2 miles), depending on the aircraft type and conditions; this maximum altitude is often called the “service ceiling.”⁴

Globe prophet Neil DeGrasse Tyson admits that no one can see earth’s curvature from even 24 miles above. Watch him refute Felix Baumgartner’s Red Bull jump curvature footage in this short clip. 

The August 1935 edition of Popular Science Monthly reported that Auguste Piccard (physicist, inventor, and explorer) traveled 10 miles above the earth’s surface. Mind you, this was well before NASA. Piccard reported the earth "seemed a flat disk with upturned edge. At the ten-mile level the sky appeared a deep, dark blue.”

Globers want us to believe the earth curves beyond the horizon, yet we cannot see the curvature from side to side, nor from 24 miles above the earth. Trust the astronauts, they say. 

A reminder for those new to this topic: NASA was founded and upheld by Satan worshippers, Freemasons, movie makers, and occultists. Research that.

Moving on!

3. Water Always Seeks Its Level

We now claim an interesting principle of water physics: Water always finds its level.

“Water is poured into the vessel and regardless of the shape or volume, the water level is the same in each container, illustrating that liquid pressure is dependent upon vertical height only.” ⁵

Yet, we are asked to believe that earth is 70% water, and that water sticks to a ball, curving at 8” per mile squared every 1000 miles. Try to test that.

Which is correct: Globe science? Or water physics?

I do hope Faulkner addresses this Flat Earth claim.

Related to this claim is the claim that water needs a container. The Bible speaks of that. See Proverbs 8:29; Job 38:10.

Another consideration is that reflections in water are always identical and without distortion unless there are waves. How could this happen if water curves 8" per every mile squared? It couldn't. See also #10 about elevations. 

4. The Earth Is Not Moving

Since I have written on this previously, I will direct you to that article.

This is another great claim for Faulkner to address. No doubt, he would talk about Foucault’s pendulum — but that cannot hold up to true scientific investigation.

5. There Is a Solid Firmament

While globe theologians wax and wane over the biblical definition of the firmament, the Bible irrefutably speaks of a solid surface. Still, men want to find another explanation. 

Yet, of all the verses in the Bible, Job 37:18 leaves men without excuse. “With Him, have you spread out the skies, Strong as a cast metal mirror?” Sadly, they so strongly want to hold on to their globe and infinite space that they will distort the clear teaching of Scripture. Yet, God will hold them accountable. May He show grace and mercy. Preferably opening their eyes to the beauty of His true creation. 

Besides the biblical evidence for a solid firmament, scientific evidence supports the truth. I will list some items for you to investigate on your own. 

1. The sky is blue

2. Rainbows are curved

3. Radio waves bounce off something (solid)

4. Thunder needs a container

5. Gas pressure needs a container

6. God loves us and wants to protect us

7. Water reflects the sky

6. The Bible Is A Flat Earth Book

I know of many FE Believers who attest that the Bible opened their eyes to the Flat Earth. Kudos to them for their faith. It was not so with me. I, like most globers, could easily explain away Scriptures as figurative, metaphorical, or phenomenological. When I say easy, I don’t mean that the text supported my interpretation. Instead, modern science blinded me to what the Bible was saying. This disclarity is similar to someone who was taught evolution and the Big Bang theory their entire life. It is hard to let go. It’s easier to make the Bible agree with what we already believe. That’s what I did. I was taught the water canopy theory. Nay, I also TAUGHT the water canopy theory. May God forgive me for my ignorance. 

As I dug into Flat Earth theory, I could not deny that I had been lied to about the globe. Suddenly, the Bible opened up to me in new ways. For this reason, I am more patient than some when dealing with biblical evidence for a Flat Earth. Letting go of years of indoctrination about the cosmos and accepting the Bible for what it says is difficult.

Yet, the Bible is a Flat Earth book. 

Some Flat Earth believers attempt to prove the Bible says the earth is flat. There is strong evidence for that. I’m not going to get into that now. Yet, we cannot deny that the Bible makes claims opposite to the globe model. 

Namely, the Bible claims:

1. A solid firmament

2. The moon has its own light

3. A stable, unmovable earth

4. The lights in the sky moving (or standing still at God’s command)

5. God sitting above the earth

6. The earth is a circle, not a sphere, founded upon waters

7. Earth has ends, foundations, and pillars

These are just a few concepts and claims of Biblical Cosmology that I hope Danny Faulkner addresses.

7. Ancient Hebrews Held to A Flat Earth with a Solid Firmament

I wrote about this extensively, providing resources for further study in this article:

If you click on the article, scroll down to the discussion about Danny Faulkner to find the relevant content.

8. The Horizon Always Rises to Eye Level

Many FE Believers use this as one of their primary silver bullets. The idea never resonated with me until my dear friend John Bucko spoke of it often. He likes to “flat smack” people — and this is one of his favorite proofs. 

It took me a while to understand why this detail was so significant. After a discussion with ChapGPT, I discovered that the horizon would constantly fall out of view on a globe model. 

When asked why that is not what we observe, rather than saying, “Because we live on a flat earth” — AI appealed to the largeness of the globe. Even AI suffers cognitive dissonance. I don’t blame ChapGPT but rather its creators. 

If we live on a globe, the horizon would drop as we rise in altitude. It does not. On a Flat Plane, the horizon would rise to eye level. That’s what we witness. I hope Faulkner addresses this critical Flat Earth claim. 

Here’s a video of someone who modeled this:

The model uses an infinite flat plane, a claim I am not making. The Bible says the earth has ends. However, the video demonstrates the point well enough. We can also observe this phenomenon as we rise in elevation, especially during plane flights. It makes me curious what a pilot would see if they flew near the edge of the firmament. 

9. The Moon Has Cold Light and Angle’s Don’t Match

While I’m unsure if Faulkner addresses cold moonlight in his book, he has written an article about it: Testing Flat-Earth Predictions: Is the Moon’s Light Cooling?

I’ll draw out three concerns in Faulkner’s article.

First, Faulkner draws upon the error of Dr. Rowbotham when he gave the wrong date for a Lancet article, which you can’t discover unless you access and look at the references at the bottom of his article. Faulkner disguises the simple error by making it seem that the source was entirely wrong. Why try to obfuscate the truth?

Here is Robowtham’s claim from Zetetic Astronomy:

In the “Lancet” (Medical Journal), for March 14th , 1856, particulars are given of several experiments which proved that the moon’s rays when concentrated, actually reduced the temperature upon a thermometer more than eight degrees.

Faulkner writes of this error:

However, there was no March 14, 1856 issue of The Lancet. The Lancet is a weekly publication and the closest issue to this date was the one on March 15, 1856. The table of contents of that issue does not remotely suggest a paper of that type in it. However, I am indebted to a reviewer who found and provided me with what likely is the article that Rowbotham intended. Winslow (1856) wrote on the possibility of lunar effects on disease in which he discussed reports of the influence of lunar light.

Yet, Faulkner never identifies where this article originated until the references at the end. He provides no footnote to follow but leaves it up to the reader to figure it out. Here’s the footnote.

Winslow, Forbes. 1856. “On Lucid Intervals. II.—On Lunar Influence in the Production of Bodily Disease.” Contributions to the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity. The Lancet 67, no. 1697 (March 8): 254–257.

Why not just let us know in the body of the work that Rowbotham made a typo or an error with the date? March 8, 1856, not March 14, 1856.

Second, Faulkner concludes that Rowbotham contradicts himself when he says moonlight is cold (or has a cooling effect), taking Rowbotham out of context. Earlier, Rowbotham provided published evidence supporting the notion that the moon has no heat. Later, he offered quotations supporting the moon’s cold light. 

Faulkner is obfuscating this truth. Why not give Rowbotham the benefit of the doubt and present the facts in context? 

Third, Faulkner makes things interesting by making a positive claim that the moon’s light has a warming effect — and he says much more. Please entertain a large quote that might make your blood boil — emphasis mine. I will refrain from commenting on each point.

Due to a misunderstanding of Genesis 1:14–19, flat earthers believe that the moon doesn’t reflect the sun’s light, but rather that the moon has its own source of light. To maintain this belief may be the motivation of many flat earthers who claim that the moon’s light has the strange property of cooling objects exposed to it. But this contradicts everything we know about heat and light. Light contains energy that objects can absorb. Therefore, any moonlight that falls on an object will heat that object, though the amount of heat is so small that it may not be easy to detect a temperature increase as a result. Furthermore, heat can radiate from an object, but nothing sucks heat from objects as this mythical belief of flat earthers would require. Nevertheless, flat earthers are unperturbed by this, for there are many videos on the internet that promote this idea that moonlight is cooler than shade. Most of these videos feature people using infrared (IR) thermometers to measure the temperature of objects in moonlight and in shadow. They seem always to find that objects in moonlight are cooler than objects in shadow, thus supporting their claims.

But of course, the Flat Earth community is doing the cold moonlight tests all wrong. And Faulkner provides the proper method so you won’t get cold results under moonlight. And if you want your head to spin, go ahead and read his article and see if his test makes sense to you.

Then watch Anthony Bear do it his way. Which seems more logical to you?

Side Note: Faulkner argues against using an IR thermometer:

This is evidenced in many videos on the internet, where flat earthers refer to IR thermometers as “laser thermometers.” This confusion arises from the fact that most IR thermometers have a small red laser to indicate where the IR detector is pointing. Of course, the IR detector doesn’t pick up the spot of the laser, so the laser spot has nothing to do with the temperature measurement.

Beautifully, Anthony Bear’s laser dot becomes a moot point. The thermometer is behind the moon shade for half the experiment.

Admittedly, cold moonlight is one area that I have NOT tested myself. I’m most assuredly open to correction. For now, I have taken it in good faith from multiple witnesses. 

If you’d like to help me get some gear to test the cold moonlight myself, please consider giving a one-time gift of any size. I promise to share my results no matter the outcome. 

As far as angles, look up in the sky when the moon is in a phase. Does it appear that the angle of the sun could cause that reflection?

Here’s an image to consider.

I took this image and added a “fake” sun and moon to account for what I was observing. Again, this is for you to investigate yourself, each month. The angles do not match. I took this shot in Kernville, California, when the sun was setting. According to the light on the moon — the sun would have to be above it. Yet, I observed the sun way below, opposite the moon, not above.

Thankfully, God has given us a witness in the sky month after month — if only we will look.

I’m not asking you to trust me. Instead, I’m suggesting that you start observing the sky for yourself.

10. Elevations Make No Sense on a Globe

Here is a video that explains why elevations have no meaning on a curved surface.

I want to hear how Faulkner address that claim.

11. Gas Pressure Needs a Container

Simple law of physics.

We breathe pressurized air — 14.7 psi — at sea LEVEL. For this to be possible, there must be a container. The second law of thermodynamics (entropy) demands it.

I’d love to hear how Faulkner tries to explain this one away. They always find an answer. Sadly, the responses require cognitive dissonance because they defy logic, a perfect lead into claim 12.

May God open eyes to the straightforward, pure truth of His creation. 

12. Globary Is Built on Pseudoscience

To maintain the globe theory, globers must rely on and build upon pseudoscience, something the Bible warns against (1 Timothy 6:20; Colossians 2:8). 

One stellar example is the motion of the earth. The Bible teaches the earth is stationary, we experience that it FEELS stationary, and Einstein admits that there is no way to prove the earth is not stationary — yet, he KNOWS it moves. 

Learn more about Einstein’s statement of faith here:

Albert Einstein's Two Statements of Faith

Learn more about the stationary earth here:

Can You Prove the Earth Is Rotating Using Just the Bible?

I would be delighted if Danny Faulkner deals with the FE claim that the globe model is built upon pseudoscience.

Things might get difficult for Faulkner if he gets too close to the truth because his readers might start to see through his rhetoric. Yet, I could be completely wrong about Faulkner. Perhaps he does desire the truth. If so, he should honestly address these twelve FE claims.

Will he?

My last article said I would dive into the front matter of Falling Flat. That didn’t happen. So, I promise I will not write another post about Faulkner’s Falling Flat until I open it up and see what the book contains.

I hope to see Faulkner honestly deal with FE claims. Yet, I don’t have the faith that he will. Hope will have to suffice for now.

Until the next post, please keep praying that God will open the door for me to tell the truth in love and call Faulkner and friends to repentance — or for God to correct me if that’s what is needed.

May it be so.

Part Three: Does Danny Faulkner Rewrite Flat Earth History from Page One?

1. I suspect that Faulkner doesn’t expect Christians to dig any deeper into the matter after seeing such a foolish image of earth flying through space. People trust Faulkner because they trust Answers in Genesis, so when they see the foolishness, they investigate no longer or merely accept Faulkner’s teaching. But the truth will find Faulkner out. My desire is to see Faulkner repent of his misleading Christians and step down from his position. If this doesn’t happen, I hope to see him publicly exposed. Either way, godly men need to reach out to Faulkner and hold him accountable.

2.

3. https://earthcurvature.com

4. https://aviex.goflexair.com/flight-school-training-faq/commercial-plane-altitudes#

5. https://www.physics.purdue.edu/demos/display_page.php?item=2B-03